The indicators and datasets in the white paper show the challenges of tracking levelling up in near real time, but it is ambiguous about the how to measure the progress across different places
The Levelling Up White Paper included a bonus 56-page technical appendix with more detail on the 49 metrics the Government has identified to track its progress achieving the 12 missions set out in the main document. How helpful is this appendix at defining what levelling up is?
Including specific indicators to track a policy objective is a step in a right direction, and the Government should be applauded for this. That said, there are questions about the execution of the approach.
Several of these metrics – the economic ones in particular – lack well-defined objectives. Mission goals are frequently defined with vague terms such as “significantly increased in every area of the UK”. This gives an incredible amount of room for manoeuvre, thus reducing its usefulness.
This is complicated further by the sheer number of metrics. On the surface 49 is an impressive number, but it isn’t particularly focused. If the country improves on one metric, but decreases on another is this good, bad or neutral overall?
More data on its own, while welcome, isn’t particularly useful unless it is matched with a framework to interpret this data. Centre for Cities’ work has shown how, for example, we shouldn’t expect productivity to be the same across the country because of the different roles that different parts of the country play in the national economy. The white paper acknowledges this. But the interesting accompanying ONS data tool does not, comparing everywhere to the median.
And while more data is good, it is not necessarily always new a measurement that is needed, but better measurement. For example, local productivity is only available until 2019 and the 2022 levels are likely to be available by mid-2024. These lags will make the task of measuring the success of levelling up even harder. Unless local productivity data becomes timelier we won’t be able to assess the 2030 target on productivity until 2032 at the earliest.
Despite the absence of different targets for different places, there are some encouraging signs on this front. The paper recognises the challenges of cities, especially the largest ones, be that in terms of crime or their underperformance relative to European cities. The technical annex goes further, providing six different metrics to measure a “globally competitive city”, including as a result of Centre for Cities’ work urban density.
Where much work is still needed is around how this is achieved. The metrics in themselves in principle provide a benchmark to compare large UK cities to their European counterparts (although that benchmark is missing from the paper). But there is nothing said on how this will be achieved, for example through how research and development funding will be used to boost productivity. Centre for Cities will be doing more work on this in the coming weeks.
It is also worth noting that if the goal of creating globally competitive cities is achieved, it would mean that it would widen gaps within regions even if it closes gaps between regions. This is sensible – levelling up the economy can’t mean making everywhere the same. But all parts of government will need to be comfortable with this, and because it isn’t stated explicitly means that its potentially politically contentious implications aren’t clear.
The inclusion of vague targets may lead to misleading conclusions about levelling up the country. The paper states that “The gaps in pay and productivity between London and other regions have been stable after a long period of divergence”. This is correct but mostly driven by London’s stagnation since the financial crisis. Between 2015 and 2019, Preston’s nominal productivity grew by an average 2.0 per cent a year, outpacing London (1.7 per cent). If repeated, these trends (which were only just above inflation) would mean that Government would achieve its goal: “productivity will have risen in every area of the UK with (…) the gap between the top performing and other areas closing”. But it would do it with one of the worst productivity growth rates in the G7.
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