Since the 1980s the overriding trend for successive UK governments has been one of deepening centralism.

The local state lost many of its functions to privatisation, which also generated a need for centralised regulatory bodies. In those areas that were not fully privatised, the introduction of quasi-markets generated a complex and all-encompassing system of centralised targets and performance regimes across various areas of public administration – which political scientist Christopher Hood compared to that of the Soviet Union.