Guardian Editorial: Burnham's Devolution Plans Need Stronger Accountability Mechanisms
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/editorial. "The Guardian view on Burnham’s devolution plans: power must be accompanied by scrutiny | Editorial | The Guardian." September 6, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The Guardian argues that while giving England's local mayors more power and money (as Burnham wants) is a good idea in principle, it's dangerous unless paired with proper local oversight systems, because past experience shows what happens when local spending isn't properly checked—wasted money, secrecy, and scandals. The piece calls for stronger local scrutiny committees and better local journalism to keep these newly powerful mayors accountable.
Conclusion
As the government devolves greater power and money to England's mayors, it must simultaneously build robust, locally-rooted accountability mechanisms, or the expansion of mayoral power risks repeating past governance failures.
Premises
- Accountability mechanisms for local government have withered significantly, notably since the 2015 abolition of the Audit Commission, which deprived Whitehall of information about local government spending.
- The lack of scrutiny has already produced real harms, including council bankruptcies, risky investments, and scandals like the Teesworks development's 'culture of excessive confidentiality.'
- Existing accountability mechanisms (such as quarterly select committee oversight from Westminster) are top-down, flow upward to Parliament rather than to local communities, and 'infantilise' local scrutiny.
- Treasury-appointed 'accounting officers' overseeing local spending are based in Whitehall and lack knowledge of the local places affected by that spending.
- Burnham's plan to give mayors a share of local income tax revenue will require deeper accountability than currently exists, especially given that mayors like Houchen intend to use such powers for discretionary policies like tax rebates.
- The decline of local media compounds the accountability problem, since an estimated 4.4 million people in Britain live in areas without dedicated local news coverage to hold power accountable.
- Existing reforms (the Local Audit Office, new scrutiny committee powers) are steps in the right direction but likely insufficient without further measures like local public accounts committees and funding mechanisms for local journalism.
Assumptions
- Local accountability mechanisms are structurally different from and cannot be adequately substituted by centralized/Whitehall-based oversight.
- Greater devolved power without proportionally greater local scrutiny will lead to misuse of funds or poor governance outcomes.
- Local public accounts committees modeled on Westminster's would be effective if properly resourced, based on the success of the Westminster model.
- A free press is a necessary component of effective local governance oversight, not merely a supplementary one.
- The government is capable of and willing to implement additional accountability reforms alongside devolution.
- Devolving fiscal powers (like income tax shares) inherently carries more risk than devolving other administrative powers, thus requiring specifically calibrated accountability responses.