5 minute read
Levelling up
Levelling up: An opportunity to deliver better projects
The 2020 Spending Review and 2021 Queen’s Speech redoubled the government’s commitment to a ‘levelling up’ agenda
After such a challenging year, there has never been a better time to unite and level up the country,” said Neil O’Brien MP, the prime minister’s new ‘levelling up adviser’ at the May announcement of a white paper on the policy. “It’s absolutely crucial that we bring opportunity to every single part of the UK by making sure our spending, tax, investment and regeneration priorities bring about meaningful change.”
The government defines ‘levelling up’ as “improving living standards, growing the private sector and increasing and spreading opportunity… [alongside] work being undertaken to repair the damage done by Covid to public services, with backlogs in hospitals and courts prioritised alongside school catch-ups and jobs”.
Boris Johnson committed to the idea in his first speech as prime minister in 2019, and has made the policy a key slogan for his post-Brexit, and now post-pandemic, vision for Britain. But what does this mean for projects in real terms?
Local projects can shine
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has now published the 23-page prospectus for the £4.8bn Levelling Up Fund announced in the 2020 Spending Review. A sub-£5bn fund isn’t huge in infrastructure terms – although Sunak is at pains to contextualise it against a government allocation of £100bn for capital spending in 2021–22, and part of £600bn in gross public-sector investment over the next five years.
Local stakeholders and their political representatives will bid for funds to spruce up community infrastructure – from bus lanes and libraries to heritage sites and town centres. The prospectus makes clear that these should be visible projects designed to boost communities. They will be green-lit by HM Treasury, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and the Department for Transport – with the aim of reducing siloed decision-making and authorisations.
For project managers and contractors with a strong local profile, this might create new opportunities, with a need – on more significant local projects, anyway – for project planning in the pitch stage, then effective delivery against local stakeholder objectives. In theory, both major contractors and smaller project consultancies could galvanise local stakeholders to support their own projects – lobbying MPs and councils, pulling together a bid and getting the go-ahead from Whitehall.
The first round of funding will prioritise “smaller transport projects that make a genuine difference to local areas; town centre and high street regeneration; and support for maintaining and expanding the UK’s world-leading portfolio of cultural and heritage assets”. But bids leaning into the net-zero emissions target and the post-pandemic ‘Build Back Better’ concept are likely to get extra Brownie points, too.
Focus on the north and west
Ultimately, any sustained programme of new projects – whether large or small – will increase demand for project management expertise. With a focus on the north and west of the country, project managers in those regions can expect more work on their doorsteps – even if levelling up delivers relatively modest levels of new investment in major projects.
Transport for the North was established in 2016, with the aim to transform transport connectivity across the north of England. Now that the government has laid out its levelling-up agenda to boost national productivity through infrastructure post-pandemic, the organisation’s work is set to really step up.
“Transport connectivity has a phenomenally important role to play,” explained Tim Foster, interim strategy and programme director at Transport for the North, at the Major Projects Association event ‘Levelling Up: How Major Projects are Tackling Social and Economic Inequalities’ in April.
“That’s what we are there to do: set the scene and the long-term vision for the way in which connectivity – for people, businesses, freight and logistics – can really transform the
Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the UK Levelling Up Fund worth £4.8bn
economic fortunes of the north of England.”
Good transport links provide many benefits to a region, Foster explained. They can boost equality by creating greater access to jobs and education. And they can drive economic growth, as businesses move into wellconnected areas. Rail infrastructure also contributes to reaching net-zero targets, with fewer people travelling by car.
The wider agenda
Levelling up creates an important challenge about coordination and the effective delivery of projects. “If funding mechanisms give the green light to a raft of projects at once, will there be sufficient consideration of how the different schemes inter-relate?” mused APM’s then head of external affairs, David Thomson, in a March blog. “There will be huge opportunities to create benefit for communities, but maximising them – and minimising the potential for clashing priorities – will pose real challenges. Delivering real value for the country will require a coherent view from the government of the overall picture, with a focus on long-term benefits. Central to that, I would suggest, will be the need to deliver effectively ‘on the ground’.”
But that means having the right senior delivery and project professionals ready and raring to go, but as things currently stand, the UK is lacking. Government must be urged to identify and invest in the right skills. Investing in people, as well as material resources, will create the skills necessary to deliver projects now and in the future. A welcome step is the Infrastructure and Projects Authority’s recent launch of its Project Academy, as part of a package of measures to improve capacity and capability in project delivery – but meeting the current level of ambition will take time.
Policies such as levelling up depend on the delivery, efficiency and quality of projects that make a clear and visible contribution to people’s lives. But failing to embed a stronger project management culture in companies, communities and government for the benefit of future development would also be a tragically missed opportunity.
Alamy
