In reality, of course, this has nothing to do with _real_ devolution, and everything to do with passing the buck. Real devolution would see Faculties empowered to set their own agendas, their own budgets (both sides of the balance sheet) and their own timelines, and use their own resources and their own lines of accountability to achieve these ends. But hey, let's not get technical here - devolution sounds far sexier, so let's just pretend that's what it is.
A question one often hears in the passages of Toad Hall is, "Has devolution gone too far", usually in the context of suspected non-compliance with some directive that Deans or HoDs didn't particularly prioritise over the myriad of other directives being issued from other bits of Toad Hall all competing for the same resources (human, budgetary, time) with which to "do" them.
Deans, and in turn HoDs, are caught between a crock and a hard place. They can attempt compliance, spreading the love as their Faculty / Departments become increasingly hostile and ill-disposed to their uncritical rolling down of more and more and more demands... shrinking their social circles, their "free" time, their medical aid benefits - or they can resist, actively or passively, and run the risk of displeasure from above. Usually these strategies are employed in combination - their are few people brave enough to wave the fingers either at Toad Hall, or at their constituents. Humanities - and its component former Faculties - for one has a proud tradition of getting rid of Deans we don't fancy, the legends a central part of Faculty culture.
The expectation is increasingly on Deans and HoDs to act as agents of The Centre in ensuring compliance with policies, procedures, pen-pushing, and performativity expectations rather than to act as the Academic Leaders they thought their positions entailed (and still, at least among the more newly appointed, like to think they should). Which rather makes one wonder why the necessity for the glowing academic CVs required of appointments which are increasingly managerial and administrative in nature, and decreasingly even tangentially concerned with Real Academic Matters. Perhaps the next Dean of Commerce will be recruited from Old Mutual, the next Dean of Health Sciences from Afrox Private Hospitals, the next Dean of EBE from the Department of Works.