Matthew Fright

@matthewfright.bsky.social

1123 Followers 248 Following

Associate director - devolution @instituteforgovernment.org.uk formerly @nao.org.uk analyst. PhD on history of national income accounts. Views are my own.

IfG chart showing demand for mayoral devolution in Wessex, Surrey, Kent, the South Midlands, Leicestershire in addition to the existing priority programme and mayoralties
Government announcement saying: "We will also strengthen local accountability mechanisms to reflect the greater funding freedom for mayors: chief executives of mayoral strategic authorities will become Local Accounting Officers, accountable for the use of public money. There will be a stronger role for the Local Audit Office, and we will discuss with the National Audit Office how it can complement this. The outcomes framework for mayoral strategic authorities will also be streamlined to ensure that the government and the public can hold mayors accountable for good growth and addressing inequalities in their area. This will be supported by a strengthened focus on timely and accurate place-based data from the Office for National Statistics and other bodies that will support outcomes-based decision making in places. We will also ensure that there is a clear role for Members of Parliament in local accountability, working with mayors and local councillors. "
Extract from government announcement saying: "We will make sure mayors and local institutions have the necessary capability to deliver on these additional powers, underpinned by transferring funding and resource from government where functions are devolved. This will be complemented by a programme of wider capacity and capability support from government. "
An extract from the rewiring of the state cabinet statement outlining a strategic authority in place by 2028
An institute for government map showing areas by devolution and local government reorganisation status
An institute for government chart showing that by 2028 England still lacks full coverage of mayoral devolution
An institute for government map of English devolution showing areas with mayors and areas on the devolution priority programme
Extract from resignation letter by Steve Reed MP in which he said "At MHCLG, I sped up work to devolve power out of Whitehall and was grateful you acknowledged this "increasing clarity of drive towards devolution"
An IfG chart showing the 2026 Senedd regions prior to the 2026 electio
An English polling station at a local public library
An Institute for Government map showing the former constituency boundaries across 40 areas
Rhun ap Iorwerth on stage at the IfG
First Minister Eluned Morgan talking at the Institute for Government
A photo taken of an IfG panel event at the Labour Party Conference
An Institute for Government map showing the 164 district councils and 21 unitary authorities that have been asked to reorganise by the government
A map from the Institute for Government showing the current result of the four mayoralties up for election in May 2025 as at 10:15 on 2 May 2025 (1 Reform UK, 1 Labour, 2 yet to be announced). The other mayoralties have Labour mayors with the exception of Tees Valley which has a Conservative mayor.
An Institute for Government chart showing the areas up for election in May 2025
Andy Burnham and Akash Pain at the Institute for Government
A screenshot of the front page of the IfG report produced in partnership with Grant Thornton "Dual Delivery"
An Institute for Government chart showing the progress of the percentage of England's population covered by devolution. Starting from around 15% in 2014, this rose to almost 50% in 2025 and is projected to rise to almost 70% in 2026. At this time 80% of economic output will be covered by devolution and almost 60% of England's landmass
An institute for government map showing that Sussex, Hampshire, East Anglia, Kent, Cheshire, Cumbria and Lancashire are priorities for devolution
An extract from para 2.2.1 of the English Devolution White Paper showing the factors the government will consider when deciding on a "suitable geography" these are: scale, economies, contiguity, no devolution islands, delivery, alignment and identity
An extract from para 2.2.3 of the English Devolution White Paper showing that ministers will have new powers to compel areas to adopt devolution
An extract from the English Devolution White Paper showing non-mayoral deals are only a stepping stone to mayoral devolution
An extract from the English devolution White Paper which introduces the Devolution Priority Programme
An Institute for Government diagram summarising the rule for the voting on the NI democratic consent motion
An institute for governmetn graphic showing that most single tier governments in England have a median of between 200 and 300k residents while counties have a median of over 800k
An institute for government map showing the distribution of single tier and two tier local governments across the UK. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have single tier. In England many rural areas have two tier local government
Draft operating principles for Devolved Public Accounts Committees as outlined in Annex C of the IfG report 'A new deal for England: How the next government should complete the job of English devolution'
Picture shows Institute for Government Senior Researcher Matthew Fright speaking from a podium at the UK100 Climate Leadership Academy.
A map from the Institute for Government showing the local authority type across each upper tier local authority in the South East administrative region. In no area is there an operational devolution settlement.
A map from the Institute for Government showing devolution deals in Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester. The councils in Cumbria, Lancashire and Cheshire currently have no operational devolution institutions
A map from the Institute for Government showing devolution to areas in Yorkshire and the Humber with combined authorities in West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, and York & North Yorkshire. Hull and East Yorkshire will have a mayor from 2025
An institute for government map showing the devolution to the North East - spanning the North East Combined Authority and Tees Valley Combined Authority
Two Institute for Government maps showing proposals for how to complete the map of English devolution. Full details on the options are available in the report available on our website.
A line chart from the Institute for Government showing social worker vacancies in children's social care between 2013/14 and 2022/23, where vacancies increase from a baseline of 14% to almost 17% in 2015/16 afterwards the rate declines to almost 16% in 2020/21. However there is a marked one year increase to a series high of 20% in 2022/23
A line chart from the Institute for Government showing children's social workers, full-time equivalent, between 2013/14 and 2022/23, where workforce figures increase from a baseline of 22,910 in 2013/14 to 32,502 in 2021/22. In 2022/23 however there is the first decline in the data series to 31,643.
A line chart from the Institute for Government showing children in care and child protection plans between 2009/10 and 2021/22 where children in care increase from a baseline of almost 65,00 to just over 82,000 while child protection plans increase from a baseline of almost 39,000 to 50,900 over the same period.
A line chart from the Institute for Government showing Referrals to children's social care, 2012/13–2021/22, where referrals increased from a baseline of fewer than 594,000 in 2012/13 to between 660,000 and 620,00 between 2013/14 and 2019/20. After four years of relatively little change, referrals dropped markedly in 2020/21 to approximately 598,000 before increasing to 650,000 in 2021/22.
An extract from the 2023 annual report and accounts from the Department for Education showing looked after children placement market failure as "critical-very likely", the same rating as school buildings risk
A line chart from the Institute for Government showing the Change in local authority spending on children's social care and non-social care services since 2009/10 in real terms, where spend on social care spend lines such as children in care and family support services increased by 49 and 43% respectively between 2009.10 and 2021/22, while spending non social care activities such as services for young people and sure start children's centres and other spend on children under 5 decreased by 71% and 73% over the same period.