As a team we welcome the government’s long awaited white paper on “Levelling Up” In the government’s own words “But not everyone shares equally in the UK’s success. While talent is spread equally across our country, opportunity is not. Levelling up is a mission to challenge, and change, that unfairness. Levelling up means giving everyone the opportunity to flourish. It means people everywhere living longer and more fulfilling lives and benefitting from sustained rises in living standards and well-being.”
There does now seem to be a broad consensus that far too often your post code has a “significant” impact on your “life chances”. There is as one might expect, a huge emphasis on “place“ in the paper but we are very keen to ensure that people and partnership are given as much emphasis.
All too often regeneration plans can lead to shiny new buildings which do not appear to lift people out of poverty. We need to ensure we tackle poverty within cities and towns as well as between cities and towns. That is why it is essential local councils, communities and business sector work in partnership to identify local needs and build local coalitions for change
Kieran Breen CEO Leicestershire Cares
Our “Power to Change approach” is rooted in the belief that , many of the issues and challenges facing young people and communities in danger of being left behind are complex. So, what we need to do is build creative and agile local partnerships, where local people are given a voice and change programmes are grounded in local need and lived experience. We need to be willing to think outside the box and without “ego, silo or logo”. We will be launching our “Power to Change” and “Powering Up” projects' in the Spring. These projects will build on our previous work and networks and encourage and support a “joined up approach” to “wealth creation “ and “community development”.
A few months ago, we held a webinar on levelling up and the conclusion was:
Partnership, creativity, agility, digital connection, local focus, local ownership, working without ego, silo or logo and, learning and benefitting from the skills and experience of the local community have consistently been mentioned as key to tackling the many issues our city and county face
Kieran Breen CEO Leicestershire Cares
The white paper presents us with a great opportunity to take our work forward and to show once again #TogetherWeCan
Further info;
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/levelling-up-the-united-kingdom/levelling-up-the-united-kingdom-executive-summary
https://www.politico.eu/podcast/why-theres-nothing-new-about-leveling-up/
https://www.leicestershirecares.co.uk/about-charity/our-approach/
https://www.leicestershirecares.co.uk/about-charity/news-events/levelling-what-big-idea/
https://www.vulnerability360.org.uk/together-we-can-wealth-creation-and-community-development-by-kieran-breen/
https://www.leicestershirecares.co.uk/about-charity/news-events/can-procurement-power-levelling/