Achieving Levelling-Up: The structures and processes needed

This report is based on research to date conducted as part of the LIPSIT project undertaken by the Universities of Birmingham, Cardiff, Surrey and Warwick and think tank Demos and funded by the ESRC, Grant ES/T002468/1.

‘Levelling up’ refers to economic convergence between the regions—more specifically, convergence upwards. Our research (59 interviews and two workshops with practitioners, literature review and statistical analysis) focused on the structures and processes needed to achieve this. It concluded that levelling up will be difficult but possible, that achieving it will require strong local institutions, and that this in turn will require leadership from the centre.

We also concluded that the existing system for managing local economic policy from the centre is dysfunctional: in the absence of change, there is zero chance of reversing the long-term trend towards greater regional inequality that levelling up requires.