Most of England’s mayors do not have enough staff or experience to take on new powers being given to them by Andy Burnham, insiders and experts have told The i Paper.
The Prime Minister has put devolution at the centre of his drive to deliver “growth in every postcode”.
Chancellor John Healey is expected to set out a roadmap for how mayors will gain control of a share of income tax at next month’s Budget.
It could put them in charge of at least £21.5bn in taxpayers’ cash over the next four years, depending on which mayors are permitted to go ahead with the move and what percentage is allocated, according to research by the think-tank Centre for Cities.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), another think-tank close to Burnham, says mayors should be handed 5 per cent of all income tax raised in their areas.
Burnham’s government has also committed to giving mayors the power to introduce an Overnight Visitor Levy to raise extra cash from tourism.
‘We’re way off being able to handle income tax’
But most mayoral authorities remain relatively new and analysis by The i Paper suggests there is a vast disparity in their capacity to take on such complex responsibilities.
Greater Lincolnshire, which was formed in February 2025 and is led by Reform UK’s Dame Andrea Jenkyns, only had around eight staff until fairly recently, it is understood.
Hull and East Yorkshire, Tees Valley, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, East Midlands, the North East, South Yorkshire, the West of England and York and North Yorkshire all have headcounts between 50 to 500.
By comparison, Sheffield City Council has more than 8,500 employees while HMRC, the UK’s tax authority, has around 69,000 employees.
Mike Ross, the Lib Dem leader of Hull council, said that while he welcomes the Prime Minister’s “commitment to devolution”, there are a number of combined authorities who are “not ready” for all the responsibilities being proposed.
“Certainly in the case of HEYCA [Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority] it’s still in a formative stage, it’s still getting people in place, there are things it’s not ready to take on,” he said.
“For something as important as income tax we’re way off.
“If the Government moves responsibilities to combined authorities then they will have to move people and resource as well.”
Hull and East Yorkshire Mayor Luke Campbell with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in 2025 (Photo: Ryan Jenkinson/Getty Images)Oliver Coppard, the mayor for South Yorkshire, said although he wants fiscal powers “as soon as possible”, his authority would not be able to administrate local income tax collection as it stands.
“If the Government gives us the responsibility for collecting and managing that right now it would take a whole load of capacity that we don’t have,” he said.
“No combined authority has that, they might have more people but that [income tax collection] is a specific set of responsibilities and powers.
“It depends what model they [the Government] go with, there’s a world in which the Treasury do the work and then [the tax] is just passed to us.”
Coppard said there is a “live conversation with Government about responsibility versus capacity” but he praised Burnham’s government as understanding the issue better than either previous Tory administrations or that led by Sir Keir Starmer.
“It’s not an easy thing to do to reshape the state and we will keep working with them to deliver,” he added.
Local leaders may ask for mayors to be scrapped
In August, Burnham’s No 10 North announced that it intends to second “high-performing” civil servants out of Whitehall and into mayor authorities in a bid to “build capability”.
Between five and ten civil servants will be sent out for up to nine months in the initial pilot.
But beyond headcount, performance and political stability at mayoralties has also been mixed.
Three of the new authorities – Tees Valley, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, and West of England – have all been the subject of “Best Value” notices from the Government meaning there are serious concerns about governance.
The i Paper revealed this summer how businesses in Humberside are becoming increasingly frustrated by Reform mayors Luke Campbell in Hull and East Yorkshire and Andrea Jenkyns in Greater Lincolnshire due to their position on green industries.
Dame Andrea Jenkyns of the Reform Party speaks after she is declared the winner of the Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority Grimsby Town Hall in May last year (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)Reform’s hardline policy on the “Net Zero” agenda is “turning away jobs”, one source said.
Councillors have also warned that dissatisfaction with their performance could lead local authority leaders to trigger a clause in the devolution deals that allow the mayoralties to be scrapped in 2028 with approval from central government.
That could mean the Greater Lincolnshire and Hull and East Yorkshire authorities being axed in favour of a mayor for the Humber region.
‘Too many sceptics still think mayors are a waste of taxpayers’ money’
This week’s IPPR report says that “strong safeguards and accountability” are necessary for fiscal devolution to be a success, admitting that one “bad decision or mismanaged funding” from a mayor “risks turning public opinion against devolution and undoing progress everywhere”.
Lord Jim O’Neill, former Treasury minister and adviser to Burnham, is a supporter of fiscal devolution but admits there are still “far too many cynics” who think mayors are “an irrelevance, and a probable source of wasted taxpayers’ money”.
Regional mayors, including then-Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, take a selfie out No 10. The Government is due to spell out the details of its fiscal devolution plans at the Budget on 28 October (Photo: Justin Tallis/AFP)Writing in the IPPR report he says: “The way to respond to these sceptics is to ensure that the most populated areas, with the biggest potential to grow, are at the forefront of devolved powers.
“This is assuming they have the capacity to cope, the desire to be accountable and, of course, just like Greater Manchester has had, the aspiration to be bold.
“It is a simple mathematical fact that, if these areas all start to grow more strongly, the national economy will, by definition, do so as well and this will be to the benefit of all.”
A Government spokesperson said: “We’re rewiring this country so power is put back in the hands of local people where it belongs, not hoarded in Westminster.
“This includes offering the largest package of financial powers ever to English mayors by giving them a share of income tax revenues, so they can invest in what matters most to their community.
“We will publish more detail alongside the Autumn Budget.”
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