First, rewire the place, then turn the lights on

As a child of the 1970s, I grew up with Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley, the stop-motion puppet animation television series created by Gordon Murray, set in the fictional English county of Trumptonshire. The village, the town hall, the factories and railway. Three little worlds that made sense together. You knew who did what. You could see how one bit connected to another.Real places are bigger, messier and more unequal. Yet with more strategies, data and partnerships than ever, I sometimes wonder whether we can see the whole place as clearly as we could in a children's programme.So imagine Trumpton today. Mr Troop lays the plans across the table. Health has one. Housing has another. Transport brings a strategy. Skills has a framework. The council brings several folders. There is a particularly thick document marked ‘The Future: 2040'.The Mayor looks pleased. ‘That seems to be the future sorted.'The handy person emerges from underneath the table. ‘I'm afraid not. None of the wires join up.'That is the bit I keep coming back to.The table is getting crowded. I count at least a dozen broad reform programmes affecting local places: devolution; council reorganisation; finance; NHS and neighbourhood health; adult social care; children's social care; schools and special educational needs and disabilities; policing; housing and planning; transport; skills and employment support and digital government. They are at different stages, but they converge on the same households and institutions.Who is responsible for making the combined result work? The folder marked 2040 is where this gets interesting.In September, I joined the Local Government Association's Public Service Reform and Innovation Committee to discuss LG2040. I strongly support the work. It gives a sector consumed by immediate pressures space to ask what kind of places we are building.But 2040 cannot sit in a separate folder. The homes we approve, transport we fund and prevention we neglect today are already shaping it. If we expect more care needs, fewer available workers or different patterns of employment, that should change the decisions on the table now.This is the connection I have been looking for across published evidence from 15 combined/strategic authority place systems. I have asked whether future ambitions, present resources and residents' lives visibly connect.Councils must be recognised as leaders of place. They convene partners, shape growth and organise prevention close to communities. Treating them simply as service providers beneath strategic authorities risks weakening the connections we need.Strategies, governance and data are usually visible. Harder to find is a shared account of future demand, a picture of resources across the place and a way of testing commitments against different futures. Who funds prevention? Who gains? Does the combined activity improve lives?These are gaps in published evidence rather than a verdict on performance, but connections that are difficult to see are difficult to scrutinise.So let's start with the person. They do not wake up as a housing issue, become a health issue by lunchtime and turn into an employment issue in the afternoon. They just live their life.People live horizontally. Public administration is organised vertically.That makes the emerging Rewiring the State delivery plan a test of whether we can turn the long view into decisions now.The sector needs practical proposals on legislation, funding, accountability and Whitehall practice and the role of local government should not be forgotten.Councils must be recognised as leaders of place. They convene partners, shape growth and organise prevention close to communities. Treating them simply as service providers beneath strategic authorities risks weakening the connections we need.And here is the question I would bring from LG2040 to that Whitehall table: what must partners do differently together now to make life better by 2040? Transferring powers is a start. The plan must show how those powers combine to improve a life.Imagine a parent offered training or work. Participation depends on transport, childcare, health support where needed and enough money to manage the transition.Every programme can report progress while that household stands still. A delivery plan needs to identify where that pathway breaks and who can repair it.Prevention exposes the money problem. Better housing may reduce health demand. Earlier support may prevent family crisis.One organisation carries the cost, another receives the benefit. A partnership meeting will not settle that bill. Contributions, risks and benefits need agreed arrangements and resources. Reduced demand should never be casually booked as cash savings.Devolution must reach into neighbourhoods and communities. Residents understand obstacles our organisational charts cannot show. They need a meaningful say in decisions, backed by the capacity to act.Rewiring cannot become something done to a place by the organisations that happen to govern it.Start with a few outcomes residents recognise: a secure home, a workable route into employment, support before crisis. For each, set out the baseline, who should benefit and what must change.Map the money, workforce, buildings and community capacity. Name the partner responsible for each contribution, the decision required, the funding committed and the deadline.Then make the joins accountable. Which actions depend on another organisation? Who resolves a blocked decision? Where will costs fall and benefits arise? What happens if a partner cannot deliver? These belong in the delivery plan, with an agreed route for resolving disputes. Otherwise, the resident remains responsible for navigating our unfinished work.Whitehall must change too. Health, education, employment and policing need compatible incentives, funding and accountability. We need fewer fragmented funding pots and stronger financial resilience. Moving the same money between streams will not sustain services or prevent demand. What will departments stop, devolve or do differently?This is where the 2040 thinking earns its place in the delivery plan. Test today's housing, transport and care commitments against plausible changes in demand, workforce and employment and ask: which choices leave us able to adapt? Which lock us into problems we can already foresee?We should not wait until 2040 to discover whether we chose well. Agree what we should see within two years. Can more people sustain work? Are fewer reaching crisis? Has support become easier to navigate? If delivery goes to plan but lives do not improve, examine why.Back in Trumpton, the handy person gets up from under the table. The connections have been made. The Mayor reaches for the switch.Click.Now comes the important bit. Did anything get better?The future was never sorted by putting a date on Mr Troop's folder. It is taking shape in the decisions made around his table today. By 2040 residents should be able to see the difference.Rewire the place. Then turn the lights on.Rob Huntington is chief executive of Rossendale BC

Title

DEVOLUTION

First, rewire the place, then turn the lights on

By Rob Huntington | 14 October 2026

SUBSCRIBE TO CONTINUE READING