Meeting with colleagues across the civil service last month, I am struck both by the commonality of messages and the acknowledgement of the benefits of codesign with local government. However, if I were to do a word cloud to capture the themes of the conversations, devolution would be writ large.

In local government we have long understood the benefits of councils, either individually or with local partners, being empowered to develop the approach and the delivery vehicle best suited to our place. In most cases, this approach gets more traction, is more responsive and more attuned to population need than those centrally designed and delivered. Ultimately, this delivers better outcomes as well as better value for money.