Devolution to combined authorities is ‘really working and is powering growth in our city region', says the chief executive of Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

Caroline Simpson told the opening session of The MJ Future Forum North in Manchester: ‘Ours is the fastest growing economy in the UK at the moment. Manchester is the most invested in city because of the decades of work that's gone into building up the devolution agenda in Greater Manchester and the set of organisations involved. It's a whole systems approach.'

She added: ‘We believe that over those decades we've built up a GM way of operating that runs deep into every bit of Greater Manchester through the voluntary and community, social enterprise and faith sectors, and through the business community.

‘I think the fact that we've got the most integrated public services co-located, with the boundaries are aligned, really helps as well.'

But she emphasised the difficulties involved in working with a ‘siloed' Whitehall. ‘My biggest observation in coming up to six months in this role is just how hard it is to work across the silos that are in Whitehall. It's very difficult at that national level to think mission and place. But we can do that at a city region level.'

She added: ‘What we are doing all the time is joining up the different bits of Whitehall, and government and funding, and making all of that resource work to best effect.

Asked how combined authorities should share financial risk with constituent CAs, she said: ‘There's a very live conversation happening in Greater Manchester around how do we share risk around raising capital for investment. 

‘So we have a shared balance sheet through the CA already. We do borrow against it but we have got substantially more capability to do that. It is our leaders' view that it is better to share that risk amongst 11 [local authorities] than it is perhaps for everybody to go it alone, particularly when we have some quite small local authorities.'

Asked if the creation of new combined authorities and combined county authorities alongside reorganisation posed a distraction, chief executive of Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Katherine Fairclough said: ‘It's a distraction if it's happening to you and I think that's sometimes the fear about local government reform. If it's imposed on you and you don't think it's going to make a difference for your locality it's really painful. It'a difficult transition and within that period you take your eye off delivery.

‘I guess for those areas that feel local government reorganisation is a must do, it is about being able to ride both horses at once. Where you have got a really strong vision for the future that you are reshaping your organisations to deliver that, as well as making sure we keep the day to day running.'