The Department reassured us that it was expecting to work very closely with each of the devolved Governments and with the individual local authorities responsible for delivery. We were, however, sceptical about how close past cooperation with devolved Governments had really been and the extent to which it enabled national priorities to be accommodated, though we acknowledged that co-operation between officials appeared to have improved.29 The Department considered the recent experience with Scottish Green Freeports a “really good example” of collaboration between the UK and Scottish governments. We noted, however that Scottish Green Freeports took a long time to agree and suggested that may have been because the Scottish Government eventually secured requirements that it wanted to include but that hadn’t featured in the UK government’s requirements.30 Decision-making when awarding funds