Top takeaways from our Levelling Up conference

Local Trust’s Chief Executive, Matt Leach, reflects on the top takeaways from our Levelling Up conference.

“The success of levelling up communities is dependent on both social and economic infrastructure. But there is still some way to go in measuring social capital and social infrastructure, and recognising its value” said Andy Haldane, kicking off Wednesday’s Levelling Up Communities: What’s the Evidence conference in front of a packed room in Manchester and many more online.

David Halpern chipped in with a pithier challenge “What’s the broccoli of the social capital world?” in a session examining what constitutes good evidence. He spoke about improving practice in evaluating what works when it comes to improving local communities, and the relationships, institutions and activities that underpin them.

Rebuilding the social capital of deprived communities

Both were speaking in the context of the recent Levelling Up White Paper, which identifies rebuilding the social capital of deprived communities as vital if we want to level-up, enable self-reliance, sustain social stability and create a sense of shared civic identity – a point Andy Haldane has made in the past. 

Indeed the White Paper goes further, highlighting social capital – alongside institutional, financial, physical and human capital – as a critical component of any successful economy.

Levelling up social capital is not a short term challenge. Local Trust’s experience from our own Big Local programme is that rebuilding the social infrastructure of communities where it has been allowed to degrade requires both a long-term, patient commitment of funds, but also support over that period to help communities build skills and confidence and re-establish the organisations, groups and institutions necessary to underpin local civic life.

As Will Tanner explained in his session, it requires listening to communities; up-front, long term investment; asset-based approaches; a focus on the hyper local; and on revitalising the social fabric that underpins all of this.

His message was echoed by the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham who decried the over-centralisation and regional imbalance of the UK. He drew attention to the work of Wigan and their approach of transferring assets to communities as an example of how you can level up successfully from the ground up.

At the #LevellingUpEvidence conference, @AndyBurnhamGM says the status quo does not work. “We need a complete rewiring of the way this country works if we want to level up.”

— Institute for Community Studies (@icstudiesuk) May 4, 2022

An evidence-led case for investment

One barrier, historically, to making the necessary significant changes in policy and funding has been scepticism within government, and particularly from Treasury officials, of the evidence base; something speakers at the conference went some way to addressing.

Presenting groundbreaking research from Frontier Economics, Sarah Snelson set out a convincing, evidence-driven economic case for investment in social infrastructure in ‘left behind’ communities.

If we are only just beginning to see this recognised within government in the UK, it has a long history elsewhere – a point made well by both Raghuram Rajan and Erik Klinenberg in the concluding session of the conference.

Drawing on a lifetime of research and scholarship in the field, as well as practical experience in regenerating urban communities in the US, both emphasised the key role of social infrastructure – providing the opportunity to create connections and relationships at a local level.

The risk is not investing rather than investing because not investing risks hollowing out the public realm.

“There is a thing called social infrastructure. Social life is predicated on a material substratum. We take it for granted. We fail to built it, maintain it, program it. The result is a real hollowing out of the conditions needed to sustain life.” Superb talk by @EricKlinenberg pic.twitter.com/ZbYwN7R48T

— Local Trust (@LocalTrust) May 4, 2022

Our campaign for a Community Wealth Fund, and investment of the next wave of dormant assets in rebuilding the social infrastructure of our own most ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods, is our response.

As Erik Klinenberg summarised at the end of a packed conference agenda, “’If you fail to take account of social infrastructure you cannot make meaningful investment” in addressing inequalities – a challenge for all of those seeking to make levelling up a reality in communities across the country.

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The Levelling up communities: What’s the evidence? conference held on 4th May 2022 in Manchester was a Local Trust event in partnership with the Institute of Community Studies and Sheffield Hallam University.