Dr Jocelyne Fleming

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has made transferring greater power and fiscal responsibility from Westminster to England’s regions, as well as Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales, a key part of his government’s agenda. Meanwhile, here in Scotland, the new Programme for Government opened a conversation about the future of local governance, including regional government, and greater community empowerment. Recent announcements from the Scottish Government have further signalled their interest in significant reforms in this area.

For Scotland, of course, this isn’t a new experiment. I was recently asked to reflect on 25 years of Scottish housing devolution as part of a panel hosted by the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE), and one of the things that struck me in preparing for that discussion was just how much policy autonomy has mattered.

It has allowed Scotland to make genuinely different, and sometimes internationally significant, choices. Homelessness is perhaps the clearest example. Since devolution, Scotland has progressively strengthened statutory homelessness rights, including abolishing priority need and reducing other barriers to assistance. Whatever the very real challenges we now face in delivering those rights, the framework nonetheless represents a substantive, and laudable, Scottish policy choice about the responsibilities of the state towards people experiencing homelessness.

So, we know that where power sits matters.

Which brings me to the question I think our sector should be asking as the latest devolution debate develops: when it comes to Scotland’s built environment policies, which decisions are best made nationally or regionally, and which are best made locally? And, from there, are we currently making decisions at the right levels?

There’s significant merit in the principle of subsidiarity, which underpins Burnham’s approach: decisions made closer to the places and people they affect can be more responsive to local circumstances. But applying the same principle doesn’t necessarily mean arriving at the same model.

Scotland is having its own conversation about the future of local governance. If place matters when decisions are made, it will also matter when deciding what devolution itself should look like. Scotland’s governance arrangements, geography, and policy landscape are different, and any further devolution of power should reflect this context.

CIOB has previously supported approaches which allow decisions to be taken at the most appropriate level, with sufficient flexibility to respond to different local and regional needs.

But subsidiarity doesn’t necessarily mean that every decision is best made as locally as legally possible. The appropriate level will depend on the decision and the outcomes it is intended to achieve.

Housing markets don’t fall neatly within local authority boundaries. Neither do labour markets, infrastructure requirements, training and education systems, or construction supply chains. Some decisions may benefit from coordination across a region; others require consistency across Scotland; and for some decisions, genuinely local circumstances may demand greater flexibility.

Scotland may have to start working through some of these questions sooner rather than later. More Homes Scotland provides an obvious example. The emerging national agency is expected to bring together funding, expertise, and delivery tools, while combining a stronger national focus with regional collaboration and local flexibility.

As its role develops, careful thought will be needed about what elements of its work benefit from national coordination, where working at a more regional, strategic scale adds value, and what decisions will be best made much closer to individual places.

But administrative boundaries aren’t the only ones worth examining. If governments are reconsidering whether built environment decisions currently sit at the most appropriate level to achieve the outcomes wanted, the conversation will need to extend beyond the powers already held in Scotland.

For example, when looking at the retrofit agenda, Scotland can set ambitions for improving and decarbonising its building stock and legislate to support them. However, VAT remains reserved at UK level, limiting Scotland’s ability to reform existing tax policy to better support retrofit works. The resulting disconnect between policy responsibility and the powers available to support delivery is precisely the kind of issue that should inform discussions about where decisions are best made.

Therefore, as governments reconsider the scope of devolution and ask where further powers can best be placed, they must willing to ask these questions more broadly. Ultimately, what matters is whether governance arrangements are structured to best support delivering the homes, buildings, and places Scotland needs.

Perhaps, then, Scotland’s devolution conversation shouldn’t begin with whether a particular structure or model of governance is needed. For the built environment, at least, I’d start one step earlier, asking instead: what outcomes does Scotland need to achieve, what decisions and powers are required to achieve them, and at what level can those decisions most effectively be made?