Your editorial (22 July) rightly identifies the structural paradox at the heart of Andy Burnham’s devolution agenda – that it takes a confident assertion of central power to give real power away. But one institutional mechanism that goes some way to resolving this paradox operationally deserves mention: the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (Nista), which has sat jointly between the Treasury and the Cabinet Office since April 2025.
Inherited from Keir Starmer’s government, Nista (with about 250 civil servants) merges what were the National Infrastructure Commission and the Infrastructure and Projects Authority into a single body reporting simultaneously to both departments. Under Starmer, the Cabinet Office side of that dual accountability was relatively weak. Under Louise Haigh’s new Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet – explicitly endorsed by the Institute for Government as implementing long-called-for structural reforms – that balance may shift.
