Building the plane while flying it: what the East Midlands teaches us about devolution and the next generation of Combined Authorities

David Marlow
Apr 30
5 min read

“We’ve been building the aeroplane while flying it.”

That line from Mayor Claire Ward of the East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA), delivered in her guest appearance on LED Confidential, captures something essential about England’s second generation of Mayoral Combined Authorities. Unlike Greater Manchester or the West Midlands—places with decades of collaboration, pre‑existing transport authorities, and deeply embedded civic identities—the new wave of MCAs are being asked to deliver visible change at pace while simultaneously inventing the institutional machinery required to do it.

In this very special LEDC episode, many themes stood out. These five seem relevant not just to the East Midlands, but to every emerging Combined Authority and every practitioner working in local economic development today. But let us know what you picked out from our conversation with Mayor Claire.

East Midlands region map Nottingham Derby towns countryside transport routes regional identity

The New MCAs should not be merely scaled‑down followers of Greater Manchester and the West Midlands

Mayor Ward puts it plainly: “The model we’ve seen in Manchester or the West Midlands may not be appropriate for those that come after.”

New and emerging MCAs must be designed with underlying geography, institutional history, and political economy in mind. Mayor Claire is building a new institution representing two distinctive cities, 15 districts, and a population spread across dozens of small towns and rural communities. And EMCCA needs to recognise that many residents look outwards—to Sheffield, Manchester, Leicester—as much as to Nottingham or Derby.

Policy tools that work in dense conurbations don’t automatically translate to polycentric, semi‑rural regions. Transport, skills, public service integration, and even data availability look different. For LED practitioners, this is a reminder: devolution is not a franchise model. It’s a design challenge.

Collaboration Is the real superpower—and it must be built, not assumed

EMCCA’s early success has come from building a shared narrative across institutions that have not historically worked as closely together as is now required. That shared sense of “we haven’t had our fair share” has become a unifying story across cities, counties, districts, and anchor institutions. But that complaint (which may be shared by many geographies) is not enough – a substantive narrative needs to be built.

For EMCCA, an Inclusive Growth Commission, chaired by Andy Haldane, played a pivotal role. It held up a mirror to the region—identifying assets, weaknesses, and opportunities—and created a common language for growth. Mayor Claire notes:“There was universal acceptance of the conclusions of the Inclusive Growth Commission.”

This is significant. In a region with political diversity and multiple tiers of government, consensus is not a given. It must be engineered. The lesson for other emerging MCAs is clear: Agree a shared diagnosis. Expect to build the narrative before you build the institution.

Visible, practical delivery still matters—but only if you build capacity first

Mayor Claire is candid about the tension between building organisational capability and delivering visible change.

“If I go out on the doorsteps and say, ‘I’ve built an organisation,’ they’re not going to give me much credit for that.”

Yet without that organisational foundation, nothing else is possible.

Despite starting with just 20 interim staff EMCCA is in the process of delivering change. A £2bn City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement—secured before a full transport plan existed; deployment of the Adult Skills Fund; major progress on retrofit, reducing heating bills for low‑income households; these are direct from the MCA stable and requirements of devolution agreements.

But the High Peak youth travel scheme enabling 16‑year‑olds to access FE colleges (some outside the region itself) without over £800 annual travel costs is an especially powerful example of EMCCA’s real world impact.

The first term of new MCAs must concurrently build institutional capacity and capabilities whilst demonstrating delivery of recognisable changes locally.

Fiscal devolution underpins systems reform

Mayor Claire confirms: “All of the mayors are signed up to greater fiscal devolution.”

Coming in the immediate aftermath of Rachel Reeves Mais Lecture, mainstreaming fiscal devolution will mark a shift toward devolution by default rather than devolution by exception.

For EMCCA, and other emerging MCAs, the prizes are clear: “Established” status, Integrated Settlements, flexibility to vire budgets between capital and revenue spending, local tax tools, starting with the Overnight Visitor Levy, and potential future shares of other taxes. Mayor Claire argues that the current system—where MCAs receive capital but lack revenue to develop pipelines—is unsustainable. “Capital is welcome, but without revenue we cannot deploy it effectively.”

The agenda for MCAs and their LED teams between now and the Autumn Statement is to convince Government that they can effectively operate new powers resourced through new fiscal architectures.

Without co-terminosity of administrative boundaries and public service integration MCAs will struggle to achieve transformative change

Mayor Claire does not pull her punches on co‑terminosity—the alignment of policy and admirative boundaries across health, skills, employment, policing, and fire. Right now, the East Midlands Integrated Care Board covers Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and part of Lincolnshire—meaning two mayors are involved. Mayor Claire is blunt:“I opposed that from the very beginning.”

EMCCA’s flagship Get East Midlands Working mission depends on NHS collaboration, DWP alignment, Skills providers, Local authorities, Transport connectivity, Housing and planning powers. Without coterminous boundaries, the levers don’t line up. We need to win the arguments for place-based system supremacy over fragmented national departmental geographies.

Conclusion: East Midlands devolution as a blueprint for the next wave

What emerges from this conversation is a portrait of a region inventing a new model of devolution in real time. It is more rural, more polycentric, more institutionally fragmented, more dependent on Mayoral convening powers, and more reliant on building capacity from scratch.

This is much more representative of the next generation of MCAs than Greater Manchester or the West Midlands ‘trailblazers’ were. If the first generation of MCA devolution was about proving the concept, the second generation is about designing and for diverse cultures and contexts.

Mayor Claire’s experience offers a set of design principles for every emerging MCA:

Start with narrative, not structures
Build capacity early—even before the Mayor arrives
Deliver visible wins fast, but don’t sacrifice system‑building
Push for fiscal flexibility—it’s the real enabler
Fight for co‑terminosity—missions need aligned levers

For LED practitioners, as Mayor Claire says upfront, we are going to need to “help places build the plane while flying it—without crashing it.”