IT IS nearly 20 years since Wales was granted its own National Assembly, a historic devolution of power from London that the then British prime minister, Tony Blair, later said had given “a lead to the rest of the UK—and to Europe”. Since that reform, triggered by a referendum in 1997, further rounds of devolution have given Welsh politicians control over policy areas including housing, health and education. Yet today in Ebbw Vale, a former steel town in the country’s deep south, few locals seem enthusiastic about their national government. “It’s a waste of money and a waste of time,” says Wayne Grist, a butcher, who is among the more diplomatic of the government’s critics.

Undeterred, the Conservative government plans to devolve more powers from Westminster to the Welsh capital, Cardiff. It is part of a promised “devolution revolution” in which English cities will get more powers over transport, planning and, in some cases, health care, and Scotland will, from next year, get the right to set some taxes and welfare payments (the result of panicky promises made by English politicians ahead of a referendum on Scottish independence in 2014, which at the time looked too close to call).

In Wales the latest proposed round of devolution has proved no more enticing than previous ones. Its unpopularity hints at why devolution there has, so far, not been a huge success—and how other places could encounter similar problems.

Independence has never set Welsh hearts beating as it does Scots’. Only half the electorate voted in the referendum of 1997; the measure to create a National Assembly passed by a margin of just 0.3% of the vote. Another referendum in 2011, to give the Assembly more powers, was passed with a turnout of 35%.

The latest proposals, which were put before the Assembly in October and must later be passed by Parliament, would change from a “conferred powers” model, where the areas in which the Assembly can legislate are laid out, to a “reserve powers” model, where the areas in which the Assembly cannot legislate are listed, as in Scotland. That would mean Welsh ministers getting control of a few more policy areas, including transport (regulating ports, setting road speed-limits, licensing taxis and so on) and marine licensing. The bill would formally declare the Assembly to be permanent. And it would create a “funding floor” for Wales, at 115% of comparable spending per head in England, its richer neighbour. It has been roundly criticised by Welsh politicians, many of whom suspect the new settlement could end up being more restrictive than the current one. The “reserve powers” list is longer and more complex than Scotland’s, and details over tax devolution and the funding floor are vague. Carwyn Jones, the Labour first minister of Wales, has warned that it could create an “English veto” by requiring the Assembly to get permission from Westminster to pass certain laws that until now it has been able to pass freely (the British government disputes this). Although the bill has fired up Welsh politicians, few ordinary people are interested. A poll by ICM in 2015 found that only 40% thought the Assembly should have more powers, down from 49% the previous year (at the time of the Scottish referendum). Fully 13% thought the Assembly should be scrapped and Wales governed from Westminster. Partly this reflects the piecemeal approach of Welsh devolution, which could put off even the most diehard constitutional nationalist. “It has been a string of pretty comprehensive failures in terms of constitution-building,” says Richard Wyn Jones of Cardiff University. But is also reflects the fact that many of the policy areas under Welsh control have fared rather badly. Health care is one. A report from the Nuffield Trust, a research group, found that in 2012-13 patients in Wales waited about 170 days for a hip or knee replacement, compared with 70 days in England and Scotland. One reason is that spending on health was not protected, as it had been in England. Indeed, it fell in real (inflation-adjusted) terms by 4.3% between 2009-10 and 2012-13. Wales has also done less than England to increase competition between health providers. People in Ebbw Vale complain of a “postcode lottery”; some cross the border to England in order to get a better service.

Education is similarly mediocre. Welsh schools’ poor results are partly explained by the country’s relative poverty, but not entirely: looking only at those children who qualify for free school meals (a measure of poverty), 26% of those in Wales get five good GCSE qualifications at age 16, compared with 38% in England. Some believe that Wales’s opting out of the “academies” programme, under which most English schools have been made independent of local authorities, has held them back. And although many hoped that subsidising university for all would encourage more youngsters to apply, that does not seem to have happened: Welsh entry rates this year were 32%, compared with 37% in England, where rich students pay steep fees in order to subsidise the poor ones.

Part of the problem is a lack of political competition. Apart from a brief surge of support for the nationalist Plaid Cymru in 1997 and some Conservative backing in better-off areas, Wales overwhelmingly votes Labour. The party holds half the Assembly’s 60 seats (and would hold more, were it not for the Assembly’s proportional voting system). Polls suggest it may lose a few seats in elections in May, but there is no danger of it failing to come top.

The resulting governments have distanced themselves from English Labour and the Tories alike, without coming up with many innovations of their own. “They say you could put a donkey up here [for Labour] and it would get elected,” says a retired schoolteacher in Ebbw Vale.

This presents a paradox for the “devolution revolution”. Often the areas keenest to take on new powers are those with entrenched, well organised local politicians—and often this means they are dominated by one-party politics. Many of the English cities preparing to take on new powers, for instance, are as solidly Labour as Wales is. Some are itching to experiment and innovate. But, as Wales shows, devolution can also be used to keep things standing still.