As predicted yesterday, the more interesting coverage of Clegg's public services speech would come when the commentariat started to get their teeth into it. And today, Steve Richards does so.

Richards' argument is that all politicians seek local decision making, but that none of them have much of an answer to the question of how to do it. Although he credits Clegg with leaping 'ahead in the race', he raises various questions for him. Particularly, he asks:

how do we achieve local accountability when central government raises the money and has responsibility for overall standards?

Though Richards implies that Clegg doesn't have answers to these questions, I suspect that he does, or at least, is developing them. After all, Liberal Democrats have long called for a greater proportion of money to be raised locally. And while central government will still have responsibility for overall standards, if a more genuinely localised system raises standards overall, then any accountable central government ought to implement such a system.

Clearly there are political risks for Ministers in 'letting go' of some of the levers they cling to. But they may be less than the risks of continuing to defend the over-centralised public services which fail to deliver the quality of education or health that the electorate demands.

Further, in other areas, we are quite happy to devolve spending power. Richards says:

'(Clegg) would be acting irresponsibly to hand over the cash and say: "Spend it how you want"'.

But what are welfare payments if not handing over money to individuals and allowing them to spend it on what they want? What are tax credits? Of course, some people will spend the money on drugs, or alcohol, or some other non-state approved activity. But the question is, does such a system deliver better outcomes than one in which the government prescribes what that money should be spent on? If the answer is yes, there is nothing irresponsible about it.