Kingston upon Thames LBC has been in secret talks with the government to be the first flagship authority to negotiate itself fiscal devolution, it was revealed this weekend. 

Kingston leader, Kevin Davis, said: ‘My ambition for the borough is that we can be independent from grant completely, that we can move away from a system where central government hands out monies to us and we have to spend it in the most reasonable way we can fund. I want to whether we can give [it] back to government in return for which they need to give us some freedoms – in particular, give us a bit of an uplift in business rates.