First impressions of the levelling up white paper
The UK government’s levelling up white paper is out - so what better time to start a new blog!
Twelve new missions, a new advisory council, legislation, a raft of policies - and 300 pages long. It will take some time for us to collectively digest everything that’s in here so this is really just first impressions.
The first thing to say is that it's genuinely great to finally see this. I was worried for a while that levelling up was going to fizzle away, becoming an unserious bit of sloganeering rather than the meaty agenda it deserved to be.
The second thing to say is that this is appearing quite late in the cycle... and it's peppered with references to 2030. I'm reading this as a blueprint for the next parliament, with most of this being 'we will do'/'are doing' - not 'done' - at the next general election.
Systemic reform
Given that levelling up could have been any of....
cynical pork barrelling in Red Wall seats
just about any policy that improves people's lives
a politically neutral attempt to address profound inequalities through serious long-term reform
....it is excellent that the LUWP has gone for the serious option. This comes as a relief, but not as a surprise given Andy Haldane's prominent role. Andy's 'industrial strategy' fingerprints are instantly recognisable here. A lot of thought has gone into this.
Given this seriousness, the government deserves credit for recognising the need for systemic reform. Alongside Brexit and Covid, inequality is the biggest challenge facing the UK today and, like Brexit and Covid, inequality needs systemic reform if we are really to tackle it.
Systemic reform is of course exceptionally difficult, and to stand any chance of succeeding it requires two ingredients. First, there should be exceptional clarity about the goal of reform. The LUWP gets it right by seeking to provide this clarity. The 12 missions are quite clear, they're measurable, and they're honestly pretty difficult to oppose. Of course some of the wording smells of compromises made here and there. But many of these bring to mind the comparable 'Net Zero by 2050' goal. That's impressive.
And, like Net Zero, the govt will legislate. That's a good idea, not just because it helps insure against dilution and backtracking before 2030. But also because the law is a powerful lever for change inside and outside government - as the Net Zero commitment has shown.
Missions for levelling up
Are missions the right way to go? Yes! While I personally despise vague and inconsequential "Grand Challenges" like "Clean Growth", tightly specified missions can guide resources to the most important goals, even while the context evolves.
But are there too many? Yes. It was nigh-on impossible for BEIS to coordinate and drive the Industrial Strategy across Whitehall when there were just a handful of missions and just four Grand Challenges. Twelve? That's asking a lot of the state machine.
As I said, though, legislation may help. But if I were in No10/Cabinet Office I would be quite worried about delivery and already thinking about falling back on a prioritised list. I would also be thinking about accountability, including people, structures and departmental roles and boundaries (including HMT).
Which brings me to the second key ingredient of systemic reform: the big rewiring of policies, processes and incentives to deliver. Too many reforms fail because the policy substance isn't there, or because institutions dig their heels in.
The step to offer further devolution through Mayoral Combined Authority deals are encouraging here. Whether or not places end up going for these, MCA deals represent a clear change to a place's frameworks and incentives. Vested interests can be swept out of the way. New accountability structures will shake things up.
But some of the other missions don't have an obvious path to delivery and the LUWP is worryingly silent on how these will be achieved (outside of some best intentions/'we recognise' stuff). That is an issue, because it lets doubtful or restive ministers off the hook. When combined with the eye-watering ambition of some of the missions (e.g. the education outcomes one), there is a serious prospect of paralysis in poorly functioning departments. Some of these missions deserve a white paper of their own to set out proper delivery plans, as the DHSC has promised on health inequalities, and some need a powerful No10/CO machine to hold recalcitrant ministers' and officials' feet to the fire.
In addition, struggling departments will need to seek ideas and solutions from a wide range of sources, not just from those with easy access. Missions of any kind need a creative, problem-solving mindset. I hope the planned engagement is genuine, and not just for show.
Overall, then, the LUWP should be welcomed for taking a thoughtful, neutral and systems-based approach to tackling our worst inequalities. The 12 missions, while numerous, will provide clear focus for the work ahead. Which, in many areas, means setting out how it will deliver.
Research and development
It's pretty clear that the government sees R&D as a very significant plank of the whole levelling up agenda. Combined with its prominence in the Integrated Review, followed by a major uplift to budgets in SR21, R&D seems to take pride of place at the heart of the government’s domestic and international strategy.
That’s a huge vote of confidence, and there’s a chance that the sector can’t live up to expectations. Either way, there is a real agenda to grapple with here.
The R&D proposition in the LUWP itself is a bit of a curate’s egg. There will be a fuss over the spending target and the sudden appearance of three innovation accelerators – but there is scope to nuance all of this in the delivery.
It’s interesting that the government has stuck with its anticipated target to increase public R&D spending outside the golden triangle. I can see exactly why this has happened but I have issues with how things will now be framed in terms of this target…
Research alone won't do much to support levelling up if it's disconnected from a place's needs and opportunities.
Blue-skies research in particular has unpredictable and long-term impacts that are often felt elsewhere. (After all, anyone can read an open-access PDF.)
Moving research money around the system doesn't automatically move the benefits around.
Richard Jones is right in saying that knowledge leads to technological advances and productivity, as knowledgeable people move around and connect with others in their immediate system. But these effects are inadequately incentivised by the funding system.
At least the LUWP’s focus on levering private investment (as a proxy measure for impact) seems to recognise the need for connectivity between knowledge production and exploitation. But it's an ugly and weak framing of the problem which undermines the very positive later discussion of how support will be tailored to the needs of different places.
I'd rather have seen a commitment to building stronger connections between our research base and the needs of communities all over the UK – focussed on outcomes not inputs – and recognition that locally applied research and innovation can address societal issues as well as simply raising total factor productivity.
Such a thing is hard to turn into a simple mission, of course. But putting the spending ahead of the delivery makes this feel like an unfinished conversation, and while the LUWP seems to give BEIS space to operate, doing so with the distraction of a clunky input target is, in my view, the wrong move.
(That’s not to mention the elliptical reference to Paul Nurse’s review of RD&I institutions, which will “set out how research and development drive economic activity and societal benefit throughout the UK”. I wonder what he’s going to say!)
Anyway, I suspect UKRI won’t be best pleased about all of this – not to mention NIHR whose funding is hyperconcentrated in the Golden Triangle. Funders can of course make it work by thinking about the ways that R&D can benefit the whole of the UK, and not just about the spending target. As I say, it can be nuanced in the delivery. But UKRI (and NIHR) will also be conscious that there are national imperatives which mustn't be ignored, including the need to protect and enhance important national capabilities for the long term. They will be nervous, which makes delivery harder. A new objective for UKRI heaps on the pressure, especially with David Grant scrutinising the agency.
This is only scratching the surface of a debate that has been covered in greater depth elsewhere. And this debate can go on and on without resolution. The government should at least get credit for doing something, even if it isn’t exactly what I would have done.
Innovation accelerators
On the innovation accelerators, these are clearly excellent news for those places. We have a brand new initiative which will be tailored, devolved, and geared towards innovation outcomes. Excellent!
There will be questions, of course – how will this be materially different to Strength in Places? How will the money be apportioned? What exactly will it be for? What role will local and regional actors have in determining the activities and outcomes? How much will be devolved vs controlled by BEIS/UKRI/IUK/others? What about the places that were not picked – will there be further rounds of this?
And – importantly – what kind of a difference can this scale of money make to each place? £100m is a very promising start but not exactly megabucks – and Strength In Places had an approved funding envelope of 2-4x that.
The government will need to be clear and honest about what this money can do and what it cannot. It is realistic to expect these to solve some real innovation challenges at an appreciable scale. But it will only make a minor contribution to the above input target. And it won’t get you three Silicon Valleys.
It’s good to see the focus on innovation, though – this is exactly where the gap is. And I commend the government for recognising that if we are to move the dial on innovation then we should focus on partnerships and local clusters in city regions. Excellent news!
Finally, this started as a promise of a tweet thread with emojis, so I’ll finish with my summary of the LUWP in emoji form:
Length: 😲
Ambition: 😇
Nerdiness: 🤓
Detail: 🤨
Deliverability: 😫