Most of UK’s levelling up taskforce based in London, figures reveal
Two-thirds of officials working on the UK government’s flagship levelling up policy are based in London, figures show.
Two years since Boris Johnson was elected on a promise to improve what he has described as the “outrage” of glaring regional inequalities, 1,929 out of 3,011 civil servants on the levelling up taskforce are based in the capital.
The largest group of civil servants based outside London are 129 in Wolverhampton, where there is a second HQ for the government’s levelling up department. After that, the largest groups of mandarins working on the policy are in cities such as Birmingham (118), Bristol (88), Leeds (75), Manchester (62) and Newcastle (62).
The figures were revealed in response to a written question from the shadow secretary for levelling up, Lisa Nandy. She described the situation as “frankly insulting”.
In a speech on civil service reform in June 2020, the secretary for levelling up, Michael Gove, argued that the government could “literally reduce the distance between government and people by relocating government decision-making centres to different parts of our United Kingdom”.
He continued: “Why shouldn’t some of the policymakers intimately involved in reshaping our approach to energy and the decarbonisation of our economy be in Teesside, Humberside and Aberdeen? Shouldn’t those thinking about this sector be part of the communities whose jobs depend on getting these decisions right?”
Nandy said: “We’ve had quite enough of ministers and civil servants sitting in Whitehall picking winners and losers in our nations and regions. For the department supposed to set this right to adopt the same arrogant approach is frankly insulting.”
Although expected in early February, the long-awaited white paper on
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