The governance of territories has become increasingly fragmented and complex, challenging the accountability arrangements for “governable spaces.” Tension between central and local governments is a perennial feature of their relationship, but few analyses have explored the implications of this tension for accountability relationships. This article assesses policy initiatives within England aimed at increasing accountability in localities, by establishing governable spaces that include territorializing, mediating, adjudicating, and subjectivizing. During the 2010s, the UK government sought to introduce a form of place‐based accountability within the context of reduced central government funding to English local authorities. This meant that local government faced new forms of accountability while adapting to considerable financial shocks. Accounting methods—assessing what phenomena can and should be governed—underpin audit and orthodox concepts of accountability in the United Kingdom. These have driven a narrow finance‐focused narrative of local audit and local accountability. However, we also argue that developments in England in the 2010s have undermined political accountability in the localities, because they have worked against critical components within it for making governable space auditable: interpretation of data, judgments on service quality and the impact of cross‐public sector relationships on local authorities’ “decision space.”
English local government audit has gone through fundamental change in the last decade and this period of instability looks certain to continue. Since 2014, councils have been audited by private sector auditors appointed theoretically by the councils themselves (though an overwhelming majority of councils have delegated this responsibility). The scope of audit after 2014 reduced to focus mainly on top-down financial management, rather than value for money or inspection. After growing concerns about the scope and quality of audit however, in 2020, the Government commissioned Sir Tony Redmond to review local audit arrangements in England. The Redmond review identified several problems with the reformed structure and made recommendations for change. Currently, the sector is uncertain about what changes will be adopted to solve the issues discovered by Redmond.
In May 2017, nine combined authorities had been created in England. Also, by May 2017, six of the combined authorities had held mayoral elections and England now has six new elected officials at what one might call regional level, elected on turnouts of between 21 and 34% of local electorates. This means that 34% of the population of England now lives in combined authority areas and 22% in combined authority areas with an elected mayor. So, the administrative map of England now looks different and the governance of England is now different. The question is how much the new authorities will matter. The second question is how well combined authorities are set up to benefit local areas. The creation of combined authorities effectively forms a statute-based vehicle to take forward devolution deals. The subsidary question relates to the future of devolution: are the combined authorities now in existence the start of a new wave? Or the high point? In this article I will set out the challenges currently facing the combined authorities and set out the financial context in which they are operating.
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