Do you know what Levelling Up is?

The Government has recently revealed its Levelling Up White Paper; however, some may be confused about what this really means.

The plan aims to initiate a system change for the Government and transform the UK by 2030 through 12 mission statements.

The mission statements in the white paper include goals to ensure pay, employment, as well as productivity, rise across all areas of the UK whilst closing the gap between the best performing areas and the worst.

Other statements are set to target infrastructure, by elevating public transport levels to London standards and making 5G coverage available for most of the population.

Education is also featured as an area for improvement, with the focus on improving primary school children’s achievements in reading, writing and maths.

There is also a focus on Research & Development, with a planned increase in domestic public spending outside of the Greater South East of at least 40 per cent.

Despite these plans being labelled as quantifiable, some have questioned how realistic these goals are.

Reports from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) highlight the challenge with funding these projects and whether the Government is confident in its commitment to delivering the outlined statements by 2030.

When commenting on the statements, Paul Johnson, director of the IFS said:

“This is all just a very first step though. The targets are largely in the right areas, but many look extremely ambitious - that is to say highly unlikely to be met, even with the best policies and much resource. There is little detail on how most of them will be met, and less detail on available funding. There is something for everyone, and hence little sense of prioritisation: ambition and resource will be spread very thin.”

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