Devolution moves decisions closer to residents, but proximity does not create the skills to hear from them. Strategic authorities, the regional bodies in England receiving devolved powers over transport, skills and housing, need engagement capability built into their readiness for new responsibilities, not added once the powers arrive.
What is the difference between proximity and capability?
Proximity is how close decision makers sit to the people affected. Capability is the knowledge, skills, systems and working practices an organisation needs to use its resources well. Being near a community does not confer the ability to understand it, reach everyone affected, analyse what they say or show how it shaped the decision.
Two further ideas sit between them. Authority is the legal power an institution holds. Capacity is the staff, funding and time available. An authority can hold the powers, employ a communications team and fund a consultation, yet lack the expertise to find who is missing, design accessible activities or analyse qualitative responses.
Scale makes the distinction urgent. The English Devolution White Paper of December 2024, the government’s policy statement, made strategic authorities the main vehicle for devolved decisions, and the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 provides the legal framework. The powers each strategic authority holds vary with its status but the decisions they cover will still affect many different people.
Does the government’s readiness test measure the capability to engage?
No. The May 2026 guidance on Established Mayoral Strategic Authority designation, the status that carries the most extensive package of powers and funding, asks for evidence on financial and cost management, programme delivery, governance, resource management, risk management and outcomes achieved. None of the six is a test of public engagement.
That is not a criticism of guidance written for programme management. It is a reminder that delivering a programme well and understanding who it affects are separate abilities, and the first does not produce the second. An authority could pass all six tests and still consult the same familiar organisations every time.
Elections do not fill the gap. The English Devolution Accountability Framework itself says elections are not enough and points to scrutiny, transparency and public accountability. Consultation shapes a decision before it is made; scrutiny examines it afterwards. Neither replaces the other.
Earlier experience points the same way. A 2017 study of citizen participation in English devolution found that deeper engagement was possible but would have cost more. It concerns earlier processes, not the new authorities, yet it shows that new institutions do not guarantee meaningful involvement.
What engagement capabilities will strategic authorities need?
Six matter most. They are good practice, not statutory requirements. The first is understanding the population: who is affected, where inequalities lie and whose voices are absent, as the government’s Community Engagement Principles urge. A regional transport strategy touches commuters, disabled passengers, young people and rural residents very differently, and one online survey will not reach them all.
The second is specialist expertise: choosing methods, designing accessible materials, running deliberative workshops and knowing the difference between consultation, engagement and information provision. The third is working across boundaries. Constituent councils hold established relationships and experience, and coordination avoids duplication, but it must never become an assumption that someone else has already heard those affected.
The fourth is analysis. Response volume is not representativeness, and a few detailed accounts from service users can tell an authority more than thousands of survey replies. The fifth is learning: keeping records, evaluating methods and tracking who is consistently missing. The Institute for Government shows why evidence matters for strategic decisions.
The sixth is showing impact: what was heard, where views differed, what changed and why some suggestions were declined. The Local Government Association (LGA) guidance on effective decision-making advises explaining this even when the final decision departs from the responses received. Such records also let an authority answer challenge with evidence rather than recollection.
What happens when responsibility outpaces capability?
Authorities differ in maturity. The National Audit Office (NAO), the public spending watchdog, has raised questions about the future capacity and accountability of devolution in England as more authorities take on more powers. These are structural risks, not proven failings: too little time before decisions harden, thin specialist expertise, reliance on arrangements built for a single council and weak records of what participation changed.
The government already accepts that capability should come before responsibility. Its designation guidance, the tests an authority must pass to become an Established Mayoral Strategic Authority, requires capability to be shown before the fullest powers and funding are granted. Engagement belongs alongside those tests. Treating it as something to add later leaves residents to discover any gap only after decisions have been made.
Each of these risks can be tested before new powers arrive. Authorities can review whether they have the engagement skills, staff and systems the new responsibilities will demand. They can also agree in advance which body leads engagement on decisions that cross council boundaries, including where a council’s priorities differ from the authority’s.
Authorities can then secure or share specialist expertise, plan engagement before proposals are fixed, and publish what participation changed.
Devolution changes where decisions are made. Whether they are made well depends on how authorities prepare to make them.
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