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I have worked in enough parts of government to be wary of simple explanations for why policy succeeds or disappoints. Usually there are capable people and good intent. The harder question is whether the problem was understood from enough angles before the answer took shape.That question has followed me from Whitehall into local government. I have sat in rooms where policy was formed and, later, in a place making it work. The view from each side is different; neither has a monopoly on insight.In a place, difficult issues rarely occur separately. Housing is bound up with health and employment. Skills depend on transport, employers and confidence. Growth is shaped by relationships and public trust as much as funding.That is the deeper case for devolution. It is more than an economic project. Decisions taken closer to people and place are more likely to reflect local circumstances and command ownership. Real devolution transfers power and choice, not simply responsibility for delivering decisions made elsewhere. I have sat in rooms where policy was formed and, later, in a place making it work. The view from each side is different; neither has a monopoly on insight.Devolution therefore places a premium on leadership across boundaries: no single institution in a place holds every lever.Councils are not uniquely good at this. We have had to learn fast, with hugely constrained resources and the pressure and privilege of walking past the consequences on our doorstep.As capacity has tightened, we have learned to convene, rather than control. We have not always got it right, but the experience has taught us about leading through relationships.This is what makes No10 North so interesting. The Government has described it as the engine room of devolution and good growth. It should accelerate the transfer of powers into places and build the capability to use them well.Yet devolution will not remove the national role. Whitehall will continue to shape policy and strategy frameworks within which regional and local government operates. Could No10 North apply the same place-based logic to those retained responsibilities involving places before policy has hardened?Places for Growth has laid foundations. Moving civil servants out of London has created government communities and broadened where careers can be built. The opportunity now is to fully draw on the knowledge and relationships within those places.The Sheffield Policy Campus is a cross-government community with depth in education, employment and skills, bringing civil servants together with the combined authority, councils, universities and delivery partners around problems.This is where the idea of a ‘Whitehall North' is worth exploring: an operating model growing around No10 North, connecting strategic leadership at the centre with policy capability and delivery experience in places.The Government has described it as the engine room of devolution and good growth. It should accelerate the transfer of powers into places and build the capability to use them well.It would build on government locations and policy campuses established across the country, including in the West Midlands and the West of England. Those with relevant expertise and relationships could play a fuller role in shaping national questions, including where departments retain responsibility.In Sheffield, civil servants who steward national skills policy across several departments could be empowered to develop it with the mayoral combined authority, councils, universities, employers and local services.Ministers and departments would remain accountable for the national framework. The difference would be policy shaped with people who understand both its intention and the systems through which it must work.That would make fuller use of civil servants already working outside London, while enabling senior people based there to lead important national work.Experience should also flow more easily between central, regional and local government. Time in a council or combined authority should count as policy and leadership experience, just as time in Whitehall can strengthen leadership in place.This is, above all, a leadership question. The best work happens when leaders with different responsibilities meet as colleagues around a shared problem.You can remain accountable without holding every decision at the centre. Nobody gives up their mandate, but neither does anyone pretend their institution holds the whole answer.The difference should be felt in everyday life: a family able to get onto the housing ladder locally, employment support available through a trusted community organisation, a reliable bus that gets someone to work. Government gains better evidence and an earlier understanding of what will work.Whitehall North could offer an early example of how a more distributed government might lead, learn and decide across the whole country.The test of No10 North will not simply be how often the Prime Minister works there. It will be whether a challenge understood in Sheffield, or any other place, can shape the national response before the answer has already been written.That would be a significant legacy: not only moving government, but fundamentally shifting the foundation from which it governs.Kate Josephs is chief executive of Sheffield City Council and a former senior civil servant

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WHITEHALL

No10 North: Whitehall reimagined

By Kate Josephs | 06 August 2026

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