LONDON – Boris Johnson is finally set to face the music – whether his plans to ‘level’ Britain really hit the mark.
The blueprint for the UK Prime Minister’s flagship domestic policy was originally expected last summer and will finally land on Wednesday after repeated delays. It unveils for the first time 12 “missions” to tackle regional inequalities, including what has been dubbed “the greatest power shift from Whitehall to local leaders in modern times,” according to the government’s belated release.
The document will seek to address some of the key criticisms leveled at Johnson’s vow to “level” Britain, namely that the policy is vague and tends to favor conservative-leaning parts of the country. Johnson even reorganized his government to strengthen it, renaming the Housing Department the Department for Leveling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and putting Cabinet heavyweight Michael Gove at the helm.
With all this time and effort being put into getting the Leveling Up agenda into shape, the big reveal has to live up to a lot. Here are five things to look out for.
1. transmission detail
The white paper should spell out more clearly the government’s promise to devolve more powers beyond Westminster – and in particular to ensure that every part of England has a local leader with equivalent powers to London by 2030.
Government has now stated that it will be up to boroughs to develop proposals for a mayor, as already exists in Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region, rather than being mandated from above. “More mayors for the areas that want one,” is the promise.
This leaves question marks about how the areas will be supported in preparing and submitting their plans: Programs like 2020’s Towns Fund and last year’s Leveling Fund, which asked local areas to apply for millions of dollars in grants, sparked controversy after many of the chosen cities were in Conservative strongholds while it was unclear why some other, less affluent places had been left out.
Local authorities may feel snubbed in all of this, as their role is rarely mentioned and they risk duplicating their functions.
While there has been extensive discussion about it Simplification of local government through the replacement of county and district councils within the framework of the white paper, it remains to be seen whether this idea has caught on.
2. new money
One of the reasons the white paper was held up was a dispute between Gove and Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Treasury over funding, according to several officials and government advisers. Sunak has been much more willing to approve individual pots of money for specific projects than to make multi-year funding commitments aimed at big ideas, such as improving productivity.
Wednesday’s release is set to feature many of those big ideas – the 12 “missions” – including narrowing the gaps in different parts of the UK in life expectancy, literacy, numeracy, skills acquisition, research and development and productivity, according to DLUHC. It’s less clear whether any of these missions have investments behind them, with the government citing funds being “diverted” or “screened” into existing programs such as brownfield development or community property.
Much mention is made of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund’s ‘decentralisation’, but many will be more concerned that it falls £1bn short of equivalent funding the UK used to receive from the EU.
3. accountability
It is a somewhat awkward moment that on the same day as the White Paper was launched, a report from the Britain’s spending watchdog targets the “limited understanding of DLUHC, which has worked well in previous local growth programs due to the lack of consistent assessment or monitoring”.
At first glance, the government’s redefined responsibilities should provide a clear set of benchmarks against which to judge progress – the lack of which has been the biggest bugbear for critics’ grading. Gove is expected to take on the earlier criticism when presenting his plan while also pointing to major shifts in the way outcomes are measured.
However, some of the missions seem to be much more specific than others. For research and development, for example, the newspaper pledges to spend 40 per cent more outside the South East by 2030, while only committing to public transport to be “significantly closer to London standards”.
4. scope
One of the common criticisms of the leveling up strategy is that it seems to mean everything and nothing. The White Paper won’t do much to help, as it covers an enormous range of policy areas, from education and health to crime and the arts. It promises that all departments are “aligned with the leveling-up agenda” and subject to oversight requirements, without giving further details. Whitehalls Wonks will want to know more about which departments are accountable to whom under these changes.
5. Who takes the credit (and the blame)?
Johnson had previously been leveler-up-in-chief, making the relevant speeches and talking about it at every opportunity. After some behind-the-scenes wrangling over how it should be launched, Leveling Up Secretary Gove will take the lead, presenting it to Parliament and answering MPs’ questions. This suits Johnson on several levels, as he can show he’s put a big beast at the top of the leveling agenda while Gove acts as a lightning rod for his successes and failures.
Conservative MPs belonging to the so-called Northern Research Group will also want some of the credit, having campaigned extensively on the need for greater decentralized powers in rural areas. But more broadly, some might feel that the fanfare surrounding the white paper is dying down a bit as talks stall over a cost-of-living support package.