The Daily Mash called it. I get that being within a couple of Underground stops of Parliament makes it easier to hold meetings and present ideas for the approval of whoever's job it is to sign the cheques, but how the hell are you supposed to decide what would best serve to improve the economy and infrastructure of the North -of anywhere that's not in the London commuter belt, come to think of it- if you've never experienced it firsthand and are hundreds of miles away from anyone who has?It is the government department tasked with delivering the chancellor’s “northern powerhouse” agenda and devolving power to cities and regions. But 97.6% of senior civil servants at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) are based in London, the government has admitted.
Just 2.4% of the DCLG’s most powerful public servants work outside the capital, according to Brandon Lewis, a DCLG minister and Tory MP for Great Yarmouth.
More and more senior civil servants across all government departments are based in London, another minister admitted. On 1 April 2010 65.1% worked from London, compared with 67% five years later, said Matthew Hancock, minister for the Cabinet Office.
The admissions come after the government decided to close the Sheffield office of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The outpost in the steel city had become a centre of policymaking expertise, with 300 staff leading on delivering billions in research to universities in particular. They were partly responsible for the funding given to Sheffield University which led to the discovery of gravitational waves last month – a key prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
The figures were released in response to questions by Louise Haigh, Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley. She said they undermined the government’s “northern powerhouse” agenda. “How can the Tories possibly claim devolution of power and investment tops their agenda, when they increasingly insulate themselves in a London bubble of policy advisers and decision makers? With policies driven from Whitehall not the town hall, it’s no wonder that cities across the north are forced to rely on scraps,” she said.
“Moving the civil service out of London has been a positive trend spanning decades giving government eyes and ears around the country, but astonishingly the Tories have reversed that policy, revealing their utter contempt for the perspective of people from cities and regions outside of the capital. They have even scrapped their minister for decentralisation, suggesting they can’t even be bothered to keep up the pretence.”
By its own definition, the senior civil service is the interface between politicians and the public administration. They are responsible for the implementation of legal instruments and political strategies. They are also responsible for the coherence, efficiency and appropriateness of government activities.
We really need to revisit the idea of regional parliaments, or at least devolve some real power back to county councils.