One of the problems of being a director in a consultancy, is that in the end, the projects you do are the projects determined by your clients.
That is not a complaint. We do great work for councils, strategic authorities, companies, universities and government. We help places think through some of the hardest questions they face. But all too rarely does anyone get asked to tackle what seems to me to be the most acute need facing places across the country: how to build the institutional capacity for full-fat devolution.
The work that strategic authorities and councils are doing now is important but it is geared to the devolution we have, not the devolution we need. It is about today's settlement, with today's powers, today's financial constraints and today's staffing models. It is not yet about building the institutions that could fully rise to the economic and social challenges facing the country.
Devolution cannot simply mean more responsibilities passed down to underpowered institutions. Nor can it mean a new language of place-based growth wrapped around old Whitehall habits. If we are serious about devolution, we have to be serious about capacity.
I first set out my credo on this issue with colleagues in our Time to get serious about inclusive growth: A place-based agenda for change work.
The argument behind it was formed, oddly enough, on a train from Weimar in Germany, at the time of Boris Johnson's attempt to prorogue Parliament, an act later held to be illegal by the Supreme Court.
The review starts from a simple proposition. If devolution is now to move from policy slogan to governing reality, we need mayoral strategic authorities with capabilities that most do not yet possess. They will need to shape markets, not just administer programmes.
We know where the Weimar Republic ended. A country that was richly culturally and scientifically-endowed took, in a time of economic decline, step after step towards the abyss.
Britain is not Weimar Germany. But the stakes in our country now feel high, whichever side of the political divides you sit. A country with weak institutions, an angry electorate and poor economic performance cannot afford to treat constitutional and economic reform as separate exercises.
That is why, when I agreed to take some time out to undertake a fellowship, there was only one thing I really wanted to do. The result is Bringing Dynamism into Place, my independent review of growth-capable devolution. It is the piece of work I have wanted to do for some considerable time.
The review starts from a simple proposition. If devolution is now to move from policy slogan to governing reality, we need mayoral strategic authorities with capabilities that most do not yet possess. They will need to shape markets, not just administer programmes. They will need to deploy long-term finance, not just bid for pots of money. They will need to connect transport, housing, energy, skills, innovation and land use into coherent investable and invested propositions. They will need to build serious relationships with investors, universities, government departments, regulators and local communities. Above all, they will need to become institutions of durable economic leadership.
This is especially urgent in the light of Andy Burnham's speech in Manchester on 29 June, in which he put devolution at the centre of a wider argument about economic growth, public service reform and the rebalancing of power through No10 North.
When, as now seems likely, he becomes Prime Minister on 20 July, the question will move quickly from whether devolution matters to whether the system can deliver it.
That is the gap my review is designed to address.
Its focus is not primarily on drawing new lines on maps, nor on rehearsing the case for devolution in the abstract. It is about capability. What does a growth-capable strategic authority need to be able to do?
What skills and teams does it need? What financial powers and instruments matter most? What would a serious institutional model look like in a major city area, in an emerging county-based authority, or in a more polycentric economy?
I have assembled a group of government and local leaders, finance experts and others to help guide me over the weeks ahead. The aim is practical. I want to set out what places up and down the country need if they are to rise to the agenda now being placed upon them. That means asking hard questions about Whitehall, but also hard questions about local and regional institutions themselves.
It is time to get serious about devolution. Not just as a constitutional principle. Not just as a political slogan. But as an institutional foundation for national renewal.
Mike Emmerich is founding director of Metro Dynamics
To keep up to date on the review, see www.place-dynamism.com To contact the team, email: enquiries@place-dynamism.com
