Costly competitions between councils vying for vital funding pots should be replaced to help realise the Government’s levelling up agenda, an LGA inquiry has found.
The Levelling Up Locally Inquiry report is the result of a year-long series of roundtables gathering evidence from independent experts, about how best to bridge the gap between national ambitions and the priorities of local leaders and communities.
Published 12 months on from the Levelling Up White Paper, the report highlights the need for a step change in devolution, with greater powers and resources to drive prosperity transferred to the local level.
It says councils and combined authorities’ role in promoting economic growth should be formally recognised, including being able to fairly keep and reinvest the proceeds of local growth according to local need.
Single budgets for all places that want them should also be rolled out under the leadership of local government, which would lead to improved joined-up public services, the inquiry found.
The report comes as the current competitive bid process has seen some councils spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on preparing detailed bids to the Levelling Up Fund, only to find out they were unsuccessful and, in some cases, not even eligible to apply in the first place.
The LGA says that any subsequent rounds of the Levelling Up Fund should be allocated based on evidence of need, rather than bids between areas.
Cllr Kevin Bentley, Chairman of the LGA’s People and Places Board, said: “Extra investment into our local areas has the potential to transform people’s lives and livelihoods and this needs to be accompanied by greater powers for councils, with the support of national and local partners, without needing to negotiate funding competitions.”