The government has been urged in a major new report on devolution to reform the process in place for local areas like Greater Manchester to access crucial Whitehall funding. The plea to Rishi Sunak and his cabinet came in a wide-ranging report on levelling up published by the Devolution All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG).
The report follows evidence considering the Government's Levelling Up White Paper of February this year and makes seven main recommendations.
It also calls for a review on the requirement to have a directly elected mayor to achieve 'the highest levels of devolution'. Instead, argues the report, the Government should 'lay out a clear framework that allows local areas to negotiate deals which fit within existing institutional structures, rather than reserving the most significant powers for areas which are content to follow the centrally preferred model'.
