Greater Manchester could be given more control over its spending powers accoring to reports this morning
The Times newspaper suggest that the chancellor, will announce this week that the West Midlands and Greater Manchester will be handed full control over budgets in areas such as education, transport and housing in what is being billed in government as the future of levelling up.
The paper says that the “regional mayors will be handed budgets of about a billion pounds a year each and trusted to make their decisions about where to prioritise spending.”
However it adds that calls to allow mayors to raise their own taxes locally have been rejected, but government insiders believe the latest deals will pave the way for mayors eventually to be given more control over setting tax rates.
Both Greater Manchester and the West Midlands the regional mayors will be handed budgets of about a billion pounds a year each and trusted to make their decisions about where to prioritise spending. Calls to allow mayors to raise their own taxes locally have been rejected, but government insiders believe the latest deals will pave the way for mayors eventually to be given more control over setting tax rates.
Greater Manchester will be treated like “mini government departments” and freed of the need for Whitehall approval for spending in a swathe of policy areas.
“The principle is very simple, there is one total and then it’s for local discretion as to how that’s spent,” a senior government source told The Times’ Chris Smyth.
“So much of what has happened is that the regions make proposals and civil servants in London decide. The model the chancellor has talked about is saying ‘You decide, the leadership is mature enough’.
