Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said the levels of delay in the Tories’ flagship plan were ‘absolutely astonishing’ and hit out at a ‘waste of resources’
Only 10% of promised Levelling Up funds have actually been spent and are making a difference to communities, a damning report has found.
Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said the levels of delay in the Tories’ flagship plan were “absolutely astonishing”. Her report found a “lack of transparency and a waste of public resources in the scheme, warning that the Government is unable to provide “any compelling examples of what Levelling Up funding has delivered so far”.
It said that out of £10.47billion in total funding committed from central government, which must be spent between 2020-21 and 2025-26, local authorities have been able to spend only £1.24billion. The committee’s report said bids for “more impactful” projects were lost because ministers were “blinded by optimism” and favoured so-called “shovel-ready” projects.
Yet it found that 60 out of 71 of these projects, which were supposed to be completed and delivering benefits for local people by March 2024, have had to extend to 2024-25, with further delays likely. It raised concerns that not enough was done to understand the readiness of schemes and the challenges facing local authorities before funds were awarded.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) told the committee the impact of the pandemic and inflation resulted in a lower than anticipated amount of funding having been spent.
Labour MP Dame Meg said: “The levels of delay that our report finds in one of the Government’s flagship policy platforms is absolutely astonishing. Our Committee is here to scrutinise value for money in the delivery of Government policy.
“But in the case of Levelling Up, our report finds that the Government is struggling to even get the money out of the door to begin with. Citizens deserve to begin to see the results of delivery on the ground.”
Shadow Levelling Up Secretary Angela Rayner said: “The Conservatives have utterly abandoned any pretence of trying to achieve their mission to level up Britain. This report confirms that the Tories’ begging-bowl approach to funding bids has wasted scarce public resources, forcing local authorities to spend precious time, effort and funds to bid for pots of money, many of which they have no chance of getting.”
Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: “When this fund was first announced, we raised concerns that the Treasury’s idea for a bidding process would be unnecessarily costly and time-consuming. This has proved to be the case, exposing local authorities to high inflation, particularly in construction, which has driven up the cost of projects. Giving money directly to Mayors and the poorest councils would have been a far more cost-effective way of delivering a much bigger impact, in a much shorter time.”
A DLUHC spokeswoman said: “Buildings do not go up overnight and these are multi-year programmes, so it is to be expected that the capital spend ramps up in later years. But we will continue to give expert support to councils to tackle any delivery blockers so we deliver these vital projects quickly.”
