Devolution has enormous potential to improve outcomes for children by bringing decision-making closer to the people and places most affected by it. Local leaders are the ones best placed to understand the strengths, challenges, and priorities of their communities and to design services around them.
That’s where evidence can help. The benefits of new local autonomy will be greatest felt when devolved powers are combined with the use of strong evidence, to enable local leaders tailor solutions to local contexts, whilst retaining a clear focus on what we know works to improve children’s lives.
As power moves closer to places, the ability to use evidence well become crucial in helping local decision makers ensure scarce public resources are invested where they can achieve the greatest impact. The most successful places will be those that combine the insight that comes from their proximity to communities with a relentless focus on evidence about what works.
But we are really conscious that to support local leaders to make effective decisions it’s not enough to simply make evidence available to them. We know that research findings often do not reach the people who can act on them and are not always used in practice. We must proactively support local leaders to create the conditions that allow evidence to be used effectively, by building on both the capacity and skills to make the evidence informed decisions we know improve outcomes.
And capacity is not only about needing more people at the local level, it’s also about supporting local leaders to weigh up findings from robust evaluations and academic research, alongside information about their local context – such as population data, workforce intelligence and the lived experiences of children and families – and then crucially apply that knowledge to commissioning, service design, and delivery.
Doing this requires a dedicated focus – the people, time, and resources to use evidence critically, convene others around a shared understanding, and embed it into decision making. It also requires investment in the skills and leadership needed to interpret, critically appraise, and apply it.
That’s why we’ve been testing what happens when local authorities are given dedicated capacity and skills support to lead evidence use, through a Local Evidence Leader role. Through our Changemakers and Evidence into Practice programmes, we have been exploring whether investing in evidence leadership locally can help overcome some of the well-known barriers to adopting and sustaining evidence-informed approaches in complex local systems.
We have recently published an independent evaluation of the Changemakers programme, which suggests that it can. Local Evidence Leaders provided the coordination, relationship-building, and problem-solving capacity needed to turn evidence into action. They helped local partners navigate the realities of implementation, built confidence in using evidence across organisations, and created the conditions for evidence-informed change to take root and grow.
One Local Evidence Leader said:
“Without a role like the LEL, it is not going to be that kind of proactive transformation working happening. I think it will quite likely slide back to what it was before […] doing the bare minimum with the capacity that’s available and […] having time to […] try to analyse the evidence base and work with partners. […] It takes a lot of capacity to do it.”
The lesson for devolution is clear. Transferring powers is perhaps the easier part; ensuring those powers lead to better outcomes is much harder. Investing in evidence capacity, capability, and implementation support for new Mayoral Strategic Authorities and local authorities will help mitigate the risk that devolution becomes a reform of governance rather than a reform of outcomes for those who need it most.
Giving local government more powers is long overdue and is crucial, but it’s not sufficient. Providing access to robust evidence and support to use it will make these powers count. The places most likely to improve outcomes for children with their new autonomy will be those that invest in the leadership, relationships and implementation capacity needed to turn evidence into action in local places, where it’s needed most.
Ultimately, the success of devolution should not be judged only by the powers transferred or the structures created, but by whether children’s lives improve as a result. Devolution gives places the freedom to choose. Evidence can help them choose well, and dedicated capacity is what turns those choices into better outcomes for children and families.
This article originally appeared in the MJ on 27 October 2026.
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