Levelling Up White Paper - Five key takeaways
Our latest blog post lists our five key takeaways from the Levelling Up White Paper.
The first thing that strikes us about the Levelling Up White Paper is that you can see that a lot of effort and thought has gone in.
The second thing we noticed is the lack of obvious firepower - no new money or major policy announcements. However looking beneath the surface there was some indicators of what is to come.
1. No new funding but shrewd moves
The white paper has :
Making this work span central government depts - the twelve national missions are there to galvanise effort and also hold all depts accountable.
DLUHC’s assets are put to good use - Homes England broadens its remit to become a regeneration delivery vehicle.
The issue remains for DLUHC that the Treasury still ‘doesn’t buy the ROI’.
2. Devolution
The framework sets out three types of devolution:
Expansion of Mayoral Combined Authority model and powers.
New County Deals (not requiring a Mayor).
Joint Committees - groupings of neighbouring councils to pool resources.
Real devolution of course gives cities tax raising powers and this section stands out: “...in April 2023, the UK Government will explore with the Combined Authorities further flexibilities to enable them to raise their own funding through the business rates system to fund local priorities, whilst also considering the impacts on business.”
3. Addressing town centre vulnerability
There are some good things in here to address the issues of vacant units, which is an area we’ve done a lot of work in - with two current clients and we were Finalists in the London Mayor’s Activating High Streets competition in 2020. We will be watching closely how the government will be “giving local authorities the power to require landlords to rent out vacant properties to prospective tenants”.
Homes England as the vehicle for change in town centres suggests more residential so it’s important that HE recruit in some experienced economic regeneration people.
4. Council capacity to bid for funding
Instead of addressing the problem of things not being linked up across central government departments by doing centralised work, why aren’t local authorities given revenue funding to support external funding activity?
From our experience, local government has no problem at all linking things up on the ground, as it already has relationships with the main stakeholder groups.
UPDATE: There is some emerging news about the Shared Prosperity Fund in regards to this. It will include revenue funding that can be put to this use.
5. Systems thinking needs to include more of the private sector
There is an academic influence present throughout - Jim O’Neill described it as “reading like a PhD thesis”. We totally get the systems theory side but it could include more about the commercial world and how that plays a role, especially thinking about the UK’s economy in a global context.
The UK doesn’t exist in isolation. All these industries we’re trying to build up skills and capabilities are the same ones that other countries are targetting. Dare I say we need an Industrial Strategy - that covers the whole of the UK, including London.
Summary
We must all ensure that the Treasury ‘buys the ROI’ and recognises the importance of investing in this area - so it’s time to work together to demonstrate how funding makes a difference in this area.
Combined, Unitary and Local Authorities - get in touch with duncan@remarkable.city to discuss how we can help you with inward investment, horizon scanning, improving internal capabilities and managing your high-profile bids. We are specialists at working across the public and private sectors to make things happen.
Our forte is economic development and we work with a network of specialists across the worlds of transport, economics, property, planning and urban design.