Source · Select Committees · Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
Recommendation 18
18
Accepted
Paragraph: 65
DLUHC lacks sufficient data on levelling up expenditure to measure policy success.
Conclusion
We are concerned about the DLUHC’s lack of sufficient data on all aspects relating to levelling up. The Department has acknowledged that it lacks data of sufficient quality about Government department’s expenditure on the full range of levelling up funds. It also lacks data on combined authority income and expenditure. This raises the question about how the DLUHC measures success or failure in the levelling up policy, its initiatives and objectives. Taking the publication of the White Paper as a starting point, the levelling up policy has been live for over a year, and the ongoing absence of adequate data raises significant concerns about how the DLUHC can realistically take credible data-driven decisions within this policy. It further raises questions about the DLUHC’S future ability to determine whether its policy is a success.
Government Response Summary
The government acknowledges data concerns but states good progress is being made on metrics, with new data publicly available. They also note the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will require annual reports and DLUHC is working to publish subnational expenditure data, with an annual report on devolution due by March 2024.
Paragraph Reference:
65
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
Whilst there is always more that could be done on data, and improvements are continuously sought, good progress has been made against measuring the metrics in the technical annex of the Levelling Up White Paper. The vast majority of these metrics are now publicly available, including on the Subnational Indicators Explorer. And indeed, many of them are recent innovations that give interested parties a level of granular detail and specificity that we have never had before. For instance, it is only in the last six months that we have been able to measure Gross Value Added (GVA) at small area geographies (e.g. LSOA level). The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will require the Government to provide an annual report on progress against the missions. In addition, through the subnational expenditure project, the Department is working to provide access to quality-assured expenditure data from government departments at local authority level, and in some cases at neighbourhood level. We are making progress on publishing this subnational expenditure data for the Department (including selected Arm’s Length Bodies). The Department produces an Annual Report on Devolution setting out the key central funding streams paid to Mayoral Combined Authorities over the previous year. The 2022-23 report is currently in development and will be published before 31 March 2024. Separately, each MCA is also required to publish its own annual accounts, publicly available online. The committee will also appreciate that grants and funding streams delivered by MCAs on behalf of other government departments will each be subject to monitoring by those departments, as they see fit.