Levelling up: People first approach
Levelling up agendas must put people at the heart of place-based action
The UK Government has made clear its commitment to ‘tackle longstanding regional inequalities through challenging ourselves to consider how a greater focus on place outcomes in decision-making…could address regional imbalances in R&D intensity as part of our levelling up ambition.’ Such a focus amongst current government thinking, coupled with the increasing emphasis in recent spending reviews of cross-departmental outcomes informing allocations of funding, is welcome. Inequalities can be evidenced within every aspect of UK society and do not align neatly into government departmental ‘silos’. As such, ‘levelling up’ agendas must cut across multiple policy areas.
The UK is a fundamentally unequal country, with geography presenting itself as one of the main axes of division. Across the UK, high levels of inequality are underpinned by marked place-specific differences in educational attainment, employment prospects, health and wellbeing.
For example, place-based disparities are starkly apparent in the employment landscape with the highest (pre-Covid) unemployment rates in the UK in the North East of England with a figure of 6.2 per cent compared to a rate of 2.3 per cent in Northern Ireland. Drilling down further, differences are exacerbated for disadvantaged groups. For example, for disabled people the likelihood of being in employment ranges from around 32 per cent in Northern Ireland to 53 per cent in the south west of England.
Yet historically, policy attention in Westminster has tended to focus on a simplistic ‘north-south divide’ when considering place-based inequalities. In reality, the embedded nature of inequalities in UK society results in significant inequalities both within and between places. Disadvantage runs deeper than being determined by just the physical geography of place.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on this, clearly demonstrating that inequalities cannot be neatly ‘packaged’ into silos (of gender, ethnicity, disability, age, etc.) overlaid by classical economic geographies. In England, mortality rates from COVID-19 in the most deprived areas have been shown to be more than double the mortality rate in the least deprived areas. Yet, if we take a people first approach, looking at the experiences of those facing disadvantage across multiple protected characteristics, data also shows a disproportionate number of deaths in black, Asian, and ethnic minority populations, whilst data released by the ONS has shown that a third of all lives lost to COVID-19 in the UK have been disabled people.
The data is even starker when disaggregated by gender. Disabled women under 65 with limiting disabilities are 11.3 times more likely to die than non-disabled women, compared to disabled men aged under 65 with limiting disabilities are 6.5 times more likely to die.
To understand, assess and address such overlapping inequities through policy interventions, it is imperative to take an intersectional approach to data analysis, situated in an understanding of the historical and contemporary structuring of inequalities in UK society.
Intersectionality has the power to provide greater and more nuanced insight into lived experiences and allows for the development of appropriate equality policy objectives, outcomes and evaluation. This is because such an approach highlights, for example, how the inequalities faced by women of colour are not the same as those faced by white women with a racial element “added on”: they are fundamentally different. To turn once again to pre-COVID employment figures, data shows an unemployment rate of 2.9 per cent for non-disabled white women. This figure jumps to 7 per cent for non-disabled black, Asian and minority ethnic women and to 14 per cent for disabled black, Asian and ethnic minority women.
Dominic Cummings has recognised the importance of examining issues from an intersectional perspective, arguing for policy formulation to follow a mantra of, ‘people, ideas, machines — in that order…Fundamental political problems we face require large improvements in the quality of all three and, harder, systems to integrate all three. Such improvements require looking carefully at the intersection of roughly five entangled areas of study. Extreme value is often found at such intersections.’
Frequently, however, not enough time is devoted to putting people (and all people) front and centre. If the intention of the UK Government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda is to rip-up the status quo in policymaking and adopt a radically different playbook that seriously addresses place-based inequalities then the approach must be multi-dimensional; considering both where and who will benefit — whether that is from increased funding for skills development, infrastructure investment, increased R&D spend and so forth.
Moreover, at present, there is a lack of basic mechanisms to share funding and policy initiatives across government departments — let alone systematically share and assess data collection, and enable intersectional analysis. Addressing this data gap and data malaise, and adopting an intersectional approach within the ‘levelling up’ agenda, is vital.
So, whilst a commitment to ‘level up’ has the potential to make real progress towards tackling embedded place-based inequalities in the UK, to be truly far-reaching the UK Government must take seriously an intersectional approach to data collection, analysis, and evaluation and in turn policy formation. Policies must take account of the nuance and complexities of UK citizens’ lives and be constructed in consultation with local actors and communities. Failure to do so, risks the ‘levelling up’ agenda instead further entrenching existing inequalities through moving the dial, but only to the benefit of certain groups in society.
With attention on ‘levelling up’ as a cross-government agenda likely to form a central pillar in forthcoming spending reviews, greater focus will also turn to understanding the need for better metrics to ensure public value. However, government can only achieve this by measuring ‘the right things in the right way’. To truly affect action on place-based inequalities and level up the UK, policy must get serious about valuing intersectional data and analysis as a strategic national asset.
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About the authors
Dr Olivia Stevenson is Head of UCL Public Policy and Siobhan Morris is Coordinator of the UCL Grand Challenge of Justice & Equality
