31 March 2023 , 10:35
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Town halls have spent a staggering £23m of public money on consultants to help them bid against each other for money from the flagship £4.8bn Levelling Up Fund.
An investigation by The Northern Agenda politics newsletter lays bare the absurdity of the country's 'begging bowl' funding culture as local authorities spend as much as £1.3m each on outside experts to improve their bids for regeneration cash.
At least £23.4m has been paid by councils across the country to consultants, with £9.27m paid out by leaders in the North of England despite many Northern areas being among the poorest in the country.
And the majority of the money spent on consultants did not even result in successful bids, Freedom of Information requests sent to local authorities reveal, including £2.69 million on “doomed” round two bids which were never going to succeed due to councils having already received money in round one.
Durham County Council spent £1.3 million on consultants, more than any other local authority in Great Britain.
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That’s followed by Lancashire (£657,000), Wakefield (£614,468), and Bradford (£610,000).
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Rishi Sunak examines potholes with Darlington Council leader Jonathan Dulston (far left), Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen (far right) and Darlington MP Peter Gibson (second from left) (PA)The Levelling Up Fund was launched by Boris Johnson in 2020 with the aim of investing government money into local infrastructure to support economic recovery.
Many regeneration projects around the country have been funded but the bidding process has been heavily criticised, with some likening it to a “beauty pageant” and a “begging bowl culture”.
FOI requests were sent to 389 local authorities across Britain, 334 of which responded. A total of 283 confirmed that they made a combined total of 532 bids for £9.18 billion worth of funding, only £2.94 billion of which was awarded.
Type in the name of your local authority in our widget below to find out how much of your money was spent on consultants
Shadow Levelling Up Secretary Lisa Nandy said: “This investigation by the Northern Agenda exposes the absurdity of the government’s Hunger Games-style bidding system.
"Communities have to compete with one another for permission to do what will work for them, with councils forced to spend millions of pounds in the middle of a cost of living crisis in the process.
“Labour will put an end to this broken system. Through our Take Back Control Act we will undertake the biggest ever transfer of power out of Westminster, putting communities in control of their own destiny and giving local leaders the tools and backing to drive growth in their local economies, without having to go cap-in-hand to Whitehall.”
West Yorkshire's Labour mayor Tracy Brabin said: “This begging bowl approach to levelling up has to stop.
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"Not only is it a waste of time, hope and energy for our unsuccessful local communities, it’s also a massive drain on dwindling council resources – as these figures show."
Hover your mouse over the orange dots in the image below to see which councils spent the most cash on consultants
The failures of the current system have been criticised by all sides, including by the Government itself in the Levelling Up White Paper published a year ago. Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove says his department is reviewing the current bidding process and whether it can be streamlined.
As evidence of things changing, Ministers point to the recent devolution deals struck with the mayors of Greater Manchester and the West Midlands giving them a guaranteed £1bn devolved funding pot each to spend as they see fit.
West Midlands Mayor Andy Street, a Conservative who used to run John Lewis, said earlier this year that the begging bowl culture was holding his region back but the latest deal meant "the West Midlands will no longer be caught up in the system that sees regions bidding against eachother".
He said: “This new fiscal autonomy will allow us to push on with the ambitious projects that made our region one of the obvious places to pioneer the next era of devolution in England.
“I am confident that, alongside Greater Manchester, we will be able to blaze the trail for fiscal devolution and prove that the single pot model should be rolled out to other Mayoral Combined Authority areas in good time.”
Durham County Council spent £1.3 million on consultants, more than any other local authority who responded to the Freedom of Information request.
The identities of the consultants was withheld by the council, but they contributed to the successful £20 million 'Rural Connectivity and Cultural Programme' bid and the unsuccessful £98 million 'Enhance and Maintain City of Durham’s Economy Through Improved Transport Assets' bid.
Amy Harhoff, Durham County Council’s corporate director of regeneration, economy and growth, said it submitted "five large and diverse bids at the maximum value available", meaning it needed to "invest in additional capacity to support the process".
She said: "Like many areas across the country, we were deeply disappointed by the outcome of the round two levelling up announcement.
"However, the business cases and detailed proposals that were developed will now be used to make the case as part of other suitable future funding opportunities and as a council we will be actively pursuing those.”
Local authorities deemed to be the most in need of Levelling Up funding were awarded a one-off payment of £125,000 capacity funding in order to help support their bids.
However, many areas didn’t meet this criteria and those that did often spent far more than they were awarded.
A total of 101 of the 282 local authorities who responded to the FOI and made bids to the Levelling Up Fund were in the highest category.
A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: “The use of consultants is a decision for individual councils – we provide clear, straightforward guidance to support those applying for the Levelling Up Fund.
"However, we recognise there are costs associated with bids which is why across both rounds we provided more than £20 million to help councils develop bids."