Rewiring the State Is Not About Structures, It’s About Trust

For most of my career, I’ve sat in rooms discussing how to make public services work better. Different governments bring different reforms. Different reforms need different organisational charts and dare I say it, different acronyms. Yet the same frustration appears again and again - the people who experience problems live in ‘places’ and the people who design solutions often live in ‘systems’.

This month the Government published its Rewiring the State statement, setting out plans for a significant transfer of power from Westminster and Whitehall to places, mayors and local government.

The language is striking but the ambition is even more striking. The document talks about devolving power by default, aligning services around places and creating stronger local democratic accountability.

If delivered, it would represent one of the largest shifts in the way England is governed in decades but while much of the commentary has focused on structures, powers and governance, I find myself thinking about something else - trust.

At its heart, this is a question about whether national government is prepared to trust local leaders, local institutions and local communities to solve problems that have resisted central solutions for years.

The truth is that many of our biggest challenges are not neatly organised into departmental boxes.

A person leaving hospital doesn’t experience the NHS, housing services, social care, welfare support and employment programmes separately. They experience one life.

Similarly, a young person not in education, employment or training doesn’t wake up thinking about the boundaries between skills budgets, transport systems, schools and economic development. They experience one reality.

A family experiencing poverty doesn’t care which organisation owns a budget. They care whether somebody helps.

The state, however, has often organised itself as if life’s problems arrive in departmental compartments. The result is that huge amounts of energy are spent managing boundaries instead of improving outcomes.

This is why the most interesting part of the Cabinet statement isn’t the discussion about powers or funding. It’s the recognition that growth, health, employment, education, housing, transport and public service reform are deeply interconnected.

It repeatedly argues that local leaders are best placed to integrate services around people and places and to prevent the rising costs of failure.

From where I sit in Oldham, that feels important. Not because local government is perfect; it isn’t. Not because every local area will automatically make better decisions; they won’t. But because as local leaders we are closer to reality.

We see the consequences of policy. We see where systems collide. We see the families who fall between organisational boundaries. We live with the consequences when things go wrong. That proximity matters.

For years, many of us have argued that prevention requires integration. That neighbourhoods matter, that place matters, that public services need to organise around people rather than institutions.

The challenge has never been the theory. The challenge has been that funding, accountability and power have remained largely organised around central government structures.

So, the question now is whether that is genuinely about to change, because rewiring the state is not achieved by moving boxes on an organisational chart. It requires a different mindset.

Devolution cannot become delegation. Places cannot simply become delivery arms for national priorities. Local government cannot be asked to take responsibility without having meaningful influence over resources and decisions.

The Government appears to recognise this, describing an ambition for local leaders to have greater control over economic development, skills, transport, housing, employment support and elements of public service integration.

If that happens, the potential is significant but greater power should also mean greater accountability, after all, trust is a two-way street.

As local leaders we cannot argue for more freedom while resisting scrutiny, avoiding difficult choices or blaming Whitehall for every challenge.

If places are trusted with more responsibility, we must demonstrate that we can use it well. That means stronger local leadership. Stronger local institutions. Better use of evidence. Clearer accountability. And perhaps most importantly, a relentless focus on outcomes rather than organisational interests.

For me, the most hopeful aspect of this whole agenda is that it reflects something many of us working in public service have understood for years. Progress happens when places are empowered to bring people together around a shared purpose. Not because local is always better, but because local is where life happens.

If Rewiring the State succeeds, its legacy won’t be measured by new governance arrangements. It will be measured by whether residents feel public services work better, whether communities have greater control over their future and whether places like Oldham can shape their own destiny with confidence.

Ultimately, this isn’t a debate about structures. It’s a debate about whether we trust places enough to let them lead and after decades of centralisation, that may be the most important question of all.