Government adopts ResPublica’s call for £6bn health expenditure devolution to Greater Manchester

26^th February 2015

Our highly influential report Devo Max – Devo Manc: Place-based public services was headline news again this week with the Government agreeing to adopt the policy on health spending that we recommended.

Tomorrow (27th February) the Chancellor, George Osborne, will announce a new healthcare deal between the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and central government. The £6bn annual budget for health and social care will be devolved to the GMCA’s 10 councils from April 2016. This move is a national first which we advocated in September 2014’s Devo Max – Devo Manc.

Following the announcement of devolution of health spending, our Director Phillip Blond spoke to a large number of national and regional media outlets on the issue. Highlights included interviews on the Today Programme (01:53:00), the Jeremy Vine Show (07:05), BBC Radio 5 Live (02:17:08), LBC and Sky News Tonight. He was also quoted and our work mentioned in the Financial Times, the Guardian and the Independent.

This is just the next step for a report which has already been hugely influential; only two months after its publication the Government agreed to give greater powers to the GMCA including transport, skills and housebuilding in one of the greatest moves towards decentralisation of power in the UK in years. The GMCA will  also have a directly-elected ‘Metro Mayor’ from 2017, as called for in Devo Max – Devo Manc.

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