ESRC practitioner engagement: summary findings report

Abstract

The final findings from Work Package 3, qualitative research based on the experience of policy practitioners, as part of the wider ESRC-MHCLG research project “Improving Public Funding Allocations to Reduce Geographical Inequalities”. The report centres on a series of policy recommendations for change based around three key barriers; 1) Quantum and Prioritisation, 2) Centralisation, and 3) Capacity and Local Leadership

The report found an over-reliance on competitive bidding, fragmentation of funding streams, short-term funding windows, unclear eligibility criteria, a politically-driven reliance on visible grant funding, a loss of good practice in private-public expertise, and an over-reliance on capital over revenue spending. We have heard that this [“Levelling Up” funding policy design] collectively represented a lot of unlearning of the best practice from the preceding forty-year period, from governments of all colours.

“Levelling Up” took place in a context of unevenly declining local resources and public service pressures, making it hard to identify the possible impact with the allocated quantum of spending.

We found consensus that the widespread diminution of local government’s capacity to deliver over the prior decade resulted in the loss of local initiative, proactive capacity and well-developed project pipelines …. One senior local authority figure detailed how their economic development team had contracted from 67 to just six core team members

The resulting system was characterised by bottlenecks where local initiatives must await central approval … At its core lies what one senior civil servant characterised as a "painful" process of seeking approval for even modest project adjustments, reflecting the fundamental tension between central accountability and local delivery needs

This report is for the Improving Public Funding Allocations to Reduce Geographical Inequalities project funded by the ESRC.

The project brings together a highly experienced interdisciplinary team from the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, De Montfort, Newcastle, Nottingham, Plymouth and Sheffield, together with the National Centre for Social Research and Metro Dynamics.