OPINION: What’s up with Levelling Up: the main takeaways from our coffee club discussion
Written by Natasha Ereira-Guyer and Constance Grave
We recently hosted a coffee club on what Levelling Up means for the civil society sector, inviting knowledgeable friends of CSC from London Plus and the Cabinet Office to speak and discuss. This briefing outlines what we learnt and where we landed: three reasons for hope, and four concerns.
The pandemic brought into sharp relief the UK’s long-standing inequalities – and worsened them. In response, the Government has now published a long-awaited White Paper on “Levelling Up” the UK - with 12 ambitious goals for 2030.
Civil Society Consulting (CSC) is a not-for-profit consultancy. We have a mission to strengthen the social sector, which has long been at the forefront of reducing inequalities and their effects on those furthest behind. The UK has some of the biggest geographical disparities. Within England, many of these divides exist between the north and the south: in 2018, there were differences in life expectancy as big as 20 years between Richmond-Upon-Thames and Blackpool. As an organisation working extensively with civil society organisations in the north of England, we’ve seen first-hand how regional inequalities manifest and cause harm. The Government's agenda seeks to level up all inequalities, particularly those between regions.
The Levelling Up agenda came off the back of Danny Kruger MP’s 2020 report on the role of civil society in supporting vulnerable communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Kruger’s report recognised the sector’s unique placement in tackling key issues and (rightfully) advocated that civil society should be given new powers to design and deliver a broad range of public services. Yet civil society is not at the forefront of the Levelling Up agenda: its presence in the White Paper is implicit, rather than that of a serious collaborator. What’s more, this is in spite of general opinion in Westminster: three-quarters of MPs recognise the role of the charity sector is essential to achieve the Levelling Up goals.
Through our Steps to Recovery (S2R) initiative, we provide free consultancy support and mentoring to grassroots organisations to enhance and prolong the much-needed support they deliver in their communities. As part of S2R, we’ve launched a bi-monthly virtual coffee club for community champions - an informal opportunity for different civil society actors to meet, connect and discuss issues pertaining to the civil society sector and how to solve them. We try to bring different stakeholders together, including grassroots groups and organisations benefiting from S2R, as well as friends of CSC with different experience and expertise.
At February’s coffee club, we were joined by the newly-appointed Minister for Civil Society, Nigel Huddleston MP. The topic of Levelling Up came up again and again (read an overview of that session here) - it felt like the whole sector was trying to get its head around what Levelling Up would mean for civil society (including us!) We decided our next coffee club would focus on Levelling Up and what it means for civil society. We partnered with Anousha Khan and Hannah Scott, friends from London Plus, a London-based organisation that aims to support, connect and empower London’s charities and community groups, and a friend from the Cabinet Office, Ellen, who played a key role on the task force writing the Levelling Up White Paper. We were also joined by Tom Leftwich from the strategy renewal team at the National Lottery Community Fund, who are looking to shift their funding approach to better support communities. What came out of the discussion? All in all, three reasons for hope and four causes for scepticism.
Three reasons for hope
1) Holistic and not just economic approach to Levelling Up
As those working in civil society know too well, more work opportunities and better productivity are not enough to impact and improve quality of life. “It is as much about having good jobs as it is about having good schools [or] strong community organisations”, explained Ellen from the Levelling Up Task Force. Places need a mixture of all of the ‘right ingredients’ in order to thrive. These ingredients go beyond simple productivity; they include good education; good mental health; decent and affordable housing; a strong sense of community; cultural prospects, and much, much more. These ingredients are interdependent, so there are no shortcuts to sustainable change.
It shouldn’t be revolutionary or innovative to appreciate the importance of community, culture and wellbeing in social development. But given that previous attempts by the Government have been heavily, if not exclusively, focused on economic productivity, it is uplifting to see these truths incorporated into this latest approach. Levelling Up makes a conscious effort to focus on alternative aspects of socio-economic development. Most of the 12 missions do not concern themselves with productivity or employment issues, but refer instead to things like ‘pride in place’, defined as ‘people’s satisfaction with their town centre and engagement in local culture and community’. Click here for a run-down of the 12 missions.
2) Collaboration between central Government and local actors
Local leaders tend to understand the needs of their community and have a good sense of which solutions will work, whereas central Government members rarely get to know the nuances of each locality. In particular, charities and community organisations are in a good position to make suggestions around policy and fund allocation. And in our experience, they have the appetite to do so.
As Ellen recognised in our coffee club, the UK Government’s over-centralised approach has not leveraged community insights, or trusted local leaders, enough in the past. Organisations have long expressed the need for Government department offices to do more footwork, come and meet with local groups. Considering the complexity and scale of its goals, Levelling Up must leverage first-hand experience and expertise of local actors for guidance to make informed decisions - and it promises to do just that.
The White Paper counts on devolvement of decision-making and funding to start empowering and working more closely with local leaders. “We are really keen to talk to groups and organisations that represent all different kinds of people and places... Fundamentally, [the Government is] also really focused on empowering local leaders and recognising that the central Government can’t deliver this alone”, Ellen explained. The agenda promises that local leaders have the final say on funding allocation. If paired with better communication between local governments and civil society, this devolvement could improve understanding of the realities on both sides and speed up problem-solving.
Some pilot programmes have already been launched in some areas and are going very well: “I have to say that we have a really good working relationship with our local authority. We’ve been a pilot for something called Locality whereby we have a locality manager and everybody who works [on social development] in the area works alongside him. So, if we want to know anything we know where to go…. We’ve found that when we’re working together, we actually work. The results are amazing,” explained Kim May, from Streets Ahead in Middlesbrough.
For decentralisation to be successful, it is important to remain wary of potential issues, particularly local authority accountability: proper feedback mechanisms are needed to keep track of spending and whether the projects invested in are successful. Nevertheless, the hope remains that decentralisation of power will bring decision-makers closer to the field.
3) Funding opportunities
Civil society is agile, high-impact, resourceful and free from many constraints that Government services may have to grapple with. We see its immense potential to make a real difference in people’s lives everyday, hence our mission to support the motivated organisations we work with. However, not-for-profits are often constrained by limited funds and resources - especially since Brexit, which dramatically reduced the amount of funding available. UK civil society got around £2 billion each year from the European Social Fund and Regional Development Fund. Levelling Up’s Shared Prosperity Fund has been deployed to replace European funds, but it amounts to £2.6 billion over three years (just over a third of the European funds). Moreover, the launch of this fund has been delayed. Nevertheless, the Shared Prosperity Fund represents an opportunity to do funding differently (which we often hear cited as heavily bureaucratic) - at a time when better mechanisms would be more welcome than ever.
Apart from the Shared Prosperity Fund, there hasn’t been an announcement of additional funding to help civil society contribute to Levelling Up yet. However, we can expect (or at least hope) that the White Paper will lead to more money for organisations actively working on one, or more, of the twelve missions. As we learned in the coffee club, the National Lottery Community Fund is already consulting with charitable organisations to review their funding allocation strategy. Lastly, devolution of power may also pave the way for more funding opportunities by allowing for a smarter, smoother, and more transparent allocation of available funds.
Four concerns surrounding the white paper
In spite of many reasons for hope, the scepticism felt by the sector came through loud and clear in the coffee club. What are the main concerns?
1) Regions may feel pitted against each other, which could intensify the north-south divide in the UK
Levelling Up seeks to reduce geographical inequalities. Our coffee clubbers were united in a concern that Levelling Up may lead to a ‘race to be the most deprived’. Whilst regional inequality is rightly one of the agenda’s main priorities, regions may end up competing for money and funding when some of the most significant inequalities exist within towns or boroughs rather than between them.
A longstanding friend of CSC, Julie McGee, from Together Middlesbrough and Cleveland, set the record straight on this: “I’m kind of dismayed by all this [talk of north vs. south]. I am coming from an area with the highest deprivation in the country… and [even] I can see that the issues are more about the differences between rich vs. poor - rather than between London and the rest. Of course there are parts of London which are areas of severe deprivation, and coming from Middlesbrough I’m the first to actually recognize that as well… It’s not about inequalities between any particular regions, it’s about levelling up the difference between the wealthy and those living in poverty.”
2) Racial disparities may remain pervasive
Many stakeholders are wondering how racial disparities have been integrated into Levelling Up. Encouragingly, the White Paper describes Britain as “multi-cultural, multi-national, multi-ethnic”. However, most racism in the UK is not overt, but instead structurally embedded into our systems. Black Africans were four times more likely to die from COVID-19 than their white counterparts, demonstrating just how pervasive racial inequalities are. Only by being actively anti-racist will Levelling Up be able to successfully reduce racial inequality.
Unfortunately, we haven’t got the impression that anti-racism is at the core of the White Paper. Alongside Levelling Up, the Government has been developing the Inclusive Britain report. Whilst Inclusive Britain mentions Levelling Up as part of its strategy to tackle racial disparities, the Levelling Up white paper does not mention Inclusive Britain - or any other specific set of measures dedicated to tackling racial disparities.
All this said, any future efforts to target inequalities between ethnic communities need to avoid pitting communities against each other, cautioned Sadia, Senior Associate here at CSC. Having remarked on food poverty within the Muslim community, Sadia said: “we’re not only [at risk of] putting regions against each other, we’re actually pitting communities against each other, I think that is going to be a huge issue.” Many stakeholders are also worried that minority-led organisations (which tend to be smaller) would struggle to get appropriate funding if the application and decision-making processes are not designed with inclusivity in mind.
3) There is a need for real impact indicators
With measurability comes accountability. Therefore many stakeholders are rightly eager to understand the metrics that the White Paper will use to measure progress. The Levelling Up paper acknowledges the importance of accountability but the plans for impact measurement are largely undefined and unclear. If stakeholders can not track progress, then momentum may be lost as priorities become moving targets. Moreover, it will be impossible for decision-makers to modify and improve their approaches without knowing whether previous choices have been judicious.
Coffee clubbers also expressed concern that the absence of impact metrics reflects a general fuzziness around what the White Paper actually wants to achieve, and where it sits in the Government's list of priorities. Some of the 12 missions are at odds with policies coming from other departments (such as a rise in national insurance) which could mean the Government chooses to shy away from measuring progress by outcomes, rather than outputs - the actions taken that contribute to achieving an outcome.
4) Lack of communication towards local organisations and beneficiaries
Levelling Up is ultimately meant to have real-life, tangible impacts on populations, organisations and beneficiaries. So, it only seems fair that the primary beneficiaries are made aware of what the government has in store for them, and how it could empower them to join the movement and make changes for the better. However, the white paper is a 300-page document, written by high-level civil servants with little experience of ‘life on the ground’. The language and format is far from accessible. It is hard for the people who will be key delivery partners to wrap their heads around. It is even harder to wrap its head around for those to whom it matters most: the vulnerable members of the general public.
As it is now, few people really know what is happening - or even that it’s happening. We already live in times of distrust towards governments and political systems. Younger generations, in particular, do not feel represented by current systems and do not know how to get involved. By failing (at least so far) to make its plans clear and accessible to all, the Government is missing out on opportunities to empower communities and re-establish contact with young people to include them back into the social fabric and decision-making process.
Wrapping Up
Although it sets out some long sought-after action points, which are warmly welcomed by the sector, it will be hard to overcome the scepticism many stakeholders may have towards the Levelling Up agenda, especially those of us working in the North. Their concerns reveal the mistrust between the civil society sector and the current Government. “The Government comes to us [grassroots organisations] full of compliments when they need us - like when we were tackling vaccine hesitancy in the midst of the pandemic, but then they disappear”, remarked a former S2R beneficiary. Levelling Up can’t be achieved without civil society, so Levelling Up needs to collaborate with and support civil society. Rather than knocking Levelling Up before it’s even off the ground, Civil Society Consulting is choosing to remain optimistic that this may happen!
Importantly, whether you have received National Lottery funding in the past or not, we recommend contributing to their strategy review, particularly if you have concerns about how Levelling Up will affect your work, and particularly if you represent and work with a marginalised community.
We have compiled the coffee club session into a 15-minute video:
