There is good news for the north-east of England this week, as its devolution deal – effectively paused since March – is back on track. Six of the seven members of the leadership board of the North-East Combined Authority (NECA) voted yesterday to support the establishment of a mayoral combined authority, empowered to make key decisions on the regional economy, transport, and skills development.

Durham and Northumberland councils had delayed their decision pending further information about long-term funding and rural issues, but joined Newcastle, Sunderland and North and South Tyneside in accepting the deal. Gateshead remains opposed; its councillors stress their support in principle for devolution, but argue that the current offer doesn’t represent a fair financial settlement for the region.

This turns Gateshead into something of an ideological island. Assuming no change of heart – a possibility which was raised by the outgoing council leader following the NECA meeting – the map of the north east now effectively forms a ‘devolution doughnut’ with Gatehead the hole in the middle. This is going to be challenging; NewcastleGateshead is more than a brand.

And when it comes to economic development, it is linked by seven iconic bridges and many workers commute easily between the two authorities on a day-to-day basis. On transport, the region’s vital Metro trains run through Gateshead, and the town sits between the two rivers – the Tyne and the Wear – that give a large part of the north-east its name. It is not at all clear how the devolution deal can somehow exclude Gateshead from the wider benefits that might accrue.

It is easy to dismiss Gateshead’s withdrawal from the devolution deal as a hangover from old-fashioned political positions, but the progress of deal-by-deal devolution across England suggests that the north-east may not be the only area where this kind of question arises: a deal for Leeds has yet to emerge from the apparent stalemate in Yorkshire, and some county deals have met with local opposition and internal dissent, from East Anglia to the south-west.

If the government had adopted a more coherent and transparent approach, with much clearer objectives and offers for devolution, many of these delays and disputes could have been avoided. There is an effective – and important – consensus that devolution will boost regional economic growth, but the formation of deals by ‘precedent not policy’ means that the position over devolution of key public services, and the relationship to local government reform, are unclear.

And the ad hoc and ‘deal by deal’ approach tends to work better for areas with established boundaries and structures (such as big cities) than for those with highly diverse communities and geographies. The lack of clarity over what is on the table for devolved authorities, at this stage and in the future, can raise the suspicion that Whitehall wants to hold onto quite a bit of control.

But the north-east has far more to gain from taking the elements of self-government which are on offer, and playing a full part of a new – if imperfect – direction for the North than from hanging onto a system which will inevitably fragment and become secondary as devolution spreads and matures. Even if funding is limited and less than ideal, surely it is better to have more, rather than less say over how that funding is spent. Six of the region’s seven council leaders, a majority of its elected members in local government, and the north-east business community are in favour of having the biggest possible say in the region’s future – and of staying in the room where the next phase of devolution is shaped, or hammered out.

This is not the time for doughnut-shaped dealmaking: this is the time for arguing for doughnuts filled with more jam.

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Anna Round is a senior research fellow at IPPR North. She tweets at @annainnewcastle

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