Burnham to dispatch 100 Whitehall officials to help regional mayors

Civil service scheme announced after PM convened local leaders to ‘situation room’ meeting from No 10 North

Andy Burnham is to send more than 100 Whitehall officials to bolster the teams of regional mayors, after convening leaders from across England from his base at No 10 North to discuss how to spread growth.

The government described the meeting as a “situation room” to bring local and regional leaders into national decision-making.

After the call led by Burnham, the government said five to 10 civil servants would be sent to every mayoral authority for secondments of less than a year during a pilot programme in 18 mayoralties.

Mayors requested the extra capacity at the first meeting of Burnham’s National Economic Council at the end of last month.

There will also be a new civil service fast stream pilot in Yorkshire and Humber, and an expansion of the future leaders scheme, which trains high performers in the civil service, to mayoral and local authority officials.

Burnham said his No 10 North office was “bringing together mayors from different political parties to work on these challenges, because people deserve problem-solving rather than point-scoring”.

His deputy, Louise Haigh, said it marked an end to “the days of Westminster hoarding power” and would be the biggest transition of power and resources in a generation away from Whitehall.

Mayors have long been requesting more firepower from Whitehall, although on their own terms to request help and talent rather than having officials sent from London to monitor their activities – which has happened when local authorities are struggling.

Among the cabinet ministers at Friday’s meeting discussing growth across the country were Haigh, the chancellor, John Healey, the housing secretary, Angela Rayner, and Sally Jameson, a housing minister, with mayors from across the country dialling in.

Burnham’s creation of No 10 North was one of his first acts as prime minister, combining in a powerful new department with No 10 in London, and taking in parts of the Cabinet Office, Treasury and housing ministry to become the “dominant driver of the UK’s economy”.

The operation is led by his ally and enforcer Haigh, who is overseeing the No 10 operation in London, No 10 North in Manchester and parts of the Cabinet Office.

As part of the shift, Burnham has said No 10 North will take on responsibility for driving local growth, potentially weakening the power of the Treasury. However, Healey stressed on Friday that growth would be a “dual mission”.

Addressing the meeting, he said the government had “demonstrated across a range of fronts that we’re a government that just is getting on with getting things done and that includes on growth”.

“The determination to see good growth in every postcode. And that is central to the Treasury, as the government’s economics, as well as its finance ministry. But it is a dual mission between No 11 and No 10 North. And it’s a dual mission that has to become the shared endeavour of all departments in government and a shared endeavour between national, regional and local leaders.”