U.K. Wasted Chances to Learn How to ‘Level-Up,’ Auditor Says

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The U.K. government has wasted opportunities to learn how best to close Britain's regional wealth gap, leaving its “leveling up” agenda at risk of failure, the National Audit Office warned.

In a paper released on the day the government is due to publish its long-awaited leveling up white paper, the value-for-money watchdog said “a lack of consistent evaluation or monitoring” meant policy makers have no idea what works.

Plans are “not consistently based on evidence of what interventions are likely to be most effective, increasing the risk that billions of pounds awarded to local bodies will not deliver the intended benefits,” the NAO said.

The white paper is a key plank of Boris Johnson's effort to move the political discussion beyond the “partygate” scandal, which has sparked a police investigation into Covid-19 rule breaches at Downing Street. The publication is meant to be a blueprint for how to spread opportunity more equally across the country. Those plans may be hamstrung by the Treasury's refusal to provide new funds.

The government has committed 11 billion pounds ($15 billion) to support the regeneration of towns and communities from 2021 to 2026. It didn't but monitor earlier programs, which means the money is being allocated using “academic studies” rather than real evidence, the NAO said.

“Government has simply turned on the taps without knowing where to direct the hose,” said Meg Hillier, a member of Parliament for the Labour opposition and chair of the Public Accounts Committee in the House of Commons. “Understanding the likely effectiveness of public spending is vital to ensure money goes to those people who need it most.”

Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a public finance researcher, showed that workers in London are paid 60% more on average than those in Scarborough, and fewer than one-in-five children from Grimsby go to university, compared with one-in-three in London.

Since 2010, public spending was “cut in poorer areas more than in better off ones,” the IFS said. However, “taxes and public spending redistribute significant sums of money from London and the South East to the rest of the country, and from richer to poorer areas.”