Two-thirds of officials working on the government’s levelling up agenda are based in London.
Two years since Boris Johnson was elected on a promise to improve what he described as the “outrage” of glaring regional inequalities, 1,929 out of 3,011 civil servants on the levelling up taskforce are still based in the capital.
The largest group of civil servants based outside London are 129 in Wolverhampton, where there is a second HQ for the government’s levelling up department. After that, the largest groups of mandarins working on the policy are in cities such as Birmingham (118), Bristol (88), Leeds (75), Manchester (62) and Newcastle (62).
The figures were revealed in response to a written question from the shadow secretary for levelling up, Lisa Nandy. She described the situation as “frankly insulting”.
