In March 2016, Scott Mitnick composed a piece for the International City/County Management Association’s (ICMA) Public Management magazine addressing the transfer of municipal services from national to local control in the UK and its dynamics moving forward.
Ryan Eggleston, township manager, South Fayette, Pennsylvania, and I were honored to represent ICMA at the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) Annual Summit held in Bournemouth, England, this past October. The main topic of the three-day event was devolution or the transfer of municipal services from national to local control.
What was interesting about learning of this major undertaking is how this topic has come full circle since I was a student at Bristol University more than two decades ago. The challenge going forward will be to what extent London will provide local government access to revenues needed to provide the services that are being pushed back to local authorities.