The Northern Agenda: Is alphabet soup of Levelling Up cash giving your area what it needs?

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By DAN O'DONOGHUE AND ROB PARSONS - July 1 2022

Facing a room full of local leaders in Harrogate this week , Michael Gove conceded the hundreds of funds they're forced to bid for and "the amount of bureaucracy around them puts a significant burden on local government".

And as he promised to reduce the number of funding pots - which require town halls across the North to spend their scarce resources competing - his Levelling Up department set out for the first time exactly who benefits from the alphabet soup of different schemes.

The sheer complexity of negotiating the likes of the Coastal Community Fund, Community Ownership Fund, Future High Streets Fund, Towns Fund and the Levelling-Up Fund can be seen in our snazzy - and fully interactive - graphic below.

Political leaders outside London say reforms are needed to give local areas their own pots of money they can use as they see fit rather than having to go 'cap in hand' to central government officials in Whitehall. Northern Powerhouse Partnership director Henri Murison described the current system as an 'affront to democracy'.

He said: “It is time for a Levelling Up reset. Rather than man-marking local government and combined authority officers it is time huge numbers of civil servants are seconded out to areas to add capacity.

"Never mind relocating Whitehall roles to the regions, it is time with every new devolution deal to cut the jobs in domestic departments and release the talent to devolved institutions