This working paper is part of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose’s (UCL IIPP) publication series.
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The Potential Role of Devolution to Combined Authorities in the Government’s Mission to ‘Kickstart Economic Growth’ | UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) Working Paper (WP 2025-11)
Authors:
- Michael Amery | Policy Fellow, UCL Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose & Strategic Lead for Policy and Devolution, West Midlands Combined Authority
Executive summary:
For the last 50 years, the received wisdom of successive UK governments has been that the best economic strategy is not to have one. Instead, the optimal economic role of the state is to provide the conditions needed for the ‘free market’ to make decisions about economic investment and distribution. The result of this approach has been the creation of an economic model focussed on professional services based in South East England and the gradual withering away of other industries across the country.
For a while, the gains realised in professional services hid the losses in other industries. However, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the long-term damage it did to the professional services sector, compounded by Brexit and the slowing of globalisation, have exposed the precariousness of the UK’s economy. The current Labour Government appears to have drawn similar conclusions about the challenges facing the UK’s economy with its adoption of a mission to ‘kickstart economic growth’, the introduction of an industrial strategy and arguments that the economy has to be ‘shaped, not merely served’ by the state (Labour, 2024a).
However, simply changing the language of the state’s role in driving economic growth is unlikely to be sufficient. Instead, the success of realising the mission to ‘kickstart economic growth’ will be dependent on developing new industries and economic opportunities in the UK that can raise prosperity across the whole country. This is a highly complex challenge with no easy or apparent answers. It will mean addressing significant challenges, such as the long-standing dearth of investment in the UK, the increased impoverishment of its population, and finding global economic niches despite strong and established international competition, all in the context of highly constrained public finances.
Missions theory’s answer to complexity is based on establishing long-term directions of economic growth to crowd in willing partners, experimentation to discover what might work, and then doubling down on what works. This paper combines missions theory with wider evolutionary economic thinking on managing complexity to argue that devolution in England could be a critical enabler for economic growth for two reasons. First, because it requires thinking actively about the specific role of the UK state in coordinating economic strategy over the long term and, second, because it provides a mechanism for the experimentation needed to discover potential avenues for new economic opportunities.
The paper argues that the Government could realise the opportunity devolution offers by creating a multi-level governance system designed to create conditions of ‘directed improvisation’. This system would aim to create through devolution:
- Local variations in economic approaches across England to discover potentially successful
innovations. - A mechanism for the selection of successful variations to be scaled across the country.
- Space for niches to emerge across England to make the most of different local strengths.
The paper concludes by making 16 recommendations to central government and Combined Authorities (CAs) for how a system of ‘directed improvisation’ could be introduced in England.
Reference:
Amery, M. (2025). The potential role of devolution to combined authorities in the government’s mission to ‘kickstart economic growth’. UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, Working Paper Series (IIPP WP 2025-11). ISSN 2635-0122.
Available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/publications/2025/jul/potential-role-devolution-combined-authorities
This working paper is part of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose’s (UCL IIPP) publication series.
Explore more working papers and policy reports here.