Levelling-up White Paper (WP) Commentary: Time to Deliver

FORMBY, U.K. - Feb. 17, 2022 - PRLog -- PFMConnect director, David Fellows, has just published a critique of the UK Government's Levelling-up White Paper (WP).

The WP sets out the UK Government's decade long programme for UK public service development placing emphasis on the regions. Several decades of bias public funding bias toward 'The Golden Triangle' of London and the South East has helped this area achieve huge economic and social advantages over regions hence the need for 'levelling-up'.

David considers the WP provides an honest account of the need for fundamental change to the way the UK perceives itself politically, economically and administratively. He argues that the decade-long timeframe and the rigorous approach to performance measurement are also to be applauded. David's suggestions for enhancing the WP's proposals include:

• Dividing the programme into two distinct and more manageable operational segments: (i) driving regional business growth; and (ii) providing a fairer distribution of public services.
• Creating more powerful and practical regional political structures for business development purposes.
• Reforming the Civil Service to improve coordination and corporate agility.
• Developing the Government's strategy for interaction with local institutions.
• Encouraging the private sector to offer improved methods of strengthen business to business collaboration.
• Preparing a plan for the alignment of the Golden Triangle with the development model for the regions.

Success is seen as dependent on programme presentation, development, defense and delivery.

David's critique can be found on the PFMConnect blog site at: http://blog-pfmconnect.com/levelling-up-white-paper-commentary-time-to-deliver/ (http://blog-pfmconnect.com/?p=3764)

Note: David Fellows is an accountant and early innovator in digital public service delivery. He worked extensively in UK local government, was a leader in the use of digital communication in UK public service and led a major EU project supporting the use of digital technology by regional SMEs. He became an advisor on local government reform in the UK Cabinet Office and an international advisor to the South African National Treasury. He is a director of PFMConnect, a public financial management and digital communication consultancy: david.fellows@pfmconnect.com