The partnership was established in October 2022 to explore new ways of delivering services and identify interventions that address the wider influences on health and wellbeing in Spelthorne. The group determine spending on the health and wellbeing priorities in conjunction with stakeholders across the health care system, as well as communicating health and wellbeing information.

The Spelthorne Healthy Communities Partnership assess the effectiveness of existing services and interventions in meeting local need and identify opportunities to improve service delivery. It also aims to give a voice to residents on health and wellbeing issues to deliver services which truly meet the needs of local people.

The partnership highlighted the following achievements:

• the opening of 27 warm hubs across the borough
• six-day-a-week opening for the community centres to provide warmth during the cost-of-living crisis, resulting in an additional 600 visits
• provision of 9,600 subsidised meals at the community centres
• delivery of 15,916 subsidised meals with the associated welfare checks
• management of more than 250 referrals to the social prescribing team
• commitment of £1m for home adaptations to help residents live independently
• provision of step-down accommodation for 29 patients leaving hospital
• provision of health smartwatches for step-down clients
• household support fund payments made to over 3,300 residents
• establishment of a £200K fund to support those most affected by the cost-of-living crisis, with a payment of up to £1,500 per household
• handling of 4,435 lifeline alarm activations and cover for ambulance strike days with our partners in Mole Valley Borough Council
• delivery of three ‘prepare to recover’ exercise groups to help residents improve their fitness before elective surgery
• delivery of cost-of-living support events in Staines-upon-Thames
• establishment of personal budgets for green social prescribing
• provision of 750 health and wellbeing activity sessions

Cllr Maureen Attewell, Chair of the Spelthorne Council’s Community Wellbeing and Housing Committee, said: “The establishment of the Spelthorne Healthy Communities Partnership is making a huge difference to the health outcomes of people in Spelthorne as we can highlight local priorities and have a greater influence on the strategies that will help our residents the most. This joined-up approach is giving everyone a better understanding of the healthcare needs of our communities and enables us to respond with flexible and tailored solutions with our partners.”

Jack Wagstaff, Chief Officer for North West Surrey Alliance, said: “North West Surrey Health and Care Alliance has been working with colleagues at Spelthorne Borough Council for some time to help establish the Spelthorne Healthy Communities Partnership, and the list of achievements goes to show just how much has been achieved by the partnership in a quite a short space of time. By working together, we are having a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of residents in Spelthorne and look forward to continuing to develop more services which improve long-term health outcomes.”

The Spelthorne Healthy Communities Partnership is made up of representatives from the following organisations:

• Spelthorne Borough
• Surrey County Council including Adult Social Careand Children’s Services
• North West Surrey Alliance
• Voluntary organisations including Voluntary Support North Surrey, Action for Carers and Catalyst
• CSH Surrey
• Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
• Ashford & St Peter’s Hospital’s NHS Trust
• Representative from the third sector, community care borough wide forums or groups (for, children with disabilities, older people and adults with physical and sensory disabilities.)
• Faith groups and leisure providers

While the phrase ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ is rather trite, it does have a truth to it which, I think, can help drive the levelling up agenda. At the centre of this, lies the role which educational estates can play.

Unlocking the potential of children and young adults not only requires good parenting but also the concerted resources of a community. If a child’s holistic wellbeing isn’t properly attended to, the negative externalities not only affect the child’s direct prospects but it creates a ripple effect in their wider family. Take my friend, as an example. Her daughter began suffering from anorexia during the pandemic and it took her 18 months to get the appropriate help, despite her deteriorating condition being seen by her school each day. A year and a half of lost opportunity for the daughter and the mother as they searched for solutions.

But what if she had been able to get immediate help? What if there were more joined up service provision centred around the school with suitable mental and physical wellbeing facilities.  My friend would not have lost the many days and weeks trying to find the necessary help. Her daughter would have been able to develop and live the life that a healthy teenage girl should.

Indeed, extend that out and consider the school estate being more widely utilised by the broader community. The benefits that could be unlocked really start to add up and make a significant economic impact in communities in deprived regions and underprivileged areas of our cities. I, myself, felt the benefits of positive social mobility when a kid, despite not being able to rely on family connections, I DID get wider opportunities at school and through community links, not just a decent education.

One bite at a time..

How do you eat a metaphorical elephant such as levelling up? The levelling up conundrum won’t be solved by a silver bullet – a multi-faceted approach is needed to address the complex mix of factors which have stifled opportunity for generations. If schools can be a locus for improved better healthcare, social care, child and adolescent mental health services, community sport and leisure facility facilities then we have a powerful weapon in our armoury to start tackling difficult issues that can hold back the disadvantaged.

While the pandemic took a toll on children’s development, the necessity it created to reimagine how schools are designed and deliver learning has presented an opportunity for schools to innovate. The standard playbook had to be thrown out the window and we can now rewrite it. LocatED partnered with The Bartlett UCL to consider the implications, creating the discussion paper Adapting School Design for Learning, Health and Wellbeing During and Post Pandemic.

The report noted that creating space in schools for mental health support has become of paramount importance and how schools provide this support should be prioritised as a measure of success. Furthermore, it identified the prospect of rethinking the structure of the school day – from flexi-time and hybrid learning to staggered start times – as a way of improving children’s well-being as well as that of parents.  The report also pointed out how schools have the potential to break down barriers within its community through better design. For instance, by co-located community facilities at the front of a school, the two integrate more seamlessly and harmoniously.

How we can put philosophy into practice

Until now, making schools multi-purpose, full-service community hubs has been difficult to achieve. Most schools don’t have the capacity or funds to easily manage multi-agency relationships. Co-ordinating multiple healthcare, social care and educational authorities in one location is a real challenge when those agencies are siloed and fragmented. Breaking down those silo walls is a crucial step in making this happen.

Schools can also do more to free up resources for this co-ordination. More efficient management of their estates can unleash hundreds of thousands of pounds. Disposal of costly, surplus buildings – with their associated security and running costs – frees up budget and generates capital.

Furthermore, better estate design has already proven its capacity place schools at the heart of communities. Fulham Boys School, a free school that LocatED helped develop, is a prime example of how building schools as mixed-use developments can make them more welcoming places to the entire community while maintaining the necessary safeguards for students.

Conclusion

School estates represent an immensely valuable national resource that have the potential to not only do more for children but also for the wider community in the left-behind areas of towns and cities across the country. We have seen that schools were capable of doing amazing ‘extra-curricular’ things during the pandemic but they need the support and co-operation to achieve their potential on a permanent basis. Across all parts of government – from Whitehall to arms-length bodies such as LocatED – it is incumbent on us to look beyond our siloes and make the levelling up agenda happen.

To find out more about the Levelling Up Commission, click here. If you want to get involved with the Commission, please get in touch with Shivani Sen at shivani.sen@politicsuk.com.

As she prepares to leave office, Nicola Sturgeon writes exclusively for Chamber on International Women’s Day, looking at the progress of women and girls in Scotland, and the work there is still to do.

International Women’s Day is, first and foremost, an important opportunity to reflect on and celebrate how far we have come when it comes to achieving the goal of gender equity in our society. Over the last few decades, things have changed slowly but surely for the better.

But it’s also an opportunity to recognise how much more progress we still need to make, and how we can do so.

When I took office as the First Minister of Scotland in late 2014, one of the things that really moved me at the time was the number of women and girls who contacted me to say how much it meant to them to see a woman in the most senior political role in the country.

And, in my first speech as First Minister, I said that my fervent hope was that by the time my niece was a young woman, she would have no need to know about issues such as the gender pay gap, under-representation in politics or the barriers like high childcare costs that make it so hard for so many women to work and pursue careers.

There is no doubting the progress we’ve made on all of that.

As First Minister, I lead a gender-balanced Cabinet, and wider ministerial team¾and there are now more women in the Scottish Parliament than ever before, including, belatedly, the first women of colour to sit in Holyrood.

“There are now more women in the Scottish Parliament than ever before.” Nicola Sturgeon MSP, First Minister of Scotland

Eligible children in Scotland now benefit from at least 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare, saving families around £4,500 per child, per year. Last year, Scotland became the first country in the world to make sanitary products available to all those who need them, free of charge. The Scottish Government has reformed the law on domestic abuse criminalising psychological domestic abuse and coercive and controlling behaviour and creating a specific statutory sentencing aggravation to reflect the harm that can be caused to children growing up in an environment where domestic abuse takes place.

These are tangible examples of policies that are making the lives of women and girls better.

I am immensely proud of the lead that my country has taken in trying to drive forward progress¾both within Scotland, and also, where possible, helping to promote gender equality beyond our own borders.

Much of Scotland’s international development work in Malawi, Zambia and Pakistan prioritises the empowerment of women. The Scottish Government supports several fellowships that promote equal participation by women in peace resolution and provide training to women in areas of conflict. And we are committed to schemes such as the UN WeLearn virtual school pilot¾a scheme designed to reduce rates of early child marriage in rural parts of Africa.

However, the uncomfortable truth is that true gender equality is still an unwon cause. We cannot be complacent about the challenges that women and girls face today, nor can we forget that there are many who want to roll back on the hard-won rights of women.

The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened gender inequality, with women and girls more likely to provide the majority of caregiving while generally earning less and holding less secure jobs, which therefore impacts their economic independence.

Even before the pandemic, women were more likely to work in lower-paid jobs or be hampered by the so-called ‘motherhood penalty’¾the pay gap between parents and those who don’t have children. At its height, women were more likely to be furloughed, lose income and work in the hardest-hit sectors.

Male culture still dominates¾patriarchal attitudes can still hold women back¾and often, the criteria that we are judged by leads to a very different experience for women than it does for men.

Women often don’t have access to the same opportunities or financial resources as men. As an example, currently, one in five of Scotland’s entrepreneurs are women, while start-ups founded by women in Scotland receive just 2% of overall investment capital.

Women political leaders and human rights defenders face an increasingly hostile environment and unchecked abuse and harassment both on and offline. And social media has, unfortunately, provided a vehicle for the most awful, often anonymous, abuse of women; misogyny, sexism, threats of violence and sexual violence. 

Beyond Scotland and the UK, the Taliban is imposing radical restrictions on Afghan women, the UN has warned of conflict-related sexual violence taking place in Ukraine, Myanmar and beyond, and the rollback of reproductive rights in the United States and elsewhere is undermining the very foundation of gender equity.

At this time of great societal upheaval, it is no longer acceptable to expect women and girls to adapt and accommodate. Leaders and decision-makers across the world must re-dedicate ourselves to continuing to build a society in which women and girls are safe and able to reach their full potential.

We have an opportunity to seize to advance gender equity and transformative change. Only by renewing our own resolve to use the powers we have to make the world a better place for the girls and young women who are growing up today, will we be able to claim that win and achieve true equality.

This article will feature in the Q1 Chamber Journal, which will be released on March 27th. To receive your free copy, sign up here.

Levelling Up and Health Inequalities

Improving health inequalities is indeed a stated aim of the levelling up agenda, and indeed it should be. Insofar as levelling up is about equalising opportunity across the UK, health inequalities are a major barrier to this, that must be addressed.

However even the keenest observers of the work of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) could be forgiven for forgetting or indeed not noticing this.

One of the medium-term missions stated in the Levelling Up White Paper is to “spread opportunities and improve public services, especially in those places where they are the weakest”, with a particular focus area on health. Here, the government aims to ensure that by 2030, the gap in Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE) between local areas where it is highest and lowest will have narrowed, as well as ensuring that HLE has risen by 5 years by 2035.

Without much indication of how much they want this gap to close by, this is hardly the height of ambition. Yet, there is clearly a distinct lack of focus on hitting even this low bar. While the Levelling Up White Paper promised a further white paper on health disparities from the Department for Health and Social Care, this was scrapped and replaced with the Major Conditions Strategy (which the Government states will seek to address regional disparities in health outcomes).

When this will be published, is anyone’s guess.

Health Inequalities: What do we know?

Most available indications show that health inequalities are growing rather than shrinking. A report from Health Equity and the Health Foundation found that, ten years on from the Marmot Review, health was getting worse for those in the most deprived communities, and health inequalities were increasing. The report also revealed that, for almost all of the recommendations of the Marmot Review, the country moved in the wrong direction.

Indeed, this is supported by available data from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), which found that the gap in male life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas in England grew from 9.4 years in 2017 to 9.7 years in 2020, while for female life expectancy, the gap widened from 7.6 to 7.9 years.

The geographical spread of health inequalities continues to be closely linked with wider indicators of deprivation.

The above graph shows the percentage of Integrated Care Boards’ (ICBs) population in the most deprived 20% of England’s population on the Health Deprivation and Disability rank, which is party of the Office for National Statistics’ Index of Multiple Deprivation.

As Integrated Care Boards only became operational in July 2022, this graph does not give a reflection of their performance, but rather an indication of the populations that they serve.

Some of the key takeaways from these graphs:

• London continues to surge ahead: Only six ICBs saw a 4% reduction in members of their population in the 20% most deprived on the Health Deprivation and Disability Rank, and four of these were in London.
• The correlation between multiple deprivations and health outcomes remains strong: 9 out of the 10 ICBs with the highest percentage of their population in the bottom of the 20% of the health deprivation and disability rank in England are also among the 10 ICBs with the highest percentage of their population in the bottom 20% of the IMD.
• It’s grim up north: All of the 10 most deprived ICBs by health deprivation and disability rank in the North West, North East and Yorkshire or the Midlands.

Where is the action?

Simply put, despite the ambitions of the Levelling Up White Paper on health inequalities, there is little concerted focus on health inequalities at the government level. And frankly, if there is one key lesson for policymakers on this topic, it is that, without a concerted focus, health inequalities are unlikely to improve.

The lack of focus is therefore a great shame. Indeed, the reasons for acting, both human and economic are incredibly urgent. At a human level, it is simply unconscionable that inequality is killing at the rate that it does. Economically, with an incredibly tight labour market, and sluggish growth, health inequalities and long-term sickness are a growing cause of economic inactivity.

The Levelling Up Commission will seek to re-establish a proper focus on health inequalities within the levelling up agenda, as well as considering other areas of public service design and delivery, including:

• Housing and Homelessness
• Education, Skills and Training
• Crime, Justice and Rehabilitation

About

If you would like to attend the virtual inquiry session, you can register for the event here.

If you want to know more or to get involved with the Commission, please get in touch at shivani.sen@politicsuk.com.

This article was supported with data insights from Vuit. To find out more about Vuit, click here.

In the face of the biggest financial challenge in its history, which means a number of savings options will be progressed to close a funding gap of more than £21million, councillors have prioritised protecting the area’s most vulnerable, supporting those who need it most and helping young people reach their potential.

Families, young people, carers and community groups across West Dunbartonshire will see the benefits of the wide-ranging additional support after the budget was passed at a Council meeting yesterday.

It includes access to a school meal hardship fund for any family struggling with the cost of living; subsidies of £10,000 a month to foodbanks for the next three years; the development of a Community Wellbeing Fund supporting community groups and a Community Asset Transfer Support Fund to help local groups take over the running of Council buildings.

School pupils with caring responsibilities will also have their Educational Maintenance Allowance topped up with an additional £10 per week to support them while they continue their studies.

In addition, investment will be made on gullies in flooding hotspots like Linnvale and the schools summer programme will be enhanced to provide additional free activities during the holidays.

The support package was announced as Councillors met to discuss the report and take steps to balance the budget.

The £14.7 million budget gap, which is reduced from £21 million after a first tranche of measures were agreed in December, will be closed in part with a 5% Council Tax increase, management adjustments as well as progressing a range of savings options outlined within the Council report.

Councillors opted to protect jobs and retain library provision in Dalmuir by co-locating the existing facility within the nearby community centre, as well as exploring other co-location opportunities for smaller branches. This will generate an expected combined saving of £64,000.

In Education, the school clothing grant will revert to the previous provision of £150 per child each year, after it was increased using one off Covid-19 funding last year. This generates a saving in future years of £774,000. A review of Senior Early Learning and Childcare Officers will be undertaken, saving £119,000, and the budget for grounds maintenance in educational premises will reduce, saving £100,000.

The Council’s Anti-Social behavior service will be retained in full, with the cost of the service shared with the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) to save £127,000 from the council general fund costs. In addition, an annual investment of £200,000 will continue to be made towards the Council’s successful apprenticeship programme providing training opportunities for local residents, saving £50,000 in 2023/24.

Other changes include the introduction of a universal charge of £100 per year for all participants in the Care of Garden scheme, which equates to less than £2 a week and makes a savings of £211,000; a review of how residual waste is collected will improve recycling rates as well as saving £50,000; and a review of community facilities will proceed with an option for buildings to be part of a community asset transfer.

Council Leader, Councillor Martin Rooney, said: “We have been faced with some impossible choices in order to deliver the balanced budget required by law.

“Unfortunately we can only work with the money we have available and I want to reiterate that we have been put in this horrendous position by lack of fair funding from the Scottish Government.

“We know for many residents, Council services are a lifeline and in setting the budget we have tried as far as possible to protect our most vulnerable. I know the decisions we have been forced to make today to deliver a balanced budget will be difficult to hear and we fully sympathise with our residents and employees who may be impacted by changes to service delivery.

“That is why it was essential for us to introduce measures which strengthen our existing offer of support to ensure residents and communities can access help with the cost of living.”

Deputy Council Leader, Councillor Michelle McGinty, added: “We know the impact the cost of living crisis is having on our residents and our communities, we see it every day, and this makes the lack of fair funding even harder to accept.

“We have and will continue to make the case for a fair funding settlement for our area but as it stands there has be no further funding forthcoming and as a result we are being forced to make decisions on services which no-one wants to make.

“As a Council we have made it a priority to help those who are being hardest hit by rises in food, utilities and fuel with the cost of living supports introduced over the last nine months. No-one should every have to make the choice between heating and eating. It is essential that we continue to protect and shield our most vulnerable residents and ensure our communities can thrive during this difficult financial period.”

Same sex marriage: looking back

Reflecting on her role in pushing for same sex marriage legislation, Lynne Featherstone acknowledged that she was standing on the shoulders of giants, including Paul Martin and the LGBTQ+ campaigners who came before her. Featherstone also recognizes the important groundwork that was laid by the previous Labour government, particularly in regards to civil partnerships.

“Labour were brilliant with civil partnerships. They were a major step forward, and I could never have done what I did, if labour hadn’t done what they did.”

Featherstone revealed her impetus for pushing ahead on same-sex marriage with such vigour: “The decision that I made to push ahead with same sex marriage was about three days into the coalition in 2010. When I decided, basically because of Michael Heseltine and Andrew Adonis and the advice they gave me, that if you want to do something when you’re a minister… then you need to drive it forward and trust your civil servants.”

Reflecting on this time, Paul Martin acknowledged that, just as there was a political split, there was a split that existed among LGBT+ rights organisations at the time: “some of the LGBT organisations were not necessarily in favour, and I remember being in some very difficult meetings where some organisations who you would assume would be pro and would be for same-sex marriage, were actually against or at best ambivalent… so it took some time for the LGBT+ community to coalesce around a specific forward strategy.”

LGBT+ rights today

Martin was keen to note however, a key difference between the cross-party support for same-sex marriage ten years ago, and the current political climate.

“The difference between then and now is that actually, you had a Minister for Equalities that stood up and faced off the bullies… you had some conviction politics there, we built up a broader coalition… but also, we had cross-party support in the main… what we don’t have now, is any leader of any political party, apart from Nicola Sturgeon… that is standing up and unequivocally saying pro-trans statements… Could I name any member of the cabinet who would be standing up and playing the role that Lynne and Theresa May did? And I can’t,” says Martin.

Final Thought

As we end LGBT+ history month it is important that advocates and activists in the UK look back and reflect on the lessons learnt in the gradual move towards greater LGBT+ equality. The same sex marriage example has a lot to teach us, and as many in the sector feel LGBT+ rights have been backsliding in recent years, Paul Martin was keen to stress the key takeaways from ten years ago:

“The reality is, that it does get better. So some of the debates around the age of consent, some of the horrific bile that was put out about LGBT+ people being parents and being able to foster and adopt, to operate in the armed forces, actually, every single one of those steps forward have been really hard fought and won. And they’ve only been won by building together coalitions, and having people that are senior enough in the establishment, speaking out. That’s the big thing that is missing, is having somebody who stands up and goes, ‘I am prepared to be counted on this issue’.”

These calls for true leadership in government on LGBT+ issues are not new, however they have in recent years been falling on deaf ears, with the abandonment of the LGBT Action Plan when Liz Truss was Minister for Equalities, and the continued delays to a ban on conversion therapy. However, with a potential change of government coming in the next 18 months, now is not the time to let up.

If Labour wins the next election, Starmer has set out the following five missions which will be central to his tenure as Prime Minister:

• Secure the highest sustained growth in the G7
• Build an NHS fit for the future
• Make Britain’s streets safe
• Break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage
• Make Britain a clean energy superpower

During the speech in Manchester, Starmer was bullish about his goals, saying that they will “form the backbone of the Labour manifesto and the pillars of the next Labour government.” He added:

“They will be measurable, so we can track progress and be held to account. Long-term so we can beyond the day-to-day. Informed by experts and the public, so we can build a coalition for change. And each will support our drive for growth. Each will help us get our future back.

Productivity in every part of the country

Starmer didn’t go into too much detail on each of his five missions, with the Labour leader saying that he will expand on them all in speeches in the coming months. However, he did touch a little on his plans for economic growth and clean energy.

Securing the highest growth in the G7 will be no easy feat. The other nations that make up the group are the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan – all of which are faring better economically than the UK as it stands. According to forecasts, the UK are the only country in the G7 whose economy will shrink in 2023.

Starmer says he has been talking to economic experts and business leaders about how he will be able to achieve this goal and he has come to the conclusion that growth will be powered by “good jobs and stronger productivity in every part of the country”.

On making the UK a superpower with respect to clean energy, he said that he aims to insulate 19 million homes across the country as a starting point. After that, he wants people to be trained in green jobs and also spoke of a new publicly owned company called “Great British Energy” that will generate renewable sources.

Starmer said that he planned to nationalise energy, rail and water back in 2019 but this new plan seems to suggest a U-turn on the matter. He said that he isn’t “concerned about whether investment or expertise comes from the public or private sector” as long as he gets the job done. He added:

“If the aspiration is merely to replace the public sector while extracting a rent to privatise the profits, that takes us nowhere.”

Digs at the government

Considering he is the leader of the opposition, it was unsurprising that Starmer threw in a few subtle and not-so-subtle digs at the current government throughout his speech. At one point he said that Britain had been bogged down by a lack of government proactiveness. He said: “we lurch from one crisis to another, always reacting, always behind the curve.”

He labelled the last 13 years of conservative rule as “sticking plaster politics” which has seen the country sink into a recession and an NHS crisis. He finished off by saying:

“This is the case for change, a new government and a new way of governing. Britain needs both and with Labour, Britain will get both.”

Final thought

The Labour Party currently has a lead of around 20% over the Conservatives in nationwide polls. This suggests that Starmer would need to do something substantially foolish to blow such a lead with a general election set to take next year.

Something that many would consider “foolish” would be to conduct a U-turn on something he promised when he was running for party leadership. Relentless U-turns have played a huge part in the downfall of the conservative party in the last couple of years, so Starmer’s decision to go back on nationalisation may well prove costly.

Aside from that, the goals set out by the Labour leader are all things the British people would like to see accomplished in the coming years. How achievable they are, though, remains to be seen.

In the first of a series of website articles that will be featured in our upcoming journal, Jane Stevenson MP writes about what levelling up means for Wolverhampton. This year, her work will feature in a book Curia is publishing, as part of the Levelling Up Commission.

The success of the Government’s promise to level up will be measured by outcomes in places like Wolverhampton, which is now second home to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

As a born and bred Wulfrunian, I have seen my home city decline over decades. Our city centre is a shadow of its former self, with our much-loved department store, Beatties, closing its doors for the final time in 2019 after trading for over 140 years. Unemployment sits at around eight per cent, double the national average, and while education outcomes have improved over recent years, there is still a skills gap. 

When I was elected in 2019, journalists asked what my number one local priority was. My reply would still stand – to tackle unemployment. Getting people into decent jobs would transform so many lives and better support our local economy. Government has already spent big in places like Wolverhampton, with schemes like the Towns Fund and Future High Streets Fund. But cosmetic improvements will only go so far. To get maximum bang for the taxpayers’ buck, government investment needs to target and anticipate future areas of growth. It can and should also create the local conditions to establish and anchor these new industries.

In Wolverhampton’s case, many government-funded projects are directly connected to homebuilding and building technologies, including brownfield land remediation and Modern Methods of Construction (MMC). 

The Government began to sow some seeds shortly after the election – Investing in the National Brownfield Institute (NBI) next to the University’s new School of Architecture and announcing that the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (now DLUHC) would have its second home in the city. This was followed by the announcement of a £10 million government taskforce into MMC, also based in Wolverhampton.

I wrote an article in the local newspaper in 2020 that quoted the great show-tune “You gotta get a gimmick if you wanna get ahead”. My pitch was simple – that Wolverhampton should embrace its gimmick (or USP in corporate-speak) as The Home of Homebuilding. This is an industry with high future demand and that requires workers with a range of both technical and academic skills. Building homes on brownfield land will be crucial in meeting the West Midlands’ housing targets, and research at the NBI should make remediation of brownfield land more commercially viable.

To be frank, green policies are a tough sell in the Black Country. Many of my constituents would call it an exercise in middle-class hand-wringing that requires them – at great expense – to purchase a heat pump and an electric car, and to feel guilty about flying off on their annual holiday. For them, the transition to Net Zero needs to be affordable and they need more evidence that new, green industries will bring them significant opportunities. If a better Wolverhampton is to be built on homebuilding, it must also make the most of retro-fitting older properties to be energy-efficient. As we look to future-proof high streets, there are development and conversion opportunities around city centre living. Wolverhampton has many beautiful Victorian buildings whose upper stories are crying out for residential conversion.

We must also make sure people have the skills they need to succeed. I am delighted that the Thomas Telford School next to the NBI is embracing T-Levels and is working with the University’s School of Architecture and local businesses. City of Wolverhampton College has shown itself to be forward-thinking and flexible to the needs of local employers.

The college recently opened a facility to train students in electric vehicle maintenance – another new industry that will provide thousands of good jobs. I am delighted that in just a few months hundreds of students have achieved qualifications, with many already in work. This includes over 100 older jobseekers through the Department for Work and Pensions Sector-Based Work Academy Programme.

Education will be crucial to levelling up. Government must encourage dialogue between employers, schools and colleges, and must also be aware that today’s school-leavers will need different skills over the coming decades of their working lives. Lifelong development and learning will be key to maintaining a skilled and confident workforce that can adapt to new technologies and industries.

The shift to a successful future High Street will also create opportunity. City centres will need a balance of residential, leisure, offices, retail and service industries. If we get this balance right, we will revitalise our high streets. However, in answer to the chicken/egg question, residential must come first to support this new local economy. Imagination will be needed to create desirable developments in city centres. Wulfrunians have a strange relationship with Birmingham, often seeking to distance ourselves from our bigger neighbour. However, we can learn a lot from Birmingham’s developments around Brindley Place and Symphony Hall.

One heritage feature we share with Birmingham is a fabulous canal network. I hope Wolverhampton’s Council and town planners will show far more imagination and ambition for our canals. While there are some waterside homes in the Wolves planning pipeline, this is certainly where we should look to Birmingham’s Gas Street Basin, with waterside homes, shops, galleries, bars and restaurants.

We have a long journey ahead to deliver a new era of prosperity for Wolverhampton. Improving my home city is why I entered politics and I make no apology for sounding proudly parochial. My city’s problems have been decades in the making and like all politicians I want to see quick results. But to effect meaningful change investment needs to deliver for both the short and the long-term.

We already see our new DLUHC Ministry, MMC Taskforce and NBI up and running. Government has also ploughed tens of millions of pounds into an ambitious new City Learning Quarter that will help close the skills gap over the coming decades. Construction begins this year.

I am optimistic that this focus on education, together with industry-specific investment will help Wolverhampton capitalise on the opportunities that new technologies, high demand for housing and a changing cityscape will offer.

By sowing the right seeds in the right places, government can encourage the private sector to follow – to anchor an industry as a cluster of connected players and partners. In our case, a major MMC company has just announced a relocation to Wolverhampton next year, creating hundreds of new jobs.

The seeds sown by this levelling up Government seem to have been well-placed and well-planted. I cannot wait for our city to reap the rewards.

During the debate, Mrs Hobhouse highlighted the regional disparities in charging infrastructure. The South West has double the amount of EVs per 100,000 people compared to Inner London yet it has been neglected in terms of charging points when compared to the capital. Inner London has four times the amount of charging points per 100,000 people in comparison with the South West. 

To compound matters, two-thirds of the new EV charging points next year will be built in London. The Bath MP called for more support to be given to Local Authorities in developing their grids by Ofgem and central Government. The lack of grid capacity is preventing many councils from expanding their EV charging point programmes as much as they would like. 

Bath’s MP has praised the Liberal Democrat led B&NES Council’s tireless efforts to build more EV charging points but the weak grid in the region is proving a major barrier to expansion. The National Grid wants to reinforce the grid in the West of England, but Ofgem is refusing their funding proposals. 

Wera Hobhouse, MP for Bath, has called on the Government to encourage Ofgem to be part of the solution, not part of the problem, and stop stalling on plans to reform Ofgem’s remit to allow for pre-emptive investment in grid infrastructure.

Wera Hobhouse, MP for Bath and Liberal Democrat Climate Change and Transport Spokesperson, commented:

“The green transition must also be a just transition and this means that we have to address regional divides in Net Zero infrastructure. The focus on London and the volume of chargers being built in the capital compared to the rest of the country clearly is not achieving this. 

“Councils need support from the central Government for their local efforts to install charging points. To this end, the Government and Ofgem are letting them down. In the South West, our major barrier is a weak grid infrastructure which the National Grid has said it wants to improve but Ofgem is refusing their funding proposals.

“The Government is failing to encourage Ofgem to be part of the solution and not the problem. Ministers need to stop stalling plans to reform Ofgem’s remit which will allow for pre-emptive investment in the grid. Until this happens we will see the infrastructure expansion lagging behind EV uptake and any push towards a just transition in transport stalled.”

In 2022, Cenrinica made obscene profits of £3.3bn. This is more than three times what they made in 2021 where the company made £948m. It is the first time since 2018 that the company have made profits in the billions and over half a billion more than their previous record-high of £2.7bn in 2012.

The news has been met with more calls for further tax measures being placed on energy companies after Shell also announced record profits in 2022 recently. The energy giant made a whopping £32bn last year, the largest amount in the company’s 115-year history.

British Gas has come under fire in the past year after they forced vulnerable customers to have prepayment meters fitted into their homes. Now that we know they were doing this while bringing in billions of pounds of profit, the criticism is likely to amplify.

Conflicting figures

With Centrica releasing figures that show record profits, many will assume that British Gas are also raking it in. However, the reality is that their financial performance alone is far from the levels of their parent company.

Figures relating to British Gas show that adjusted operating profit has decreased by nearly £50m over the past couple of years. In 2021, the gas company made around £118m in profits, while last year that figure was around £72m.

Interestingly, though, they had more residential customers in 2022 than in 2021. They jumped from 7.1m to 7.5 customers across the two years, making a decrease in profit slightly concerning from their perspective.

UK residents have been paying soaring energy bills for the past year after wholesale gas costs rose due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, with energy companies now making profits there will be further pressure to increase the taxes they are subject to.

Last year, Centrica paid £1bn in tax, with £54m of that coming from the Energy Profity Levy which was introduced by the government last year in response to the energy crisis. Centrica were also subject to the 45% windfall tax that was placed on electricity generators.

With British Gas’ profits down on 2021, the majority of Centrica’s earnings came as a result of its nuclear, oil and gas business. The company also sold Spirt Energy, an oil and gas business, in May 2022 which also contributed. 

Calls for harsher measures

Centrica is the latest energy company to announce record profits and, as a result, calls for the government to place stricter taxes on these companies are getting louder. Unite, the largest trade union in the United Kingdom, has released the following statement written by their General Secretary, Sharon Graham, in light of the news:

“British Gas Owner Centrica has been coining it in from our massive energy bills while sending bailiffs to prey on vulnerable consumers the length and breadth of the country. These energy companies are showing us everything that is wrong with the UK’s broken economy.

Rishi Sunak should get a grip – pull the plug on rampaging energy profiteering, impose a meaningful, tough windfall tax and give the NHS a pay rise with the proceeds.”

The Labour Party have also been quick to pile the pressure on Sunak and his party. They have called on them to impose tougher sanctions on profiteering energy companies. The Shadow Climate and Net Zero Secretary, Ed Miliband said:

“It cannot be right that, as oil and gas giants rake in the windfalls of war, Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives refuse to implement a proper windfall tax that would make them pay their fair share.”

Final thought

Over the past six months, a record number of workers have taken strike action in the United Kingdom from nurses and ambulance workers to teachers and rail workers. All of them have been told that they aren’t entitled to a fair pay rise amid a cost of living crisis driven by soaring energy costs.

The news, then, that energy companies made billions of pounds last year is another kick in the teeth to them and the service they provide the country. The government are seemingly going to be backed into a corner and their only way out will be to raise the windfall tax on energy companies.

George Coxon

Commissioner, the Levelling Up Commission

George Coxon is the Director and Owner of Classic Care Homes in Devon. With 13 years experience in the residential care sector before that, and 30 years in the NHS, across commissioning, policy and management, he has a breadth of experience across health and social care, with a keen interest in effective integration

Social care has, and perhaps always will, have a mixed profile – the poor relations that we invariably are to our well regarded NHS partners – and yes we are partners, not an after thought or bolt on the side element.  Our profile is much misunderstood thanks, or no thanks, to the tirade of adverse media attention social care attracts. Rarely do we see or read a good news story about a care home or care at home. Sad but true.

I spent a long and arguably illustrious and successful NHS career with senior clinical, education, management, policy leading in health authorities and commissioning before migrating to social care land – buying 2 care homes and carving out a role that gets me and therefore us noticed in our work – in good ways – positive noise, sharing our treasure, reputation enhancing energising a sector with credible strong confident and proud work. 

My approach centred of a series of priority themes:

• Embedding kindness and warmth in what we do
• Seeking and finding inspiration – you cant inspire others unless someone is inspiring you is a fundamental truism driving my ethos.
• Reassuring people that need social care that there is progressive, dynamic, fun focus life for those needing care – living well in a relationship focused way – with people that love their work and share lives that matter.
• Language and leadership are at the heart of great social care – talking the talk is easy walking the walk harder and massively more important.
• Planting seed and building bridges is how I describe my social care advocating role – demystifying our work making likeminded links with others and being part of value adding collaborations at multiple levels. The winning over the sceptics, even the cynics about social care is vital with a model of work that excites and ignites people on a feeling level.
•  The work we do has key themes that include curiosity, imagination and creative ways to provide atmosphere in our care homes that combines relaxation, vibrancy, lively hilarious moments and subscribes to our happiness mantra.

There is much to be frustrated about in our system from workforce difficulties to the critical issue that motivates us all – keeping and getting people out of hospital – particularly older and vulnerable people living with dementia and frailty as well as many other common long term conditions that affect for many.

Social care is about life, its about timely help for those in need, its about working well together and it’s about engagement.

I talk a lot about reaching the hard to reach – whether that be a person living with advanced dementia or a high office senior politician each struggling the pressure and challenges of daily living.

What excites me about the Levelling Up Commission with Curia and Q5 is the potential to do more of the things I’ve mentioned here – inspiration, energy, engagement, likeminded alliances and making an impact on the frontline connection policy and practice, enabling independence even in 24/7 care – people exercising choice and laughing and smiling about the stimulation, participation, occupation and interactions they can have.

We are on a journey and in truth there is no arrival – ‘the work of a garden is never finished’ but we will not waste time in the pursuit of irresistible balanced life led by social care activism.

The Levelling up work must give material for changing not just the narrative but the values of those who talk about it, plan it, preside over it and above all those that need it.

More will be added over the coming weeks, making a total of 200 bikes and 104 e-bikes available for users in the city.

The e-bikes can be hired from and returned to any of the existing 69 ‘Beryl Bays’ that are located across the city. Currently, 55,000 people are just five minutes (or less) walk from a bay, which represents 90% of the service area’s population.

Cllr John Harrington, Cabinet member for infrastructure and transport, said: “I’m really pleased these extra e-bikes have finally arrived after market supply chain issues in the summer caused a delay. The e-bikes we have make a real difference to some user’s decisions and have given people the opportunity to use a bike to make longer journeys around the City. The e-bikes also make it that bit easier for any riders who may be slightly nervous or don’t feel fit enough to use a standard Beryl and the arrival of these extra e-bikes will give us all more chance of finding one in a bay! 

“I welcome the addition to our City’s already popular scheme of e and standard bikes. The figures show that, since launch, our fleet of Beryls have been a real asset, with over quarter of a million individual journeys made, potentially saving over nine tonnes of CO2 emissions.

“It’s important that we continue to provide the means and opportunities for as many people as possible to enjoy the benefits of healthy, sustainable modes of transport such as cycling. As well as being great for your physical wellbeing, active travel helps to reduce harm to the environment, improves air quality and eases congestion on our roads. Many of us have to travel by car but these e-bikes give more of us a realistic choice and an opportunity to “Beryl it” to get where we want to go.”  

Beryl initially launched in Hereford in July 2019 with 75 bikes, eventually rising to 200 bikes with an additional 30 e-bikes added in March 2021.

Since launch, the scheme has proven to be very popular, generating 270,546 journeys over 648,000km. Based on 4,125 responses, 31.5% of these journeys would have otherwise have been made using a car, motorbike or taxi/Uber.*

According to industry calculations, the journeys taken so far have saved over nine tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. This is the equivalent of approximately 531 litres of petrol or 53 flights from London to Edinburgh.

Beryl CEO and co-founder, Phil Ellis, said: “With its multiple modes, Hereford is a great example of how delivering a range of services can better contribute towards the aims of an integrated transport network.

“E-bikes are a really fun and versatile way to travel and their extra power can really open up areas, enabling riders to tackle hills and undertake longer journeys. They’re also great for commuting, helping to reduce physical exertion and allowing people to arrive at work clean and ready to go.

“By swapping the car for an e-bike journey you’re not only boosting your own health and fitness, you’re also helping to reduce congestion and harmful carbon emissions, so why not give it a try.”

In March this year, it was announced that Beryl will provide the city’s bike share scheme for another five years, after it was successful in a competitive tendering process.

In line with its status as a B Corporation certified company – recognised for meeting exceptional standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency – Beryl delivers the Hereford scheme with local delivery partners. This includes local cycling courier solutions company Pedicargo, who distribute the bikes, and community interest company Hereford Cycle Hub, who help to maintain them.

The Beryl app is available for free download on the App Store for iOS, and the Google Play Store for Android users.

For more information, visit beryl.cc