Read: Long term solutions needed to level up Britain

‘Levelling up’ is about everyone having the same chance to get on in their life, wherever and whoever they are. 

No one would disagree with that as an objective - in fact it’s possibly the only thing that MPs in Westminster agree on. And now with covid-19, the problems of inequality of opportunity have become bigger as well as more urgent.

So why hasn’t it happened? And how can we finally make the serious progress we all want to see?

The biggest challenges on levelling up are that it’s a complex problem and to make progress requires sticking at solutions for the long term. So to combat the complexity, let’s start with more clarity by breaking down the levelling up challenge into its constituent parts. We must have a common architecture, a common language for what we’re all talking about.

I recognise that politicians in Westminster will want to debate what the solutions are, but let’s at least agree how we break the levelling up challenge down and start from that same basis. And perhaps then we can have more sustained action for the long term. If we can’t even agree on the problem, it’s no surprise that we never find solutions.

Justine Greening, former Secretary of State for Education and founder of the Levelling Up Goals

That’s why I launched the Levelling Up Goals (www.levellingupgoals.org) - they break down the levelling up challenge into 14 Levelling Up Goals, the issues we must tackle if we’re to truly shift the future and make it fairer for all. Some of the Goals are about preventing gaps opening up between privileged and less privileged children in early years and school years. And getting good advice and experiences to develop people matters, as does making sure that opportunities are open to all and that progression within careers is fair.

Some of the Levelling Up Goals are around the other parts of our lives that either help or hinder our path forward - for example good housing, our health and access to the online world. For the first time, the Levelling Up Goals set out those challenges as a whole.

Now we have identified the Goals we need to achieve, we can break them down with plans on how to tackle each one of them and start to understand how we can measure our progress. Through the Levelling Up Goals seminars, ably chaired by Iain Dale, we bring together very different perspectives to drill down into the solutions that can move things forward. A Measurement Taskforce led by the University of York is drawing on the ideas of the foremost business and university leaders on levelling up and pulling together the metrics that can show whether we are moving forwards or not.

And the Levelling Up Goals demonstrate that Government doesn’t have all the answers - some of the keys to unlocking levelling up lie in the hands of people running our businesses, our universities or communities themselves and the amazing civil society and volunteering groups that have long formed the backbone of so many good things that happen in our country.

Ultimately the Levelling Up Goals give us an architecture around which we can all work more collectively together. If anything can transcend the party politics and division we’ve seen so starkly in recent years, it’s surely the issue of equality of opportunity and levelling up. It’s why a cross party group of MPs in Westminster is behind the Goals, led by Robbie Moore MP and Dame Margaret Hodge MP with ever more coming on board. More opportunities for more people is how we create more opportunities for everyone. It’s not a zero sum game. We need to approach levelling up in a spirit of working together to build more opportunities for everyone. And we need to have a common framework that helps us design the solutions that can steadily transform lives. That’s what the Levelling Up Goals achieve - it’s a national architecture that can drive a national effort.

By Justine Greening

Former Secretary of State for Education and founder of the Levelling Up Goals

The Levelling Up Goals are:

Goal 1. Strong foundations in Early Years 

Goal 2. Successful school years 

Goal 3. Positive destinations Post 16+ 

Goal 4. Right advice and experiences 

Goal 5. Open recruitment 

Goal 6. Fair career progression 

Goal 7. Widening access to savings & credit 

Goal 8. Good health and wellbeing 

Goal 9. Extending enterprise 

Goal 10. Closing the digital divide 

Goal 11. Infrastructure for opportunity 

Goal 12. Building homes & sustainable communities 

Goal 13. Harness the energy transition 

Goal 14. Achieve equality, through diversity & inclusion 

For more information go to www.levellingupgoals.org