Recommendation 15

The Levelling Up Fund is UK-wide.36 We noted that the prioritisation of local places used criteria that was Great Britain wide, as well as three separate sets of criteria for Scotland, England and Wales. A different approach to delivering the Levelling Up Fund was taken in Northern Ireland, which took account of the different local government landscape including that there was no prioritisation of places.37 We challenged the Department about how the funds were allocated in Scotland as issues such as local regeneration, local transport and local government are devolved to the Scottish Parliament.38 We also asked the Department what discussions they had held with Scottish local authorities and the 27 Q 103, LFG0003 28 Q 54, C&AG Report Para 1.9 29 Q 102 30 C&AG’s Report, para 1.14 31 Q 102 32 C&AG’s Report Para 1.14 33 Q 35 34 Qq 35, 84 35 Q 35 36 C&AG’s Report Figure 2 37 DLUHC, Levelling Up Fund Round 2: technical note, July 2022; DLUHC Levelling Up Fund technical note, May 2021 38 Q 127 14 Levelling up funding to local government Scottish Government before the prioritisation was decided for Scotland.39 The Department told us it had conversations across the devolved administrations but ultimately the decisions were made by UK government ministers.40