I think this is the point about 'levelling-up', which hasn't been picked up widely yet*.
Most of the stuff Johnson talked about yesterday was stuff that councils used to do, when they had any money. Now we have to have a mish-mash of mayors/ad hoc boards with varying powers to deliver it. Why?
Labour has raised concerns about the management of a flagship levelling up scheme after it emerged that decisions about one local £24m fund were primarily led by a group including the local MP, her husband, and others with personal or business links to some of the plans.
Documents also show that the towns fund board for Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire, co-chaired by Conservative MP Miriam Cates, met for eight months before members began filing details of personal interests, and that the scheme of governance was only published after more than a year.
