The Levelling Up White Paper marshalled together a wide range of initiatives and funding streams – analysis by CEILUP found that over £250bn and 120 different policies were mentioned in it. However, there was less mention of which areas the government sees as priorities for levelling up and the extent to which communities themselves could be empowered to lead on this agenda. Nevertheless, the White Paper presents numerous opportunities to work with the government in order to maximise the impact of levelling up on those areas facing the greatest socio-economic challenges and highest levels of community need.
The roundtable brought together members of the APPG and contributors to the recent CEILUP publication ‘Levelling Up: what is it and how can it work’, and will assist in the planning of the APPG’s forthcoming inquiry into Levelling Up the ‘left behind’. It also represented an opportunity to consider how collectively and individually organisations can best respond to the White Paper and contribute to the government’s work on levelling up.