For a decade, the devolved administrations have been altering services to suit their own populations. But as Shafik Meghji finds, when services diverge, the resulting cross-border tensions can hit service users.
On April Fool’s Day 2008, the Department for Transport (DfT) made a widely-popular move: it expanded the concessionary fares scheme. This gave everyone aged 60 and above (and many disabled people) free off-peak travel on local buses throughout England – rather than in just their local authority area of residence, as was the case previously.
A problem soon emerged, however: English residents living close to Wales or Scotland could not use their passes across the border, even if that was where their closest amenities were located. Residents of Wales and Scotland – both of whom offer similar concessionary schemes – faced the same problem accessing English buses. While some local authorities subsequently acted to smooth out this anomaly – at their own expense – many have not, leaving a confused and often impractical situation.
Concessionary fares are just a small example of a much larger issue. In the decade since devolution, the form and nature of services offered by the devolved administrations has diverged from those in England, with the result that near neighbours can often receive very different services. The administrations in Cardiff and Edinburgh, meanwhile, complain that distant policymakers in Whitehall sometimes fail to take into account the tensions created by policies designed for England or the UK as a whole. As Tom Shakespeare, director of policy and research at think tank Localis, says: “In general terms, we believe variation in provision is a positive thing… However, there are a number of challenges in this.”
The House of Commons Welsh affairs committee has closely examined cross-border tensions, which affect tens of thousands of people (100,000 Welsh people, for example, commute across the border to work every day; around 30,000 Scots do the same). Last year the committee argued that policymakers in Cardiff and London were failing to consider the impact of policy differences on either side of the border: “As a consequence, some of those needing to cross the border for access to public services are receiving a poorer quality of service,” said its report.
Since then, according to committee chair Dr Hywel Francis, things have improved. “I would now describe them as challenges rather than problems,” he says. “Civil servants and politicians have recognised the need for a collaborative approach. I think our reports and inquiries have helped throw a spotlight on these issues.”
The willingness of senior civil servants to contribute to the committee’s work, the efforts of the UK government’s regional ministers, and a shared political will between Cardiff and Westminster have all helped to tackle the problems (see box at the foot of this feature), according to Francis. However, some issues remain difficult, notably cross-border transport and infrastructure.
A prime example is the A483 trunk road, which runs from Swansea to Chester via Carmarthenshire, Powys, Shropshire and Wrexham. Although it’s a vital link between North and South Wales – described as “strategically important” by the Welsh Assembly Government – the road is not a priority for the English local authorities through which it passes en route. As a result, little is spent on maintaining or widening the English stretches of the road (some parts are single carriageway). “Wales is a very small country,” says Francis. “The kind of issues we are dealing with – trunk roads, for example – are not a high priority for the English regions they are in. There’s also been a lack of proper engagement on the part of the DfT.”
The England-Scotland border has also seen tensions over transport, among other issues. In March, the UK government announced plans for a high-speed rail network, initially connecting London and Birmingham (at a cost of £17bn), with a later extension planned to Scotland. Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy said the Scottish government will have to contribute to the funding for this extension. However, Stewart Stevenson MSP, the Scottish Government’s transport minister, insisted that cross-border services are a matter for the UK government.
Mohammad Sarwar MP, chair of the House of Commons Scottish affairs committee, says this highlights the need for improved channels of communication between the UK and Scottish governments, as well as greater “mutual respect”. “During the first two Scottish parliamentary sessions, we had Labour governments [in Scotland],” he says. “In 2007, the SNP came into power.” This has changed the working relationship, he explains: “Devolution has worked well, but sometimes there is political point-scoring. [Politicians] have to work together, otherwise there will be major challenges ahead.”
Sarwar also emphasises the need for civil servants to be better informed about devolution. This need has been recognised by cabinet secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell, who recently carried out awareness-raising work in Whitehall. There are also plans to have “devolution specialists/champions” in each UK government department. These moves have been welcomed by Francis, though he sounds a note of caution: “It is not enough to have one ‘devolution champion’ in each department; you need a comprehensive and all-inclusive programme to make people aware of the issues.”
In another positive move, last month the joint ministerial committee (made up of ministers from the UK government and the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish administrations) agreed a Memorandum of Understanding to help avoid “disputes between the administrations and [resolve] disputes where they cannot be avoided”. And many commentators argue that, following a learning curve, the authorities on both sides of the borders have acted to tackle many of these tensions. Devolution – in both the Welsh and Scottish contexts – fundamentally changed the structures of governance in the UK; in many ways, it is a surprise there have not been bigger difficulties.
“We have witnessed major constitutional change over the last decade,” says Francis. “The Government of Wales Act was the biggest transfer of power to Wales since 1536. I think there would have been greater problems if there hadn’t been a real will to overcome them.”
Borderline health: divisions in the NHS
In recent years, healthcare has been a significant tension on the Welsh-English border. In 2008-9, 20,000 people resident in England were registered with a Welsh GP, while 15,000 people resident in Wales were registered with an English GP. Around 54,000 Welsh residents were treated in English hospitals, while Welsh NHS Trusts admitted 11,500 residents from outside Wales.
In March 2009, the House of Commons Welsh affairs committee reported much confusion among patients over issues including prescription charges – Welsh residents get free prescriptions, while English residents have to pay – and different clinical and waiting time targets on either side of the border. Cross-border healthcare providers, meanwhile, have to cope with two different funding and commissioning systems. In 2005, the UK government introduced the ‘payment by results’ scheme (PbR) for English hospitals; the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) did not. The scheme is complex, but in practice meant that English hospitals were paid less for treating Welsh patients than they were for English patients.
Following the committee’s report and negotiations between the WAG and Whitehall, the Department of Health agreed to provide an extra £12m a year to the WAG so that English hospitals could be paid the higher PbR fees for their Welsh patients.