Burnham's plans are a warning to Whitehall, minister says

Andy Burnham's plans to oversee the biggest ever transfer of power from central government to local leaders are a "clear warning" to Whitehall, a cabinet minister has said.

Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, said at an event in London he backed the devolution proposals Burnham had set out earlier this week.

In a speech, Jones said "Westminster must trust local leaders to make the right decisions" and suggested government departments could "shrink" if Burnham becomes prime minister.

He said he liked Burnham's idea of "No 10 North" but urged Sir Keir Starmer's successor to "strengthen the centre" as well by creating a department for the prime minister in London.

Burnham is widely expected to become the next prime minister later this month when the Labour leadership contest concludes, following Sir Keir's resignation last week.

Launching his Labour leadership bid in a speech on Monday, Burnham said he wanted to redistribute power across the UK to "drive good growth in every postcode".

Burnham's core pledge was to devolve power to local communities away from senior civil servants in Whitehall, which he said had "blocked" progress in Greater Manchester where he had been mayor.

"It is time for Whitehall to accept that growth cannot be ordered from the top down - it can only be nurtured from the bottom up," Burnham said.

Speaking at the Remaking the State conference in London on Wednesday, Jones said Burnham had "rightly set out" how "overcentralisation of power and bureaucracy in Westminster can stifle growth, decision-making and opportunity".

"I just say to Whitehall with the direction the political winds are blowing, I think this is a clear warning," Jones said.

"Devolution must mean devolution, not duplication."

Jones has overseen structural changes to the machinery of government in his role as chief secretary to the prime minister, alongside enforcing policy delivery.

In January, Jones announced a plan to "rewire Whitehall" with initiatives including reducing bureaucratic checks and setting up taskforces to drive through policy priorities.

He has often complained that government is not operating effectively and needs to change, a critique he repeated at the Remaking the State conference.

Jones said reforming how government works can "distract the system from delivering on everyday issues the public faces" while also presenting opportunities.

"We either take this opportunity to remake the state and show the public we can get the job done, or we risk handing it to the populists who just want to tear it all down and leave people to fend for themselves," Jones said.

But Jones's focus on delivery teams has been criticised as "heavily centralising" in an article, external co-authored by Patrick Diamond, a former head of policy planning in No 10 Downing Street.

The article says such an approach "regards delivery as the transmission of control from the centre to the front line, rather than building capacity in the institutions, localities and services that have to sustain improvement once the attention of the centre has moved on".

Burnham has yet to set out how his plan to bring about "the biggest rebalancing of power our country has ever seen" would work alongside Jones's reformed Whitehall.

His proposed new No 10 North in Manchester, Burnham said, would make "power flow" across the country, with a focus on essential utilities, reindustrialisation and regeneration.