Devolution has been in vogue since the Scottish independence referendum; local leaders seized their opportunity to demand more powers from Westminster and the response they got from both Tories and Labour was generally favourable. But the debate in England has been skewed to large metropolitan areas. While that is great for Greater Manchester or Birmingham, it leaves most of England’s population outside of a devolution deal, and control over their lives remains in Westminster as much as ever. We cannot allow Osborne to claim the role of the great devolver.

So it is really welcome that IPPR has published a report – Empowering Counties: Unlocking County Devolution Deals – that explores how devolution can be done in the English counties. They do, after all, represent half the country’s population and a sizeable proportion of our economy. County areas face serious challenges both economically and socially: low productivity and wages, skills mismatches, and a higher proportion of older people than is the case in cities.

But county deals are often more complicated that urban ones – bringing leaders of metropolitan authorities together may require some negotiation, but counties often cover a diversity of district, county and unitary councils. What’s more, in the words of the report, it has become clear that Osborne has some unwritten rules for devolution deals. These include scale, for which there may be valid bureaucratic arguments but will also be more problematic in areas where there are distinctive local identities in place. Without strong local leadership, this could potentially threaten the local legitimacy of devolution deals.

In total the IPPR has four recommendations:

1. Greater clarification of the purpose, process and timescale for devolution deal making.
2. Establishing a principle of co-terminosity with local enterprise partnerships for economic development.
3. An explicit acceptance that other models of accountability, beyond mayors, might be more appropriate for county areas.
4. Greater emphasis on sharing good practice.

These are useful contributions to the debate, however a broad brushed application would potentially limit the ambition of counties and could ignore local circumstances.

The first of these is key. A strong narrative about purpose could ensure counties gain traction with the government. IPPR suggests that economic development, rather than public sector reform, should be the driver of deals. But this is too limiting, counties should not necessarily allow themselves to receive less devolution than urban areas. Less devolution may sometimes be what is locally appropriate, but to start from this point would be defeating. Similarly, local areas should reflect on whether their LEP is the suitable boundary for devolution– not all areas consider that their LEP boundary was appropriately drawn and careful thought should be put in before committing to it.

The recommendation regarding mayors is also too sweeping. The country could potentially be drawn into a situation where (largely Labour) cities have elected mayors and (largely not Labour) counties do not. This would seem hypocritical from a Tory chancellor who has demanded elected mayors in the deals he has done so far. This is not to argue that every deal should come with an elected mayor, but merely to say that a binary division between the suitability of mayors for urban versus rural areas is simplistic. Both city and county deals should be open, but not forced, to accepting mayors.

Devolution admits that our country is diverse and allows local people to have greater say over their local economy and public services. Therefore it cannot be allowed to stop at metropolitan areas, and so it is welcome that the IPPR has moved the debate on. While it is certainly true that devolution deals become more difficult in areas with multiple forms of local governance, it is not impossible. What’s more, since half the population lives in these areas it is in fact vital. Local politicians should not be afraid to demand more control, and they should be supported in their quests to get the right powers locally.

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Nicola Heaton is a councillor on Nottingham city council and was parliamentary candidate for Mid Derbyshire in 2015. She tweets @NicolaHeaton