Understanding the English Devolution White Paper and its impact on civil society
The much-anticipated English Devolution White Paper, published on Monday 16 December, marks a significant step towards reshaping governance in England. As we move towards the implementation of the English Devolution Bill, this framework aims to establish a consistent and comprehensive approach to devolution across the country.
For the voluntary, community, faith, and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector, the white paper is a game changer. It presents new opportunities but also challenges that demand our sector to adapt and engage actively in shaping the future.
What is devolution?
Devolution involves transferring powers and resources from the national government to local levels, enabling decisions to be made closer to the communities they impact. With a focus on creating Strategic Authorities, often led by Mayors, the white paper promises more localised control over transport, skills, housing, and climate strategies.
Implications for the VCFSE sector
Despite its emphasis on localised power, the white paper overlooks the vital role of the VCFSE sector in connecting communities with local authorities and fostering grassroots initiatives. Key proposals include:
Integrated Settlements: Strategic Authorities will gain streamlined funding with more control over budgets to meet need as outlined within Local Growth Plans, but there is limited guidance on how VCFSE organisations will contribute to planning or delivery.
Employment and skills support: Reforms such as merging JobCentre Plus and the National Careers Service will require VCFSE input to ensure inclusivity and tailored support.
Community assets: The focus on local ownership, such as the Right to Buy for Assets of Community Value, offers potential for community-driven initiatives but risks burdening local groups without adequate support.
Partnership working: The focus on local may provide opportunities for the VCFSE sector at place to be a key partner in implementing devolution across the country.
The path forward
For the VCFSE sector to thrive within this framework, proactive involvement is essential. By collaborating with local authorities, fostering partnerships, and advocating for grassroots approaches such as Citizen’s Juries, we can ensure that devolution truly empowers communities.
This is a critical moment for civil society. We need to seize the opportunity to make our voices heard and champion a devolution that works for everyone.
Read our full analysis here, developed in partnership with Network for Europe.
UK Shared Prosperity Fund allocations announced for 2025/26
Network for Europe’s Andy Churchill breaks down the detail of the recently published guidance for the one year UK Shared Prosperity programme for 2025/26.
Last week the UK government has announced the allocations for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) for 2025/26. This funding aims to support activities from April 2025 to March 2026, including continuation of existing UKSPF activity where appropriate, with an intention on transitioning to a future funding framework.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) remains responsible for overseeing the fund, which will be distributed across all areas of the UK. Notably, the new allocations take relative deprivation into account, moving away from the previous population-based formulas, an approach which is more reminiscent of previous European funding calculations, which will be welcomed by many.
| Area | Allocation for 2025/26 |
Three-year funding (2022-2025) |
|---|---|---|
| Greater Manchester | £43.2m | £98.2m |
| Liverpool City Region | £25.6m | £52.7m |
| Lancashire | £21.7m | £62.2m |
| Cheshire & Warrington | £9.5m | £33.1m |
| Cumbria | £6.1m | £21.2m |
| North West | £106.3m | £267.5m |
| England | £570.8m | £1.5bn |
| Total UK | £902m | £2.6bn |
Key highlights:
Funding focus: The UKSPF will support initiatives under the same three main headings: Local People, Local Places, and Local Enterprise. Funded activity must align with the government’s five missions: Economic Growth, Clean Energy, Safe Streets, Removing Barriers to Opportunity, and Health.
Local decision-making: The approach for 25/26 funding is significantly more light-touch with a delegated delivery model designed to empower local decision making and the allocation of funds based on local needs without the requirement for revised investment plans for 2025/26.
Increased capital funding: There is a higher percentage of capital funding for each area in comparison with the previous UKSPF programme, with a large portion of this earmarked for “Local Growth Plans and local priority investments”.
Multiply: No national funding for Multiply meaning there is more funding available locally. Multiply is no longer a separate category but adult basic maths can be included within other strands.
Devolution and local authorities
VCFSE collaboration with Strategic and Combined Authorities will be essential for the successful delivery of UKSPF projects. The recently published English Devolution White Paper highlights the governments ambitions for shifting power into communities that will have a significant impact across the North West with opportunities for the VCFSE sector to be a part of devolution.
In the North West, Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region, both with established Mayoral Combined Authorities, continue to benefit from the deepening devolution of funds and powers from Central Government. A Combined County Authority is being developed in Lancashire, with the first initial meeting in the new year, receiving an initial £20 million in devolution funding. Discussions are also ongoing in Cumbria and Cheshire and Warrington towards further devolution.
Employment reforms
The 25/26 UKSPF programme will need to link to the recent “Get Britain Working” White Paper in which the government outlined its plans to transform the Department for Welfare into a Department for Work. This includes merging Jobcentre Plus and Careers Service into a new jobs and skills service, focusing on people's skills and careers and mobilising Mayors to provide joined up services to support local need.
Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region will receive funding for Trailblazers to set the blueprint for this new approach, with the latter focusing on delivering the Youth Guarantee, ensuring every young person has a chance to earn or learn.
Next steps
While the announcements and allocations appear positive, we strongly encourage our infrastructure organisations and partnerships to connect with their lead authority to advocate for the VCFSE sector’s role in UKSPF delivery. Lead authorities will be reviewing the recently released guidance to understand how this will shape delivery for next year so now is the time to ensure the sector is involved in planning for delivery.
VSNW will endeavour to support our infrastructure partnerships to advocate for the sector across the North West in developing UKSPF programmes (including its successor) that builds on the expertise and experience of the VCFSE.
You can also download this information here.
Network for Europe represents the VCFSE sector in the North West and has led the sectors engagement with European Union funding throughout the last few decades and engages with the third sector across Europe to share ideas and best practice. Andy has significant knowledge of VCFSE funding and has been instrumental in advocating for the important role of the VCFSE sector to the economy.
The GM VCSE Reference Group is now the GM VCSE Leadership Group
The VCSE Devolution Reference Group was formed in 2016 as a coalition of leaders from the VCSE sector who wanted to promote the role and involvement of the VCSE sector and communities in Greater Manchester devolution.
The group now oversee a number of significant projects/initiatives and feel that they need a name that better reflects the work that they do. After careful consideration the group will now be called the GM VCSE Leadership Group with the strapline: ‘the sector’s voice in Devolution’.
Warren Escadale, Independent Chair of the group, said:
“We believe that our sector plays a critical role in our communities. As a leadership group we want to make sure that voluntary, community, and social enterprise groups and organisations are not taken for granted and that we influence the future of Greater Manchester and the devolution agenda. Greater Manchester’s 16,000 groups cannot engage in everything but we need to make sure, collectively, that our sector is better understood, that where groups can be engaged they are engaged, and that we are fighting for the principles and programmes of activity that benefit and support our communities and beneficiaries.”
A new website will be launched soon that will explain more about the group, who they are, how they operate and what they do. In the meantime you can find out more on Voluntary Sector North West’s website here.
Greater Manchester Poverty Action
Greater Manchester Poverty Action (GMPA) has been working on behalf of the GM VCSE Devolution Reference Group to develop tools that help promote the voluntary and community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector’s role in the Greater Manchester economy.
The following film sets out some of the socio-economic challenges the city region faces and considers the potential role for the VCSE sector in helping to reshape our economy.
The GM VCSE Devolution Reference Group is a group of organisations who come together to promote the role and involvement of the VCSE sector and communities in devolution. Part of this work involves promoting the role of VCSE organisations in the Greater Manchester economy, ensuring the economic value and potential of such organisations is recognised.
Given the twin challenges of economic inequality and poverty in Greater Manchester, the Reference Group recognises that the economy of Greater Manchester needs to be more inclusive, delivering better outcomes for all residents and ensuring everyone living in the city region can benefit from sustainable economic activity. The Reference Group believes VCSE organisations have a central role in achieving this, particularly in respect of encouraging economic activity in place with high levels of deprivation and poverty.
To view the film visit here.
For more information on the work that GMPA are doing in this area, visit here.
What’s next for the VCSE sector in Greater Manchester? Have your say
The Greater Manchester VCSE Leadership Group with support from colleagues at the GMCA have developed a VCSE Policy Position Paper which sets out a long term ambition for the VCSE sector in Greater Manchester.
Please share your views on the draft Paper. Does it describe a way forward that is meaningful for all VCSE organisations?
The paper builds on the Accord with Mayor of Greater Manchester and GM Combined Authority (GMCA), and the Memorandum of Understanding with the GM Health and Social Care Partnership.
It is intended to be really ambitious, describing a future role equal to those of the state and business. It sets out what our sector could bring over the next 25 years to Greater Manchester people and communities, and what would need to be done to enable it, including investment.
It isn’t an action plan, but after the Policy Paper is finalised in November an ‘implementation and transformation plan’ will be developed over the following year in each of the 10 localities as well as for Greater Manchester. The plans will vary, but will all be co-designed with relevant partners within the broad framework set out in this Paper.
Please respond to the online survey and/or come to a consultation event (dates and venues will be advertised once agreed). The survey is open until 30th September 2019.
The draft Executive Summary can be viewed online here. If you would like a copy of the full document, please email Katya Pursall (kat.pursall@gmail.com)
Greater Manchester Spatial Framework
VCSE workshop discussion
On 10th July a workshop took place with the purpose of bringing together a group of stakeholder experts from voluntary organisations, community groups and social enterprises to discuss and agree how the sector might be involved in the next stage of developing the GM Spatial Framework, with a particular focus on how the Framework describes the process and arrangements for ‘Shaping Places with Communities’. A number of tasks / asks arose:
Develop a Community Impact Assessment tool, building on identification of what makes a ‘good place’.
Define community anchor organisations including VCSE ones, map them and designate them across the patch. This should include geographic and equalities VCSE institutions.
These tasks build on a commitment from the spatial strategy team to working with the VCSE sector and establishing an informal task and finish group building on the previous consultation workshop. The previous session identified a number of areas for consideration, which these tasks look to build on.
Our CEO, Warren Escadale, who attended the meeting on behalf of VSNW, commented:
“VCSE organisations play a pivotal role in supporting communities and community action. We need a way to identify and safeguard those pivotal community centres, hubs, anchors and similar spaces, and think how we respect their role and importance in our spatial planning, in building thriving communities. Clearly the LGBT foundation should not be squeezed out of Central Manchester and St Thomas Centre should not lose heritage lottery funding while land next door goes unused. We should understand the role that Bolton CVS and their building plays in the social economy of Bolton, ask how we could develop a region-wide hub for BME VCSE activity, and look to designate one VCSE community anchor organisation in each health neighbourhood.”
To view the slides from the event, please click on the link here.
Cancer Champions Grant Fund now live
Small grants of £250 and £500 to host events to recruit Cancer Champions
We are inviting groups to apply for funding to put on an event, or extend a current meeting/event, that recruits new Greater Manchester Cancer Champions. This can of course be from your business, team or network, as long as individuals are residents of or workers in Greater Manchester.
Open to organisations from across Greater Manchester
Download full details and an application form at Salford CVS
Application deadline is Sunday 26th November 2017.
#VSNW16 Conference Round-Up: Community Powered Change
How will devolution transform communities? It won't, unless communities transform devolution!
Thanks to all delegates and speakers for a successful conference. It was at the excellent People’s History Museum in Manchester, a museum dedicated to the history of working people improving their lives. We thought this provided an excellent setting for the event (apologies if it was a little cold!)
If you missed the Storify collection of tweets from the day, you can view it on our Twitter. Thanks for the hundreds of tweets throughout the day - #VSNW16 was trending on Twitter!
"People have a right to feel left behind, they have been left behind"
Jim McMahon MP, the Shadow Minister for Local Government, Communities & Devolution kicked off the event. While the Brexit vote showed people feel left behind, new ways for people to have more power and control need to be found – and the voluntary sector has a significant role to play here. Politics and public services should be redesigned, argued McMahon, and he challenged the sector to make sure this is grassroots led. ‘Don’t wait for permission – make devolution your own!’
"Inclusive Growth isn't inclusive unless it's reducing poverty"
Next we heard from Professor Ruth Lupton, who is head of the Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit, a joint JRF and University of Manchester project to track social prosperity. While ‘inclusive growth’ is now entering the mainstream, ‘it isn’t inclusive growth unless it is reducing poverty’, and there is still a long way to go to deliver a truly inclusive economy. Lupton highlighted many sector led initiatives that can help: using social value, fostering social enterprises and implementing the living wage are all good starts. What is measured, counts,and Professor Lupton argued the sector needs a visible, credible voice on the economy. More widely though, social policies should be seen as investment too.
As ever, we had a fantastic range of workshops throughout the day, delivered by colleagues from across the voluntary sector, public sector and think-tanks from the North West and wider, that gave attendees the chance to learn more about specific areas, and play a part in shaping policy, from Sustainability and Transformation Plans to social indicators.
What does inclusivity look like? The theoretical and the practical
Delivering inclusive growth for communities was one theme for the day, and while CLES’s Matt Jackson had plenty of examples of ‘been and gone’ social projects, the economic development policy climate is changing, he argued. The voluntary sector used to be seen as an afterthought, but is now seen as a partner, and the centralised approach of the 80s, 90s, and 00s, is beginning to be replaced by place based approaches to local economic growth.
Professor Anthony Rafferty, also at the Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit, wanted to know how social success could be measured, and posed the question of whether it is better to use what data you have, or abandon it and seek new methods. Those present had the small workshop task of designing these to feed into the Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit!
Brexit and the implications for the voluntary sector
EU funding has supported many social inclusion projects, and Gill Bainbridge from Merseyside Youth Association gave practical examples of her organisation’s programmes supporting young people into work, through a wide lens approach. Network for Europe’s John Hacking suggested that, while EU funding may not be around forever, it is likely to continue to 2022. Nonetheless, a complete loss of European Social Funding could mean over 21,000 people in Merseyside losing out on life-changing support.
Assessing the sector's role in Sustainability and Transformation Plans
Over a third of VCSE organisations in the North West are involved in health and social care, and this was a popular workshop theme at the conference. Frances Newell, a patient and public partnerships specialist at NHS England gave an overview of Sustainability and Transformation Plans in England. Given the key role they have in delivering the Five Year Forward View, the lack of sector involvement thus far was an issue that came up and is likely to again.
Alternative and new approaches to improving health and social care
A practical model for health inclusion was outlined by Chris Dabbs, Unlimited Potential and Francesca Archer-Todde, Big Life, who presented the findings from the Realising the Value person and community centred care research project.
Ben Gilchrist, VSNW’s Social Movement lead, and Chris Easton from Tameside NHS talked about how wider approaches to improving health can be achieved, in the context of their Social Movements for Health project with the Greater Manchester cancer vanguard. If you’d like to know more about the project or be involved, do contact Ben Gilchrist.
How can we ensure the disempowered are represented? Exploring 'what works' in the voluntary sector
Transforming the voluntary sector was the task of those in the Engine Hall, and we heard from a range of perspectives: Anne Lythgoe, Salford Council, covered investment strategies for the sector, while David Beel discussed the sector’s inclusion in urban governance, with learning from cities across England and Wales. Whether the current model of devolution is more like ‘central government localism’ was his question, but in any case it was useful to hear from members voluntary sector partnerships in Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester that have been spurred on by devolution processes, and have set out ambitious visions for their areas.
Policy silos and linking up the economic and the social
Delegates got a chance to hear about the emerging findings of the RSA’s Inclusive Growth Commission from Jonathan Schifferes, who is the RSA’s Associate Director of Public Services and Communities. Schifferes spoke passionately about linking up social and economic policy, and asked why the only focus is on infrastructure projects such as HS2. The task of the Commission is to join up the silos, and inject ‘inclusivity’ into governmental policy, said Schifferes. Building a shared agenda – across the voluntary sector, public sector, business, politicians, and wider society, was certainly a message that came through strongly on the day.
"Let's use the energy in this room - and capture it for social and economic ends"
The conference finished off with a panel discussion on how ‘communities can transform devolution’, and what the voluntary sector’s role is. We were pleased to hear from Kathy Evans, Cllr Sean Anstee, Conservative candidate for Greater Manchester Mayor, Hal Meakin, from Youthforia, Cllr Jean Stretton, the GMCA portfolio holder for fairness and equalities, and Neil McInroy, Chief Executive of CLES.
Although all of the panellists came from different perspectives, many of the points raised suggested shared sentiments: the current political climate is unprecented, unstable, and unpredictable; but there are reasons to be positive, with inclusive growth and devolution providing opportunities for progress. Much more needs to be done, and Hal Meakin argued that young people are currently being left out. It was clear from the discussion that policy over the past few decades has largely not improved lives for many in the North, and if 2016 is to be a critical juncture that ends positively, the voluntary sector and communities need to be driving change themselves.
Jim McMahon MP - The voluntary and community sector has a key role to play in devolution
Jim McMahon MP, Shadow Minister for Local Government and Devolution
Labour & Cooperative Member of Parliament for Oldham West and Royton
It was a pleasure to address Voluntary Sector North West’s annual conference earlier this month at the People’s History Museum in Manchester. In thirteen years as a councillor and a year now as an MP, I have seen firsthand the difference that can be made by local people coming together to make their area a better place. The voluntary and community sector plays a vital role in making that happen.
I have also heard firsthand on the doorstep, ahead of the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump, the sense that many ordinary people consider established politics to be an elite, distant and disempowering affair to which they cannot relate. People want and need a stake and a say in the way their society is organised. Too many people feel that they lack that voice. We need to address, not dismiss, this profound and prevailing sense of democratic deficit. Our centralist settlement currently leaves people feeling powerless. The voluntary and community sector, properly supported and mobilised, can help to fill that gap.
For devolution to be meaningful, it can’t just mean power passed down from Whitehall to the Town Hall: it needs to be passed down further still to communities themselves. Those communities can better exercise that power if they are well organised. The voluntary and community sector organises communities on the ground better than anyone else. So, part of the point of devolution must be to empower civil society, rather than hoarding power in the market or the state. Accordingly, the voluntary sector is absolutely right to look to harness devolution to give communities more of a say in the decisions that affect the lives of them and their families. The sector should be insistent in its demands to help shape devolution deals as they are struck and as they then unfold.
We all want to tackle poverty and reduce inequality. The best way to do that is to support more people into decent work. But a national, one-size-fits-all approach to helping people from welfare into work has failed. Devolution offers the best hope of a skills and employment offer that is tailored to the local job market and there is growing evidence that such an approach delivers results. In Oldham, the council has stepped in to fill the gap created by national contracted providers, supporting people into work. The council don’t receive any central government funding for this but they decided they weren’t willing to sit back while so many fell through the net. In just two years, over 3,000 people have been helped into work and a genuine partnership has been created with businesses, community organisations and the public services working together. When BHS closed and the shutters came down, as Sir Philip Green sailed off into the sunset, it was thanks to Get Oldham Working that every employee who wanted a new job had one lined up.
But Oldham also knows when to let go to, as was evident in the establishment of the Oldham Action Fund which benefited from a transfer of charitable trusts and historic dowries which brought together almost £1m of funding together for local voluntary and community sector groups to invest in long-term, sustainable funding.
It is true though that much of the discussion of devolution to date has been primarily economistic in character. That, to be honest, is a failing in our current politics in general. The voluntary and community sector is well placed to highlight the social dimension of devolution, deploying as it can the testimony of community members’ lived experience. People need to hear the stories and understand the relationships that matter, rather than forever merely looking at the graphs.
We rightly hear a lot about the pressing challenge of economic inequality in the world around us today. But the challenge posed by democratic inequality is no less stark. People do need money in their pockets, but they also need to feel that they have some influence over the environments in which they lead their lives. A cooperative approach to devolution, supporting the voluntary and community sector, offers the opportunity to level the playing field of our democracy.
We need to agree a compelling new settlement and give a greater voice to the people we came into politics to represent. And so, with any discussion on devolution, we must be open to new partnerships and, rather than see it simply as a transfer of responsibilities, we ought to see it as an opportunity to redefine how we govern, how we grow our economies and how we deliver the best possible public services. Devolution ought to mean politics done with people, not just for them. And that means we need you and the communities you help organise and empower together with us in the driving seat.