Big lobbies won't help Coalition decentralisation plans

The government's decentralisation programme is so appealing to my policy wonk side. Ditch the central diktats, let local people decide, admit one size can never fit all. Marvellous. But my lobbyist side is a bit more unsettled. It's far from certain what a decentralised UK will look like, but it'll almost certainly have big disparities and be pretty complex. This has big implications for those seeking to influence government policy - big enough, I reckon, to mean the big lobbies might end up opposing decentralisation in case it diminishes their traditional influence. Centralisation isn't cool and it's probably not a very good way to run things either, but it does make things easier for lobbyists. Find your minister, your department, your lead civil servant and a couple of interested parliamentarians, hop on the tube to Westminster, and you're halfway there. But imagine how many more people this might become if decision-making power was really devolved to local and community levels. Getting consistent messaging and strategies for all those variegated audiences sounds like a nightmare (and an expensive one at that). If this is nagging at me, then consciously or unconsciously, maybe a lot of lobbyists - therefore some of the big lobbies - are worried too. And that might lead to some instinctive positioning against decentralising measures, because it means lobbyists need to devise a whole new way of influencing. After all, the whole political establishment is geared to centralised government - and that doesn't mean some 'resistant departments', as decentralisation minister Greg Clarke hinted at Policy Exchange this morning. That means all the other stakeholders - trade organisations, trade unions, business lobbies, professional organisations, quangos and charities, who between them can quash all but the most zealous of political reforms.