Place-based policy and the ‘Levelling Up’ agenda
‘This [the UK’s] centralised [policymaking] approach has had several negative consequences for past efforts to level up. It under-utilises local knowledge, fails to cultivate local leadership and has often meant anchor institutions in local government have lacked powers, capacity and capability. These shortcomings have gone hand-in hand with the lack of a clear role for business and civil society in helping to shape and deliver policy locally’ (HM Government 2022, p112)
The quote above wouldn’t feel out of place in a think tank opinion piece but is, in fact, lifted from the government’s very own Levelling Up White Paper. In a chapter detailing 100 years of local growth policy, the authors acknowledge that the UK’s governance model is remarkably centralised. This admission is interesting given the centralising arc that has defined much English education policy in recent decades. Whether it be the decline of LAs through the 1988 Education Reform Act or the recent commitment to accelerated MAT-isation, some critics have begun to mourn the death of the ‘local’ in education policy-making. However, this may be a little premature.
