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According to the CCN report: “Firstly the local government finance system is financially unsustainable following funding reductions and demand-led pressures.
“Only financial and administrative devolution, alongside specific funding reforms, will enable local authorities and partners to resolve key social and economic problems tailored to each area’s unique circumstances and needs.”
Would it be unduly cynical to suggest that it may just be significant that it is the chancellor who is driving so much of this?
With those devolved political and spending powers would come many of the less welcome headaches, the so-called “tough choices” to which central government ministers in Whitehall departments so often refer.
On this week’s Sunday Politics Midlands I’ll be joined by the man whose name comes up time and time again when this subject is aired, Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham. Does he think a city region with a metro mayor is the best way to fire-up that “Midlands economic engine’ George Osborne keeps telling us about?
Would he consider standing for it himself? Join as at 11.00 on BBC One and find out.
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