After Levelling Up – Windows Closing, Heads Down & Muddling On

After Levelling Up

This may be premature, but my mind has been moving onto post-Levelling Up. There have been plenty of very good analyses of the Levelling Up White Paper and I don’t really have anything new to add. Here are some links to things I bookmarked over the last few weeks: 

• The Long And Winding Road: The political economy of Levelling Up | by Max Nathan | Feb, 2022 | Medium
• Levelling up | Centre for Cities
• Henry Overman: Judge levelling up white paper’s success by opportunities for individuals | Local Government Chronicle (LGC) (lgcplus.com)
• Levelling Up Research and Development – Soft Machines
• Levelling Up for the long term (cam.ac.uk)
• Rupert Greenhalgh on Twitter: “Sits down with a beer and the Levelling Up White Paper. NIce to see Thebes 1360 BC gets a mention early on, never the same since they over-centralised in Cairo” / Twitter
• Productivity is key to “levelling up” – Prospect Magazine
• Why access to good work must be central to the Levelling Up agenda – IFOW
• Other Countries Have Made Progress in Levelling Up – Here’s How the UK’s Plan Compares – City REDI Blog (bham.ac.uk)
• The Briefing Room – Will the levelling up plans work? – BBC Sounds

Although there are pockets of optimism, the general view is that the White Paper was a major let down. Aspirations had been built up of a sea change in the Government’s approach to reducing inequalities between people and places, but TLDR: The White Paper is strong on diagnosis and weak on cure.

In politics timing and events are everything. The White Paper moment was a collision of two things both of which are now subsiding:

1. The economic development world of local/regional government, think tanks, researchers and consultants etc built up some expectation that after a decade of strategy-free policy and planning, we were on the cusp of a moment of clarity and direction. In amidst the cynicism there was some hope that a new agenda to tackle (at least elements of) the long standing known challenges around inequality, disadvantage and economic growth between places and people. That has now been dashed.
2. A moment of potential electoral advantage for the Tory party in government to make good on part of the coalition that helped it win the 2019 election ie a brewing sense of grievance in red wall/left behind places. In reality, I suspect Brexit and anti-Corbyn sentiment were much stronger drivers, both of which have now lost their electoral potency. Although there is a real case for improving the economic and social standing of places that went Red to Blue, people at the rough end of economic opportunity almost certainly had little real expectation of the Tories really improving things.  And now, the cost of living crisis (and, dare we say it, the effects of Brexit) are likely to become more dominant themes of concern and Levelling Up will recede from the headlines.

It feels like a moment of opportunity has passed.

The path ahead is more muddling on, grabbing sporadic opportunities for private and public investment, and navigating the lengthy devo-deal/re-organisation process.

There won’t be a clear joined-up strategy, there won’t be the capacity for local places to drive the agenda, and there won’t now be a national spotlight directed on the vital task of improving the life chances of people and the prosperity of places.

This shouldn’t be a cause for complete despair. Since 2011, there has been plenty (if not sufficient) for places to do. That will continue to be the case and the global social and economic changes around us will continue to create opportunities as well as new challenges.

Two issues sat within the Levelling Up agenda have grabbed my attention over recent weeks:

1. Community Ownership

As a consultant, I spent a lot of time operating in the pragmatic tramlines of the latest government policy and rarely stepped back to ask whether a more fundamental restructuring of the economy was needed. A recent tweet by Neil McInroy caused me to stop and reflect on this. Hands up, I have worked with the world as I found it and been fearful of putting forward apparently overly ambitious schemes. I was reared on the mantra of market failure which guides us to tweak the market to secure better outcomes before we construct a new paradigm. Outcomes rather than process or structures matter, and if we can achieve positive outcome without the cost and risk of structural change, then it made sense to do so.

That said, we have a clearer sense today that anchor assets matter and community control over them (inc by local government) could help build more local engagement, pride and even retain wealth. I’ve been involved in a project to do this, trying to buy a 100yr old former cinema from the Co-op. It’s not easy and the scale of the investment means the community will be a minority owner alongside a private developer who has the financial appetite for the full risks involved.

As I look back and forward, I do think that we need to put community ownership more firmly on the agenda, but at the same time be realistic about the contribution it can make to the levelling up challenge and our national agenda. There is a role for greater levels of public and community ownership of services and assets, but the scale of the environmental and productivity challenge we face probably dwarf the potential. Public and community ownership of energy, transport and other strategic sectors of industry undoubtedly have some appeal, but a stronger political consensus will be needed than seems to be in place. Corbynism was unable to build that consensus and reassure enough that he could deliver. That window of opportunity to build a stronger consensus (if it ever existed) may have passed and is now probably tarnished by its association with Corbyn.

Community ownership will continue to be positive feature of the economic development scene, but for now it will be just another under-powered policy that doesn’t reach the critical scale needed to level up or tackle other economic challenges we face.

2. Culture Change

The rise of populism has shown us that culture can trump economics and that we aren’t simply utility maximising entities. Social structures, family ties and the associations we have with places are important in shaping who we are and how we behave. And, so also are race, gender and social class. These are all complex and sensitive topics that mainstream economic development doesn’t grapple with well. In large part I suspect that is because it a politicised debate often wrapped up political theory, with huge potential to cause offense and scope to disappear into conflict. Tim Williams has made me think more about this. Tim makes a passionate claim that wokery presents a real and significant threat to (or distraction from) social and economic progress. I’m not convinced. I think the so-called culture wars are largely fake and mainly serve to distract us from the real challenge of resolving economic and social injustice (a phrase that probably reveals where my sympathies lie). The awareness raising (of privilege, micro aggressions etc) aren’t going to resolve the deep challenges of inequality or the search for identity recognition among minority groups, but it is surely a positive step in the right direction and not a sign of the decadent decay setting in. I think though mainstream economic development needs to have a better way of understanding the role of culture in tackling inequality and addressing change in places and with people.

I don’t have the answers to what is required, but I do know that the Levelling Up White Paper hasn’t set us on the track to resolve these challenges. I do fear that we have just moved beyond a window of opportunity to implement some of the fundamental changes needed. And, I worry that we could get distracted speculating on what might have been. The challenges aren’t getting any easier, but we have to get our heads down and muddle on until the next window emerges.

And, do keep an eye on the opinion polls; we may also have passed a point of no return for the Conservatives and may be looking at a change of government at the next election. What will the Labour manifesto contain?