Dysfunction in Ireland a poor reason to not back Andy Burnham’s plan to devolve power

Sir, – It was rather odd of John FitzGerald to cite Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland as examples to argue against Andy Burnham’s plan for regional devolution in England (“Burnham’s plan to devolve power to UK regions is unlikely to work”, July 27th). It would be hard to find two jurisdictions among the world’s advanced economies with more dysfunctional governance systems than these.

FitzGerald could have pointed to continental Europe, where there are many cases of very effective devolved governance systems. In Sweden, for example, almost all public services are delivered at municipal (mostly) and regional levels.

The key to successful devolution is to transfer both functions and the raising of finance to fund these functions to regional and local levels. This imposes budgetary responsibility while also making it clearer to citizens how their tax money is being spent.

In Sweden, almost all income tax is raised at the local level and goes straight to municipalities to fund the wide range of public services which they provide (with provision of some transfers from wealthier to poorer municipalities to ensure minimum standards of service provision). – Yours, etc,