The new Prime Minister’s inbox may well overflow with priorities, but the West Midlands business community has once again shown its faith in Levelling Up.
The policy agenda, the most recent take on decades of debate about how to rebalance the UK economy away from an overheated London and South East, had been a major focus of the outgoing leader Boris Johnson.
New research from Grant Thornton UK LLP’s latest Business Outlook Tracker* shows his successor that the majority (71%) of mid-sized businesses in the West Midlands believe that the Levelling Up agenda will help their local area – only 5% disagreed. This is higher than the national average of 68%.
The results also show recognition that the Levelling Up agenda cannot be delivered by one sector alone and that UK Plc has a key role to play in its success. More than two thirds (67%) see companies like theirs playing an important role in the Levelling Up agenda.
The results also reflect which of the government’s 12 Levelling Up missions are most important to local businesses. Each mission was identified as one of the top three priorities in a region, at least once, demonstrating the differing issues needing to be addressed across the UK.**
West Midlands based respondents identified the following as the top priorities in their region:
- Support investment in R&D (27%)
- Support the creation of better paid jobs (25%)
- Improve people’s wellbeing (24%)
Sue Knight, Partner and Practice Leader at Grant Thornton UK LLP in the Midlands, said: “With so many challenges facing the business community, it’s reassuring to see that the West Midlands is optimistic about the benefits that the government’s Levelling Up agenda will bring. The broad range of soon-to-be-realised projects in the region as well as impressive sounding promises are likely to be fuelling this enthusiasm, with the Commonwealth Games, HS2 and more devolutionary powers all in the pipeline.
“The fanfare around the Commonwealth Games has included a number of levelling up related claims and legacy guarantees ranging from injecting £750 million into the Birmingham economy as well as creating more than 4,500 jobs a year in the run up to the games and almost 1,000 a year after the final race has been run. As a city, it’s vital that this effort is translated into long term benefits and that Birmingham doesn’t just see a few short-term positive bumps.
“With everything that’s going on it’s important to keep local businesses informed, as in our survey only just over half of the region’s business leaders said they understood what the government’s Levelling Up agenda is trying to achieve. Thankfully, we can see that the region’s priorities line up with some key elements of the government’s recent white paper. For example, the region has been promised funding to become the UK’s first Smart City Region. This will help with the number one levelling up mission identified by business leaders of attracting more R&D investment into the area.”