Abstract
When examining intergovernmental relations within the devolved UK state, scholars have largely focused on the intergovernmental machinery itself and the nature of executive relations. Instead, this article focuses on transparency and scrutiny of the intergovernmental relations system. It asks why governments have become increasingly transparent in their conduct of intergovernmental relations, potentially opening themselves up to enhanced parliamentary scrutiny. In tracing the introduction of government-enacted transparency measures (at both the UK and devolved levels) since 1999, this article argues that the years around 2016 and 2022 marked key moments for greater openness of intergovernmental relations. The article contends that the opening up of intergovernmental processes to parliamentary examination – while far from complete – occurred chiefly as a response to changing political-constitutional contexts. The dramatic intergovernmental ‘high politics’ surrounding the Scottish independence referendum and Brexit proved decisive in securing greater government transparency, following other long-standing, often unsuccessful, campaigns for enhanced scrutiny.
Introduction
Devolution, introduced by the UK Labour Government in the late 1990s, has given rise to an often ad hoc and informal system of intergovernmental relations (IGR) between the UK and devolved administrations (McEwen et al., 2018). Scholars are generally agreed that IGR refers to the ‘relationships between the various administrations or executives that are now responsible for government’ in a given polity (Trench, 2007a: 1; Elazar, 1987: 14). Since 1999, scholars have focused on analysing the changing nature of IGR structures and dynamics in the UK. As such, there remain key questions around the transparency and accountability of this higher-order, intergovernmental level of administration. How transparent are intergovernmental interactions? What are the ways in which parliamentarians are scrutinising IGR? How effectively are UK legislatures investigating the major policy decisions being made on an intergovernmental basis?
This article traces the various transparency measures introduced by UK governments since 1999 in order to make IGR more accessible for parliamentarians and the wider public alike. In turn, this article demonstrates a steady improvement in the openness of IGR, with the most dramatic increases in the number of government-enacted, self-imposed transparency measures occurring around 2016 and 2022. As well as revealing exactly how open IGR really is, this article answers the central research question: why have UK governments facilitated enhanced transparency of IGR, potentially subjecting themselves to greater parliamentary (and public) scrutiny?
This article argues that the rationales behind these government-introduced transparency measures have been less than altruistic. They have not primarily been in the name of good governance nor improved accountability. Instead, it is argued that the deepening of highly technical intergovernmental working necessitated by Brexit – alongside rising tensions between UK governments – drove executives to open up IGR processes to parliamentary and public scrutiny. At a time of heightened constitutional and political stakes, government actors felt compelled to ensure legislatures were kept well-informed of these intensified (and often fractious) intergovernmental interactions – if only to prove their own track record of reasonableness within intergovernmental negotiations. Even before Brexit, in Scotland, the high-profile intergovernmental negotiations surrounding and following the 2014 independence referendum is what drove the introduction of enhanced transparency measures. In essence, the proliferation of high-stakes, contested and conflictual intergovernmental negotiations of parliamentary and public interest has driven governments’ self-imposition of transparency measures. Overall, the article also reveals that the transparency measures which have been introduced are far from comprehensive, with the vast majority of IGR still occurring informally and behind closed doors. A culture of IGR transparency is far from embedded. As such, there has not yet been a major shift from a culture of IGR transparency to a culture of IGR scrutiny in which the UK’s ministers and civil servants are tangibly held to account for their contributions to intergovernmental decision-making.
This article is significant for three key reasons. The first relates to the ‘normative repercussions’ of intergovernmental decision-making (Bolleyer, 2009: 10). Much comparative federalism research has noted that higher-order layers of government can evade direct scrutiny more easily (Bolleyer, 2009; Poirier, 2023; Saunders, 2020). This contribution helps advance these wider academic debates about whether and how intergovernmental decision-making hinders democratic accountability by exploring the UK (Moreno, 2010; Sharman, 1990). Moreover, this research exposes the accountability gaps in UK governance by assessing how (in)transparent IGR is and what that transparency depends on. The importance of transparency and strong parliamentary oversight of executive decision-making is well-known (Garnett and Lynch, 2013; Norton, 2016: 1051; White, 2015). Where decision-making is opaque and governments are not properly held accountable, UK publics can, in turn, lose trust in democratic institutions (Bovens, 2007: 455). This article is a timely intervention in this regard, given that the UK IGR system is becoming increasingly embedded (Guderjan, 2023; PACAC, 2016; Scottish Parliament, 2018a; Welsh Government, 2017a).
Second, this article provides a foundation within the parliamentary studies literature for further assessments of the quality of IGR scrutiny. Parliamentary scholars have thoroughly researched the ways in which MPs (and, to a much lesser extent peers, MSPs and MSs) scrutinise their governments’ policies and bills within their own individual jurisdictions. However, they have yet to examine thoroughly how – and how well – legislatures conduct oversight of their ministers within intergovernmental settings (let alone how parliaments work together to achieve this). By mapping the ways in which parliamentarians access information about IGR, this article answers the ‘how’, creating a foundation for further exploration of ‘how well’.
Third, the findings of this article provide greater insight into a potentially decisive variable in the dynamics of UK IGR. The ways in which parliamentarians scrutinise IGR could have a definitive influence on the direction of intergovernmental decision-making (McEwen et al., 2015). Up to this point, the IGR scholarship has largely neglected to consider the parliamentary pressures that lie behind intergovernmental decision-making, instead focusing on such influencing factors as political incongruency, electoral prospects and the constitutional and economic contexts (McEwen et al., 2012a). There are thus critical observations of IGR dynamics which have gone unmade. This article constitutes a map of the developing ways in which parliamentarians could influence intergovernmental decision-making, providing a basis from which to deepen analyses of IGR dynamics.
Documentary evidence provides the primary data for the analysis in this article, namely intergovernmental agreements, government publications, committee outputs and the reports of independent commissions. 1 These sources are synthesised to map the development of transparency measures (see Maps 1, 2 and 3). The parliamentary and commissioned works are tabulated to discern their influence on the development of these measures (see Table 1). In addition, four author-conducted interviews (with two parliamentarians, one civil servant and one parliamentary official) provide cross-references with the documents. This article is organised chronologically, exploring the major changes taken place in IGR transparency; how these changes have been shaped by various competing pressures and developing political-constitutional contexts; and how legislatures across the UK have responded similarly or differently to these influences.
Transparency measures, 1999–2016.a
Transparency measures, 2016–2022.a
Transparency measures, 2022–present.
IGR transparency recommendations, 1999–present.
What has the scholarship on IGR revealed so far?
The global comparative federalism literature has generally focused on more formal constitutional institutions (e.g. territorial second chambers), rather than IGR, to understand centre-local dynamics. Moreover, when scholars have drawn comparisons between IGR systems around the world, transparency and accountability structures have rarely featured and the UK has often been omitted as a comparator case study. 2 While making perhaps the most detailed contribution to the global study of IGR thus far, Bolleyer (2009) compared Canada, Switzerland and the United States (p. 2). Moreover, she kept the ‘normative repercussions’ of enhanced IGR (i.e. the potential reduction in transparency and accountability of government decision-making) ‘separate’ from her major empirical contributions (Bolleyer, 2009: 10). Bolleyer and Thorlakson (2012) have also argued that scholars should analyse both the level of ‘decentralisation’ within a polity and the ‘interdependence’ it creates with other levels of government (p. 569). However, they did not specifically highlight intergovernmental interactions, instead measuring levels of interdependence by exploring formal power allocations (‘legislative competences, administrative competences, and fiscal powers’) (Bolleyer and Thorlakson, 2012: 570). Moreover, they compared 11 federal systems, but did not include the UK (Bolleyer and Thorlakson, 2012: 576). Similarly, Poirier et al. (2015) did not include the UK in their comparison of 13 ‘federal or federal-type’ systems (p. 2, 4, 29).
While Agranoff (2004) specifically focused on intergovernmental interactions (including Scotland/UK in his comparison of eight cases), neither the role of parliaments nor the nature of IGR transparency was a focal point (pp. 51–52). In 2016, Hooghe et al. contributed one of the most influential – and certainly one of the most cited – works within the comparative federalism and territorial politics fields, building on Hooghe et al.’s (2008) study. Their Regional Authority Index assesses the level of ‘self-rule’ and ‘shared rule’ which subnational governments can exercise (Hooghe et al., 2016: 26). 3 One of their dimensions specifically measures the extent to which a subnational executive ‘co-determines national policy in intergovernmental meetings’, including within the UK (Hooghe et al., 2016: 26). However, being designed for large-n studies, there is no specific analysis of the transparency or accountability measures built into IGR systems.
In many ways, the UK literature mirrors this global scholarship in that IGR has not featured greatly within territorial politics studies, and assessments of transparency and accountability therein have yet to emerge. The UK’s territorial politics scholarship has generally not been concerned with understanding the ways in which different centres of power have interacted with each other (nor, post-devolution, with understanding the IGR system). From the 1960s, there was a flurry of works on Scottish and Northern Irish politics which examined the rise of nationalisms and devolution in Northern Ireland pre-1972 (Butt, 1975; Harvie, 1977; Kellas, 1973; Whyte, 1990). 4 However, understanding how decentralised actors influenced, cooperated with or resisted UK-level decision-making largely fell out with the remit of such works. Several notable UK state-centric studies have also sought to locate power within the UK (Bogdanor, 1979; Madgwick and Rose, 1982; Rose, 1982; Rhodes, 1988). The most influential of these studies has perhaps been Bulpitt’s (2008) Territory and Power in the United Kingdom: An Interpretation which gave us an understanding of how the ‘centre’ has conducted territorial policy for the UK as a whole. The advent of devolution then saw many territorial scholars herald a key stage in the development of Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish and English nationhood and/or statehood (Jones and Balsom, 2000; Keating, 2005; Kenny, 2014; Lynch, 2001; Rawlings, 2003; Ruane and Todd, 2001; Taylor and Thomson, 1999). Many scholars also took a Westminster-centric approach to understanding the impact of devolution (Bogdanor, 1999, 2009; O’Neill, 2004). Again, these approaches have tended not to analyse the intergovernmental mechanisms and interactions of the newly devolved union.
There are various potential reasons why this literature – whether nation-specific/UK-wide or pre-/post-1999 – has generally not focused on IGR structures and interactions. Of course, IGR mechanisms have not featured greatly in the UK’s constitutional make-up. Pre-devolution, as far as Scotland and Wales were concerned, there was technically no formal IGR (nor shared rule) for scholars to study, at least by all conventional metrics (Hooghe et al., 2016; McEwen, 2016). Moreover, the devolution settlements did not (and, in some ways, still do not) have coherent, formalised IGR arrangements. For Northern Ireland, the operation of devolution arrangements ceased in 1972 with the onset of The Troubles (Mitchell, 2007; Trench, 2007a). In addition, since the 1990s, devolution has been first and foremost understood (by academics and political actors) as a centrifugal decentralising process: it has been couched in and justified by principles of self-rule (Hooghe et al., 2016: 23). While greater self-rule necessitates intensified IGR, it has perhaps been treated as a less interesting by-product. It seems that taking a view from the ‘centre’ – from Westminster – has been more comfortable for both academics and politicians because it more easily reflects the received orthodoxy of the unitary nature of the UK’s constitution. The devolution settlements (as understood in self-rule terms) have been widely seen as consistent with a traditional Westminster model of governance. Therefore, it is perhaps natural that scholars should study where it is perceived that power remains, that is, not in intergovernmental decision-making, but at Westminster (however untrue that may be).
Within the (albeit comparatively limited) literature which has examined the UK IGR system, it is clear that there is much space for the analysis of IGR transparency and parliamentary scrutiny. Indeed, the key studies on UK IGR have not questioned the accountability of intergovernmental decision-making (Bulmer et al., 2006; Guderjan, 2023; Hunt and Minto, 2017; Kenealy, 2012; Kenny, 2024; McEwen, 2017; McEwen et al., 2020; Simeon, 2000). In 2012, a special issue of this journal focused on the UK’s IGR system (McEwen et al., 2012b). The issue specifically explored IGR – both their ‘nature’ and ‘composition’ – within the context of party (in)congruence from 1999 to 2011 (McEwen et al., 2012b: 188). However, none of the issue’s ‘key questions’ related to IGR transparency or the influence of UK legislatures (McEwen et al., 2012b: 187, 192). When there is reference to parliaments, it is mainly in terms of inter-legislative relations, not in terms of parliamentary scrutiny of inter-executive interactions (Cairney, 2012). Arnott and Evans have written considerably on interparliamentary relations, outlining the infrastructures for interactions and summarising the case for reform (Arnott, 2020, 2024; Evans, 2019). Arnott noted the role of interparliamentary forums in scrutinising IGR, observing the ‘absence of any formal mechanisms for oversight’ of IGR (Arnott, 2020: 21). While there may not be formal scrutiny structures akin to committees and question times, this article explores the transparency measures which have been implemented since 2016, seeking to understand why governments have felt compelled to enhance visibility of IGR. Overall, scholars have largely only made normative statements – nodding to the need for greater scrutiny of IGR – or briefly mentioned examples of parliamentarians scrutinising IGR (Guderjan, 2023; McEwen, 2017; McEwen et al., 2020; Simeon, 2000). The one major exception is McEwen et al.’s (2015) report for the Scottish Parliament’s Devolution (Further Powers) Committee (DFPC) which specifically examined IGR scrutiny in Scotland. In general, the UK’s expanding devolution/IGR scholarship has yet to assess IGR transparency and ask whether parliaments influence or effectively scrutinise IGR. As such, this contribution is important for its empirical additions to the very few works which have focused on this ‘remarkably under-studied’ area (Poirier, 2023: 82).
Mapping the evolution of IGR transparency measures
There are descriptive accounts aplenty of the UK’s IGR infrastructure, and so it is unnecessary for a history of IGR mechanisms to be recounted too extensively here (see, for example, Guderjan, 2023; Horgan, 2004; Kenealy, 2012; McEwen, 2017; McEwen et al., 2012a, 2012b; McEwen and Petersohn, 2015; Poirier, 2001; Trench, 2007a, 2007c). That said, such accounts have been written at varying stages in the evolution of the IGR system over the past 25 years, and they rarely extend up to the present day to examine the post-2022 arrangements (Cabinet Office, 2022). 5 Maps 1, 2 and 3 below display the IGR infrastructure as it has evolved since 1999 to the present day. What has yet to be comprehensively sketched out are the transparency or scrutiny structures tied up in this IGR system. Beyond detailing the operation of the Sewel convention, overviews of the IGR infrastructure have yet to explore the manifold (but still limited) ways in which governments have opened up intergovernmental decision-making to potential parliamentary oversight (Gallagher, 2012; Guderjan, 2023; Horgan, 2004; Kenny, 2024; McEwen et al., 2018, 2020; Trench, 2007b, 2007c). 6 As such, this article illuminates the development of IGR transparency measures (including the 2022 remodelling of the IGR system), tracing the influences shaping this development.
Using Bovens’ definition of ‘narrow accountability’, this article differentiates between transparency and scrutiny (or ‘accountability’) within parliamentary settings (Bovens, 2007: 452). While transparency is a prerequisite for both scrutiny and accountability, it does not involve a minister or official facing oversight in a ‘specific forum’ (like a committee) (Bovens, 2007: 453). Parliamentary scrutiny refers to the in-depth examination of government policy, legislation, bureaucracy and spending on the public record (Rogers and Walters, 2015; Russell and James, 2023; White, 2015). It also often involves holding the government to account, usually by requiring ministers to explain themselves to members and justify executive actions. There are various ‘devices’ through which parliamentarians can exercise scrutiny, including question times, debates and committees (Garnett and Lynch, 2013; Norton, 2016: 1051; White, 2015). The last 25 years have seen the introduction of many transparency measures around IGR, but parliamentarians are not obliged to use the greater volumes of information to conduct any in-depth examinations of IGR. Similarly, the measures do not necessarily compel ministers or civil servants to produce explanations or justifications for intergovernmental decision-making. As of yet, there are no formal or institutionalised scrutiny ‘devices’ which are specific to IGR per se (Arnott, 2020: 21; Torrance, 2023). As such, this article traces ‘transparency measures’, defined as non-binding commitments or agreements which have been made either by an individual government; by two or more governments together; or by individual governments in concert with their legislatures. While placing no obligation on government actors to engage in any specific accountability forums, these measures are still usually introduced with the intention of facilitating enhanced scrutiny of IGR (Bovens, 2007: 450). While Bovens does recognise ‘informal’ obligations, the fact that none of the measures highlighted in this article are formally enforceable combined with general media and public disinterest in routine IGR means that they cannot be termed hard ‘scrutiny/accountability measures’ (Bovens, 2007: 451).
It should also be noted that some transparency measures may appear similar (if not practically identical) to each other, but they are differentiated by the institutional settings within which they operate. 7 This article identifies 21 such measures (as shown emerging over time in Maps 1, 2 and 3.). In the maps below, the pink and purple boxes depict the IGR infrastructure itself, while the blue and orange boxes (which are numbered up to 21) are the transparency measures which have evolved over time. The larger pink boxes indicate overarching documents or major standalone structures within the IGR system and smaller purple boxes describe the intergovernmental groups and other agreements which fall under them. The arrows indicate the intergovernmental forums at which the transparency measures are aimed, and, thus, the potential avenues of parliamentary scrutiny.Maps 1, 2 and 3 depict the transparency measures before Brexit, after Brexit and after the 2022 review respectively. Map 2 displays the pre-Brexit transparency measures in blue and the new post-Brexit transparency measures in orange. There are a few other distinct developments which could be seen as efforts to improve IGR transparency, but they are either largely informal/temporary measures and/or their deliberate purpose was not, in significant part, enhancing IGR openness. 8 As such, they are not counted as transparency measures.
Furthermore, Table 1 charts all of the transparency and scrutiny recommendations made by parliamentary reports and commissions over time in order to account for their potential influence on the enhancement of IGR transparency.
Transparency and scrutiny as an afterthought: 1999–2016
In general, transparency measures and accountability structures have been an afterthought in the development of the IGR infrastructure. Those who designed the IGR system (if, indeed, we can say it was ‘designed’) appear to have operated from the assumption that the legislatures’ existing tools for scrutiny were sufficient for parliamentarians to oversee the new intergovernmental layer of government.
In 1999, the UK, Scottish and Welsh Governments published a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ (MoU) which articulated the key principles underpinning IGR and established the central architecture for intergovernmental working (Cabinet Office, 2013). 9 Provisions for an IGR system had not been the main focus while the original devolution proposals and legislation were drafted, but its necessity had become clear given growing interdependencies between the UK’s governments and the scope for policy overlaps and contagion (Keating, 2012; Trench, 2007b). As Map 1 depicts, this MoU (and its five supplementary multilateral agreements) has been the overarching ‘super-concordat’, guiding the operation and evolution of IGR, and has been redrafted multiple times (Horgan, 2004; Kenealy, 2012: 63; Poirier, 2001; Trench, 2007b). 10 The memorandum established the Joint Ministerial Committee (JMC) in all its various formats, which has been the principal structure through which IGR has been channelled for the majority of devolution’s lifespan (Guderjan, 2023; McEwen, 2017; McEwen and Petersohn, 2015). However, the MoU’s earliest versions did not create any additional provisions for IGR transparency or scrutiny further to the ordinary powers of parliaments in overseeing their governments’ work (McGrath, 2015). In a Scottish Parliament debate on the first version of the memorandum in October 1999, First Minister Donald Dewar envisaged that it would be through the ‘range of committees’ that IGR, like any other executive policy area, would be overseen (as cited in McGrath, 2015: 2). 11 Later MoU versions also did not include arrangements to encourage increased IGR transparency. Instead, the major addition to the 2010 redraft was an agreed procedure on ‘dispute avoidance and resolution’ (Cabinet Office, 2010: 19, 2011d). Subsequent versions have, however, noted the four governments’ commitments to ensuring ‘accountability to the public’ in terms of intergovernmental correspondence (Cabinet Office, 2010: 9; 2013: 7). What this statement has meant in practice remains ambiguous.
The reasons for this neglect of IGR processes – and, thus, IGR transparency and scrutiny measures – have already been somewhat established. Various scholars have noted Westminster’s process of ‘devolving and forgetting’, where powers were handed to Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast with little thought given to the interdependencies created in the process (Brown Swan et al., 2024a: 4). As interdependencies deepened – following the Scotland Acts in 2012 and 2016 and the Wales Acts (2014, 2017) – the inadequacies of the IGR system were exposed. The evidence presented in this article illustrates that just as governments under-prioritised intergovernmental working (either assuming it could be limited or easily managed) in the design of devolution, so too IGR transparency (and, thus, scrutiny and accountability) was not a key focus. It was assumed that policymaking would largely take place on a devolved or UK-wide (not intergovernmental) basis. The interdependencies created by the various Acts have shattered this assumption. The realisation that an increasing number of key policy decisions will be made on an intergovernmental basis may have contributed to the (albeit undetailed) additions to the later drafts of the MoU which highlighted IGR scrutiny.
The Belfast Agreement – the peace deal ending The Troubles which underpins Northern Ireland’s devolved consociational government – also gave rise to a key intergovernmental forum: the British-Irish Council (BIC) (Government of Ireland, 1998). The BIC meets several times a year and involves the devolved governments (Government of Ireland, 1998). While, broadly speaking, the MoU did not outline any specific roles or powers for parliaments within the IGR system, the Belfast Agreement encouraged BIC members to ‘develop interparliamentary links, perhaps building on the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body’ (BIIPB) (Government of Ireland, 1998: 18). This body had been established in 1990 to increase dialogue between the two legislatures (BIIPB, 1997). As shown in Map 1, in 2001, membership was widened to include the devolved legislatures and, in 2008, it was renamed BIPA, with a role in scrutinising the BIC (BIPA, 2009; Silk and Evans, 2023). BIPA is unique as an early example of an IGR transparency measure because it grew out of a structure which was primarily intended for the separate purpose of furthering constructive dialogue between the UK and Irish establishments in order to advance the peace process.
As well as overarching multilateral agreements, there have been many bilateral, policy-specific concordats over the years. The first year of devolution alone saw the signing of over 20 bilateral concordats between the Scottish administration and various UK departments (Poirier, 2001: 146). Early agreements between the Scottish Executive and departments in London followed the same general template and gave little (if any) detail about how parliaments could or should perform scrutiny of IGR (Scottish and Government, 1999a; 1999d). 12 When such concordats did mention legislatures, it was most often to clarify that the relevant executives would assist each other in meeting their respective parliamentary duties pertaining to intergovernmental issues (e.g. encouraging information-sharing to facilitate the more efficient answering of parliamentary questions) (Scottish Government, 1999b, 1999c, 2007a, 2007b).
Given that Welsh governance relied even more heavily on IGR due to Wales’ particular devolution arrangements until 2011, it might be expected that early concordats between the Welsh Assembly Government and Whitehall departments articulated well-delineated roles for legislatures within IGR (Rawlings, 2003; Wyn Jones and Royles, 2012). 13 Nevertheless, the opposite was largely true (Department for Work and Pensions, 2012; UK Government, 2011; Welsh Assembly Government, 2010, 2011). In concordats between Northern Irish and UK departments (as well as various further multilateral agreements), there was also minimal thought given to specific transparency measures regarding IGR (Department of Health, 2001; Scottish Government, 1999d). An examination of the more recent agreements unearths little change in their general template, with parliaments only getting a mention where executives commit to provide each other with the ‘information necessary to meet their respective responsibilities’ to their legislatures (Scotland Office, 2016; Welsh Government, 2017b, 2018: 11).
Another unique development of this early period of IGR came at the initiative of the Welsh Affairs Committee (WAC) and the then-National Assembly of Wales, which both reciprocally amended the standing orders of their legislatures to allow their committees to hold joint sessions officially (Dellow-Perry, 2020) (see Map 1). This joint working was initially to facilitate scrutiny of the Transport (Wales) Bill in 2004 and, in 2005, became a permanent amendment (Dellow-Perry, 2020; House of Commons (HoC), 2005: 121). The HoC amendment remains applicable only to the WAC (HoC, 2005: 121; 2024: 134; Silk and Evans, 2023). That said, there are regular interparliamentary interactions among all UK legislatures, which will likely strengthen IGR oversight in the long run by fostering a culture of information-sharing and joint scrutiny projects. As noted in Table 1, there are examples of HoC committees working with committees in the Scottish and Northern Irish legislatures (Dellow-Perry, 2020). However, these processes are not counted as transparency measures given their more informal nature.
Alongside overarching multilateral concordats, various ‘Devolution Guidance Notes’ were prepared for UK Government civil servants (Cabinet, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c). Beyond repeating the mantra that UK administrations should ‘co-operate’ to assist each other in meeting ‘obligations’ to their legislatures (see Map 1), the notes do not contain protocols for facilitating IGR transparency (Cabinet Office, 2011a: 6). Various other guidance documents also make no mention of how inter-official interactions across the UK can or should be scrutinised (Cabinet Office, 2023; Civil Service, 2013a, 2013b; Civil Service Learning, 2023).
The exceptions to this general neglect of transparency measures have been the Scottish and Welsh fiscal frameworks (HM Government and Welsh Government, 2016; Scottish Government, 2016). In 2016, in preparation for further devolution of financial powers to both Scotland and Wales, these bilateral agreements were made via the respective Joint Exchequer Committees (JECs) to help manage intensified policy interdependencies. 14 As shown in Map 1, the Scottish-UK fiscal framework agreed that both the Scottish and UK Governments would ‘provide updates’ to their Parliaments via annual reports on the framework’s operation (HM Government and Scottish Government, 2016: 15). As depicted in Map 2, the Welsh-UK fiscal framework welcomed ‘detailed scrutiny’ of the agreement, also establishing annual reporting (HM Government and Welsh Government, 2016: 16). While the agreements did not indicate how governments should facilitate transparency of the IGR process (i.e. the JEC meetings), they did facilitate insight into (but perhaps not oversight of) the outcomes (i.e. the frameworks themselves). In 2023, the Scottish and UK Governments updated their framework agreement (HM Government and Scottish Government, 2023). Although brief, this revised agreement did include a section on the ‘transparency’ of the JEC which established that joint communiques would be published online following meetings and made available to both legislatures (HM Government and Scottish Government, 2023: 42). The Welsh-UK framework has yet to come under review.
Taken altogether, as Map 1 displays, the various MoUs, concordats, guidance briefings and parliamentary standing orders reveal an evolving IGR system which has, for the majority of its existence, not operated with any extensive in-built transparency measures (nor, subsequently, any clear, IGR-specific ‘accountability forums’ (Bovens, 2007: 453)). The notion of ‘devolving and forgetting’ can be extended to include a general under-prioritisation of IGR and its transparency or scrutiny. Asides from some isolated transparency measures introduced for specific reasons (BIPA and the joint working of the Welsh committees), the wider IGR system had no in-built scrutiny structures. If IGR was the most overlooked aspect of the devolution settlements, then transparency and parliamentary scrutiny were the most neglected features within the IGR system itself.
Improving transparency: 2016–2022
Only recently (since 2016 and the 2022 review) have some more tangible transparency measures been woven into the IGR system. As shown across the maps, around 85% (18 out of 21) of the transparency measures were introduced either in 2016 or after (and over 80% post-Brexit). An analysis of the political context in which this spike in measures occurred (taken alongside the evidence of an IGR reform campaign) illustrates why transparency was enhanced from 2016. In particular, the Brexit process provided the environment within which the majority of recommendations were finally implemented. Such recommendations had been made – evidently unsuccessfully – for many years by parliamentarians and commissions. Yet, within a Brexit scenario of mounting political pressures and high constitutional stakes, governments facilitated greater ex-post scrutiny, largely by supplying legislatures with more information. However, while changing political-constitutional circumstances also drove the improvements in IGR transparency in Scotland, the reforms there were introduced pre-Brexit, during the period following the 2014 independence referendum.
As shown in Table 1, many independent commissions and parliamentary committees have investigated the weaknesses of IGR scrutiny, making recommendations for reform and occasionally capturing the attention of those in government. As early as 2002, the HoL Constitution Committee published a report on ‘inter-institutional relations’, including a two-page section on scrutiny (Constitution Committee, 2002: 34–35). Taken altogether, these reports have laid bare the weaknesses in IGR, applying pressure on governments to introduce transparency measures. However, Table 1 also illustrates the clear time lags between the publishing of recommendations and their apparent ‘acceptance’, indicating that governments have only felt compelled to enhance IGR transparency for different reasons (i.e. as political circumstances have changed). Indeed, all of the most central measures (those which have formed the backbone of the presently discussed Scottish and Welsh inter-institutional agreements and the 2022 review) have been repeated as report recommendations on five or more separate occasions through the years. 15 The recommendation for the publication of detailed summaries following intergovernmental meetings was repeated in eight different reports (see Table 1). Their eventual implementation only occurred when UK governments felt obliged to enhance IGR transparency and that it was politically beneficial for them to do so (especially when four different parties were in power across the UK and there were regularly competing narratives of IGR).
The immediate lead up to 2016 (and the subsequent proliferation in transparency measures) saw four major commissions, three HoL Constitution Committee reports and the report of the DFPC. In particular, recommendations 1, 2, 3, 4 and 11 (see Table 1) were all presented at various points in this collection of reports and they would all be implemented by the Scottish Government in its landmark written agreement with the Parliament in 2016. The Calman Commission (2009) laid the groundwork for a campaign for enhanced IGR scrutiny in Scotland, calling the ‘near complete absence’ of oversight ‘indefensible’ (p.153). Although its initial response to these recommendations was brief, the Government still committed to supporting ‘any moves to increase the effectiveness of the JMC’ (Scottish Government, 2009: 15). Indeed, the Scottish Government implemented recommendations 1, 2, 4 and 9 which were all made by the Commission. The 2015 report of the temporary DFPC was likely of even greater influence. The second of the Committee’s reports was entitled: ‘Changing Relationships: Parliamentary Scrutiny of Intergovernmental Relations’ (Devolution (Further Powers) Committee (DFPC), 2015: 1). In this report – the only committee publication dedicated solely to IGR oversight – the Committee concluded that IGR scrutiny in UK legislatures was ‘notable by its absence’ (DFPC, 2015: 11). The Committee went on to reiterate recommendations 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11, mounting the most extensive examination of IGR scrutiny in Scotland and seeing most of its recommendations eventually implemented (at least to a partial extent). These recommendations included the 2016 Scottish inter-institutional written agreement. While the actual implementation of these measures was primarily driven by a shifting and tense political-constitutional environment in Scotland following the 2014 independence referendum, the campaign of recommendations has certainly shaped the substance and wording of the transparency measures which were eventually introduced.
Indeed, Scotland was the first of all UK nations to see a formal agreement between the Government and Parliament, which enhanced the Parliament’s ability ‘to hold Scottish Ministers to account in the intergovernmental arena’ (Scottish Government, 2016: 3). This concord (used as a template by the Welsh Government in 2019) included commitments from the Government to provide:
One-month advance notice of intergovernmental meetings to relevant committees
Written summaries of meetings (which include outlines of the ‘positions advanced’ by ministers) within 2 weeks where possible
Annual reports on IGR (Scottish Government, 2016: 3–4; Welsh Government, 2019: 4–5).
The Scottish agreement also committed the Government to facilitating ministerial appearances at committees in advance of intergovernmental meetings. The Scottish Government has only published two annual reports since the agreement with Parliament (most recently covering the 2017–2018 period) (Scottish Government, 2019). The same is true of the Welsh Government, with the most recent covering the 2020–2021 period (Welsh Government, 2021a, 2021b).
As such, those involved in the Calman Commission and the authors of the DFPC report could rightly point to the successful implementation of measures which they recommended. The evidence suggests, however, that the most determinative factor in the Scottish Government’s decision to enter into such an agreement was the wider political-constitutional context. A very sizable minority (around 45%) of Scots voters had backed independence in the 2014 referendum (with a record-breaking turnout on polling day) (Kidd and Petrie, 2016: 30). In a last-minute bid to persuade Scots to vote against independence, politicians from the Better Together campaign had made the ‘vow’ to ensure that further major powers would be devolved to the Scottish Parliament in the event of a ‘No’ vote (Mullen, 2016: 7). Subsequently, the then-Prime Minister, David Cameron, set up the Smith Commission to make recommendations concerning the further devolution of powers. Soon after its recommendations followed the Scotland Act, 2016 and the Scottish-UK fiscal framework. It was within this context that many of the (long-standing and hitherto largely ignored) recommendations for IGR transparency were implemented. The Scottish-UK fiscal framework, which established the first of the post-2016 transparency measures, was only required due to the further devolution of various tax powers included in the Scotland Act (2016). Furthermore, it was the Smith Commission – necessitated by the ‘vow’ solemnly made in response to evolving and critical political conditions – whose IGR transparency recommendations were most quickly implemented (2, 3 and 9 in Table 1). Indeed, MSPs revealed that the Commission held the most weight with the Government in improving IGR transparency (Interviews with Adam Tomkins, former Scottish Conservative MSP and Tavish Scott, former Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP, September 2024). The Commission was also unique (and wholly successful) in its argument that the Scottish-UK (and, ultimately, Welsh-UK) fiscal framework should require the Government to ‘provide updates’ to the legislature (HM Government and Scottish Government, 2016: 15; HM Government and Welsh Government, 2016: 16; Smith Commission, 2014: 27). In terms of the initial flurry of transparency measures (introduced in Scotland and pre-Brexit with the fiscal framework and inter-institutional agreement), the political-constitutional context within which the Smith Commission had received its mandate was the key change driving IGR transparency reform.
While Scotland had its own unique political-constitutional context, Brexit drove similar IGR transparency measures in Wales and at a UK Government level. The Welsh Government (2019) agreement with the Senedd was partly a response to CLAC’s 2018 report (see recommendation 12 in Table 1). Similarly, the UK Government’s various commitments in the 2018–2020 period were partly influenced by PACAC’s 2016 report, SAC’s 2019 report and the Dunlop Review (see recommendations 2, 3 and 4). However, the UK’s intention to withdraw from the European Union (EU) from June 2016 had already created an atmosphere in which greater IGR transparency became almost necessary. From June 2016, IGR itself was even more critical and in the public spotlight. The realities of Brexit ‘necessitated intensified intergovernmental working’, particularly at the official level (Interview with senior UK Government civil servant, August 2024). With the broadening and deepening of Brexit-related IGR came further commitments to IGR scrutiny. In 2020, Michael Gove (then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster) made a written statement to the HoC on supporting Parliament to scrutinise IGR (UK Parliament, 2020). The statement committed the UK Government to publishing IGR documents on a new webpage and producing quarterly and annual reports (a policy now agreed by all UK administrations in the 2022 review) (UK Parliament, 2020). Although falling short of a written agreement with Parliament, this statement would appear to have been an attempt to replicate the transparency commitments of the Scottish and Welsh Governments to their legislatures. Moreover, these UK Government-implemented measures all relate to the transparency of Brexit-period IGR. The Smith Commission recommendations – as politically critical as they were, being inextricably connected to the strategically-pledged ‘vow’ – had pushed the Scottish Government to negotiate its inter-institutional agreement. Now, as the reality of high-stakes, high-intensity Brexit-related IGR kicked in, it was the turn of the UK and Welsh Governments to implement transparency measures.
Another key (and still developing) transparency measure – constructed by legislatures themselves – was introduced partly for the purpose of overseeing intensified Brexit-specific IGR. With its first meeting in 2017, the Interparliamentary Forum on Brexit (IPFB) brought together Conveners, Chairs and committee members from the UK Parliament, Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru who were involved in scrutinising the Brexit process (Scottish Parliament, 2017; Senedd Cymru, 2018). 16 At its seventh meeting, the IPFB compiled its terms of reference, stating that its ‘primary purpose’ was to be a ‘mechanism for dialogue and cooperation between parliamentarians . . . to consider a number of scrutiny challenges’ (Scottish Parliament, 2019b: 3, 2019c). As of 2022, the IPF has now become the official successor to the IPFB and provides a means by which legislatures can enhance their scrutiny functions by sharing experiences and strategies (Scottish Parliament, 2022, 2023a, 2023b; UK Parliament, 2022). The fact that the origins of the IPF lie in scrutinising the Brexit process demonstrates that the prospect of material changes to the UK’s constitution was the driving force in the formalisation and entrenchment of interparliamentary scrutiny of IGR.
Brexit, as a major change in political and constitutional context, was most critical in the expansion of IGR transparency measures across the UK as a whole. However, Brexit, as a technical process, also saw the proliferation of in-built oversight structures. With ‘intensified intergovernmental working’ came new intergovernmental agreements which have included some of the most comprehensive scrutiny provisions (Interview with senior UK Government civil servant, August 2024). In part, such provisions have been included simply due to the wide-ranging nature of these new agreements. However, these measures have also arisen out of (UK Government) ministers’ desires to ensure legitimacy and garner the consent of devolved legislatures throughout the Brexit process. Many powers returning to the UK intersected with devolved competences (Guderjan, 2023; McEwen et al., 2020). The common legal and regulatory system – which had been in place across the UK while the territory remained inside the EU – had mitigated against major policy divergence between the UK’s constituent polities (McEwen, 2021; McEwen et al., 2020). Therefore, the repatriation of powers from the EU and the UK’s exit from EU frameworks gave rise to the possibility of unworkable policy divergence. CFs were proposed as a means of managing potential divergences and of dealing with the intersections between former EU powers and devolved competences (Cabinet Office, 2018b: 3–4). CFs are agreed and implemented through intergovernmental interactions known as ‘multilateral deep dives’ (Cabinet Office, 2019b: 4; Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, 2022b: 9). Notable transparency measures have been embedded within the process of negotiating CFs and have been made a part of CFs themselves (see recommendations 2 and 3 in Table 1). Therefore, within the Brexit context, improved IGR transparency perhaps became inevitable: transparency measures were purposefully engineered into CFs.
Indeed, in October 2017, the JMC on EU Negotiations (JMC(EN)) agreed overarching principles for CFs (Cabinet Office, 2017). 17 These guidelines included a commitment to respecting the ‘democratic accountability of the devolved legislatures’ and a restatement of the Sewel convention (Cabinet Office, 2017: 2). In April 2018, a further intergovernmental agreement was reached regarding CFs (Cabinet Office, 2018a). 18 In particular, it outlined that UK ministers will report regularly to the UK Parliament on the implementation of CFs, sending such reports to the devolved governments too (Cabinet Office, 2018a: 2; see recommendations 2 and 3 in Table 1). Devolved ministers will then present the reports to their own parliamentarians (Cabinet Office, 2018a: 2). More broadly, in line with the Sewel convention, this agreement also committed to specific transparency measures for the exercise of ‘Clause 11 regulations’ in the then EU (Withdrawal) Bill (Cabinet Office, 2018a: 2). 19 As shown in Map 2, such measures included seeking the devolved legislatures’ consent to exercise Clause 11 (later Section 12) powers and making a justificatory report to the UK Parliament if UK ministers decide to act where consent has been refused (Cabinet Office, 2018a: 4; 2018b: 12; EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018: Section 12(2)). Other IGR-specific transparency measures were also included in the final EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018, namely the requirement of the UK Government to report to Parliament about the progress of CFs every 3 months and share its reports with the devolved executives (Cabinet Office, 2018b: 4). More recently, the Welsh and UK Governments have made further commitments to committees that they will ensure transparency regarding their stances in CFs negotiations (Antoniw, 2022; O’Brien, 2022). The high volume of committee activity in examining CFs at both UK and devolved levels provides evidence of the ongoing scrutiny of Brexit-related intergovernmental agreements to an extent which is not often seen with issues unrelated to Brexit (Carson, 2023; Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee, 2018; Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee, 2021; 2022; Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee, 2022; External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee, 2019a, 2019b; Macdonald, 2021; Mountain, 2022).
As such, Brexit, with its high-stakes intergovernmental working, brought a new level of significance to the enhancement of IGR transparency. Moreover, the process itself – that is, the agreement of CFs – required and stimulated IGR oversight. Perhaps naturally, given that the CFs were some of the most comprehensive IGR agreements thus far (covering a wide variety of far-reaching powers), these frameworks could be expected to have such improved, in-built transparency measures. The Brexit process and CFs negotiations may also have necessitated enhanced transparency because of the constitutional gravity of the issues at stake. In establishing the various CF-related transparency measures, governments demonstrated an awareness of the significance of the powers under discussion and a desire to ensure that legislatures across the UK were included throughout the negotiation process. As the Scottish Parliament’s Finance and Constitution Committee (FCC) (2019) commented, especially given governments’ differing views on Brexit, more rigorous scrutiny is necessary to ensure that ‘the different vested interests are properly balanced’, and ‘final decisions’ are imbued with greater legitimacy (p.23).
Taken altogether, the evidence indicates that the Brexit process accelerated the enhancement of transparency measures at the UK level (and perhaps at the Welsh level), more than at the Scottish level. While being published in December 2016, the Scottish inter-institutional agreement was drafted before the Brexit referendum. The major improvements in the Scottish Parliament’s transparency measures were driven by the shifting political-constitutional context around the 2014 referendum, leading eventually to the Smith Commission recommendations. Interviewees have asserted that such enhancements were not primarily a result of Brexit, noting that there is currently an ongoing review of IGR scrutiny structures in Scotland in which it is being argued that new measures are needed to take stock of Brexit (Interview with Scottish Parliament official, September 2024). Tomkins described the Smith Commission – and its strong political mandate – as the ‘main driver’ of enhanced transparency and Scott suggested that neither Brexit nor the pandemic made ‘any difference at all’ to transparency measures in Scotland (Interviews, September 2024).
Overall, 2016 (with the agreements on the fiscal frameworks, but, most significantly, with the Scottish inter-institutional agreement) marked the beginning of an increase in the number of government-initiated transparency measures. In fact, of those introduced in or after 2016, only one measure was implemented solely on the initiative of parliaments (the creation of the IPFB in 2017), indicating that effective IGR scrutiny relies heavily on the cooperation of governments. Indeed, 11 of the 21 scrutiny mechanisms were solely reliant on the initiative of one individual government. While the Scottish Government appears to have taken its lead from the Smith Commission’s recommendations, it was the Brexit process which brought the many recommendations into sharp focus for the Welsh and UK Governments (Interview with senior UK Government civil servant, August 2024). Intensified intergovernmental interactions made it necessary for them to implement stronger transparency measures, while the Brexit process itself (CFs) involved in-built oversight structures.
Transparency and scrutiny as central principles? 2022-present
2022 also heralded another key moment in the enhancement of IGR transparency. In response to a 2019 review of ‘UK Government Union Capability’, the IGR system was overhauled (Cabinet Office, 2019c, 2022). The new system includes both revised ‘principles’ and ‘machinery’, establishing a three-tiered IGR structure, new secretariats and a clearer dispute resolution mechanism (Cabinet Office, 2022: 1). The review beckoned in ‘a new era’ with ‘greater transparency, accountability and scrutiny from each government’s respective legislatures’ (Cabinet Office, 2019a, 2021, 2022: 1).
More than broad statements of intent, however, the review established tangible protocols to improve IGR transparency (see Map 3). While only four additional transparency measures were added in this period from 2022, they are arguably of greater significance as they were agreed on an intergovernmental basis. The Dunlop Review was clearly the major influence in the introduction of these mechanisms (Cabinet Office, 2019c). It repeated recommendations 2, 3 and 4, which were all eventually implemented in 2022. Indeed, the review agreed that the outcome of any disputes – and respective governments’ rationales therein – must be ‘laid by each government before its legislature’ (Cabinet Office, 2022: 7). Moreover, the review commits the new intergovernmental forums to publishing communiques online which note the ‘date, location, Chair and list of participants’ in meetings as well as the ‘discussion points’ (Cabinet Office, 2022: 5). The IGR secretariat was also specifically charged with producing an annual report, which has been subsequently published (Cabinet Office, 2022: 5; Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, 2022a, 2023). However, in 2021, a first draft of the IGR review had included even more detail on how the IGR secretariat should facilitate greater scrutiny (Cabinet Office, 2021). According to this draft, the IGR secretariat had to include certain specific details in its annual reports, namely ‘a list of all engagements for each fora’, ‘agenda items’ and the outcomes of ‘any resolved disputes’ (Cabinet Office, 2021: 10). This statement was not included in the final review (Cabinet Office, 2022: 5). However, ensuring more effective scrutiny appears to have tentatively crept onto the agenda of those responsible for designing the UK-wide IGR infrastructure. That said, the most recent bolt-on to the IGR system – the Council of the Nations and Regions – was announced without any reference to the existing IGR scrutiny system (Cabinet Office, 2024). The biannual Council brings together the UK Government, devolved governments, the Mayors of Combined Authorities, the Mayors of Combined County Authorities and the Mayor of London to tackle cross-cutting issues (Cabinet Office, 2024). As Map 3 shows, it occupies an ambiguous position in relation to the MoU and the 2022 review, meaning it is not clear where exactly it sits within the IGR architecture or whether existing transparency agreements apply to it (Cabinet Office, 2024).
Emerging interparliamentary groups have also contributed to the pressure to introduce reforms. While few in number and generally scant in detail, the joint statements from interparliamentary meetings demonstrate that parliamentarians now agree more than ever that IGR transparency has been an area of inadequate focus over the past 25 years. These groups are proving to be a collective voice for parliamentarians to lobby for enhanced oversight mechanisms. The IPFB articulated its central purpose as advocating for ‘effective scrutiny’ of IGR processes (Scottish Parliament, 2018a: 1; 2018b: 1–2; 2018c: 1–2; 2019a: 1–2). Its successor, the IPF, has repeated such calls (Scottish Parliament, 2022, 2023a, 2023b; UK Parliament, 2022). As Table 1 shows, the publication of interparliamentary statements roughly coincided with the Dunlop Review and 2019 SAC report, compounding the pressure on the UK Government to introduce transparency measures (as it did between 2018 and 2020, and with the 2022 review). The long-standing campaign of IGR transparency and scrutiny recommendations was, in many ways, summarised in the Dunlop Review, meaning they often provided the wording of the measures which were eventually implemented.
Overall, however, the implementation of the Dunlop Review only reinforces the argument that IGR transparency is largely contingent on governments’ willingness to facilitate it, typically when they feel compelled to do so. Indeed, the Review was commissioned by former Prime Minister Theresa May with the specific intention of leading to an overhaul of IGR (Cabinet Office, 2019c). The wider political-constitutional context surrounding this commission and the Review’s subsequent implementation reveals why the UK Government felt compelled to lead an intergovernmental effort to reform IGR. First, the devolved governments, led by Scotland, had already signed agreements with their legislatures and taken up the cause of improved scrutiny, helping put pressure on the UK Government. As a UK Government civil servant confirmed, the Scottish inter-institutional agreement ‘gave greater validity’ to the recommendations in the Dunlop Review (Interview, August 2024). Moreover, the Welsh Government published its own views about how the UK-wide IGR arrangements should be structured (Welsh Government, 2021c). In turn, the Welsh Government’s articles have likely influenced the UK Government-led 2022 review, with the spirit of many of their recommendations being captured in the new IGR system. Their 2017 ‘Brexit and Devolution’ article proposes a ‘UK Council of Ministers system’, which is somewhat similar to new machinery introduced in 2022 (Welsh Government, 2017a: 17). Most significantly, however, a 2021 article supported the improvement of the ‘transparency and accountability of intergovernmental relations’ (Welsh Government, 2021c: 4). A year later, the final version of the 2022 review would include a section on ‘transparency and parliamentary accountability’ (Cabinet Office, 2022: 4).
Second, the Dunlop Review also had an enhanced significance given the context of increasingly fractious IGR. Brexit conditioned a realisation within governments (especially within the UK Government) that transparency measures could ameliorate what can otherwise be volatile and conflictual IGR. Particularly confrontational IGR was often displayed during the Brexit negotiations and the pandemic. There is evidence that the experience of these moments has pushed executives to explore means by which to improve the nature of IGR, with one such remedy being an enhanced role for parliaments.
With heightened party political incongruency across the UK after 2007, scholars noted an ‘intensification of conflict’, albeit among ‘continued co-operation’ (McEwen et al., 2012a: 323). The Scottish National Party (SNP) entered power in Scotland in 2007 while Labour were in Government at the UK and Welsh levels (Cairney, 2012; McEwen et al., 2012a). 20 Party incongruency reached its peak in 2010 with the formation of a UK Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government (McEwen et al., 2012a). As well as being associated with more confrontational IGR, party incongruency has also encouraged the formalisation of intergovernmental processes, perhaps also contributing towards the entrenchment of transparency measures (McEwen et al., 2012a). Brexit put a further ‘strain’ on IGR (McEwen et al., 2020: 632). While 52.5% of Welsh voters (and 53.4% of English voters) supported Leave, 62% of Scots and 55.8% of Northern Irish voters supported Remain (McEwen, 2021: 1538). The Scottish Government spearheaded Brexit opposition (or advocated for ‘the softest Brexit possible’) and the Welsh Government pushed for a ‘soft Brexit’, while the UK Government was bent on delivering Brexit (McEwen et al., 2020: 633). 21 There were breakdowns in relations, and the Sewel convention was unprecedentedly broken with the passing of the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 without the Scottish Parliament’s consent (McEwen, 2021: 1547). During the pandemic too, divergences in lockdown rules across the UK appeared while devolved ministers bemoaned the UK Government’s ignoring of meeting requests (Brown Swan et al., 2024b).
The context of these increasingly confrontational IGR since 2007 (greatly exacerbated from 2016) partly explains moves to improve dispute avoidance and resolution procedures, including the carving out of more formal roles for legislatures. For example, the ‘Union Capability’ report expressed its belief that arrangements which were ‘much more open to scrutiny’ would encourage those involved ‘to conduct business in the spirit of collaboration’ (Cabinet Office, 2019c: 35). In turn, the new IGR system subjects the outcome of any disputes (and governments’ positions therein) to parliamentary scrutiny (Cabinet Office, 2022: 7). Ministers might work harder to ensure good-natured IGR knowing that they must report back to their parliaments in detail. Indeed, federalism scholars have noted how parliamentary scrutiny can have an ameliorating impact on the nature of IGR (Fenna, 2012; Saunders, 2011; Simeon and Nugent, 2012). As one Scottish Parliament committee put it, transparency measures enable ‘Parliament to judge between [ministers’] potentially competing interpretations of intergovernmental discussions’ (Finance and Constitution Committee (FCC), 2019: 23).
Overall, within the context of increasingly confrontational IGR, the Government-commissioned Dunlop Review successfully ensured that the UK Government constructed a new IGR system (with enhanced transparency measures) alongside the devolved governments. A UK Government civil servant explained that the central reason for the 2022 overhaul was ‘to counter a criticism’ which had built up since 1999 that IGR was not transparent enough (Interview, August 2024).
Conclusions
Taken altogether, the maps of IGR transparency measures demonstrate that the UK’s multi-level system has generally not been open to scrutiny for the majority of the devolution years. Even now, it is clear that the measures – which are largely only informational in nature, potentially facilitating ex-post scrutiny – do not amount to formal, enforceable mechanisms tantamount to ‘accountability forums’ (Bovens, 2007: 453). A culture of IGR openness (let alone scrutiny or accountability) is far from established. The transparency measures outlined in this article will not ensure that ministers or civil servants are actually held to account for their contribution to intergovernmental decision-making.
However, this article has revealed that the years around 2016 saw governments across the UK facilitate an enhancement of IGR transparency. While Scotland led the way with its inter-institutional transparency agreement in 2016, Wales soon followed with its own written commitment in 2019 and the UK Government announced similar measures in 2020. In answer to the central research question, the documentary and interview evidence points to changing political-constitutional environments as the drivers of greater IGR transparency. In Scotland, the key processes overseeing enhanced IGR transparency (namely the Smith Commission and the fiscal framework negotiations) were necessitated by the constitutional debate and outcome of the 2014 referendum independence. Brexit then created an environment within which the Welsh and UK Governments felt compelled to implemented IGR transparency measures. As well as bringing a new significance (and strain) to intergovernmental working (with clear parliamentary and public interest in negotiations), the technical process of Brexit itself spawned new, distinct transparency measures. Moreover, there is evidence that governments felt that it might be beneficial to open up some previously hidden intergovernmental discussions in an attempt to demonstrate their reasonableness in negotiations. While this article also considered the influence of the IGR reform campaign, Table 1 demonstrates the time lag between the many recommendations and their eventual acceptance. Moreover, as Map 2 revealed, the vast majority of transparency measures were Brexit-related, rather than direct responses to these recommendations. However, given the striking similarity between the recommendations made and the measures ultimately implemented, it does appear that the campaign provided the ideas for the eventual form and wording of the transparency commitments.
Overall, these findings have largely compounded the growing consensus within the global comparative federalism literature that intensified intergovernmental decision-making results in trade-offs for transparent governance and effective parliamentary scrutiny (Bolleyer, 2009; Poirier, 2023; Saunders, 2020). The UK – so long as it remains the type of devolved union it is – will doubtless continue to be seen as a general outlier within the comparative federalism field. Nevertheless, the evidence presented in this article – that IGR transparency is both unenforceable and dependent on government cooperation – mirrors the state of affairs across many well-compared federal polities. As such, future research might look to deepen comparison of the UK with more established federal systems to understand how these weaknesses in democratic accountability might be offset.
Finally, in mapping the IGR transparency measures, this article has laid the foundations for further analysis within the parliamentary studies field. Given that this article has confirmed that IGR transparency is dependent on political circumstances and government cooperation, there remain questions about how exactly parliamentarians scrutinise IGR (if they do at all) and how effective such scrutiny is at holding ministers accountable.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Caroline Bhattacharya, Ruxandra Serban, Diana Stirbu, Jo Hunt, Stephen Holden Bates, Larissa Peixoto Gomes and Lauren Martin for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper at an ECR workshop organised by the PSA Specialist Group on Parliaments. The author would also like to thank Mike Kenny for his feedback on several earlier drafts of this work.
Data availability statement
Not applicable.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author receives an ESRC DTP studentship and is the Communications Officer for the PSA Specialist Group on Parliaments.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by an ESRC DTP studentship (award reference: ES/P000738/1).
Ethical considerations
This study was approved by the University of Cambridge Department of Politics and International Studies Ethics, Risk and Fieldwork Committee on 7 June 2024.
Consent to participate
All participants (interviewees) provided written informed consent to participate.
Consent for publication
Participants (interviewees) provided written informed consent for their details and comments to be published.
