Ipsos Levelling Up Index continues to show clear regional disparities in how the public feel about their local areas

• Residents in Wales, Northern Ireland and the North of England in particular, feel left behind when it comes to government spending.
• Inequalities are felt strongest away from the South of England across multiple missions including pay, employment and productivity; R&D investment; and feelings of pride and place.
• Public priorities for Levelling Up vary by geography but, on the whole, the majority do not expect the government to be successful in reducing regional inequalities.  
• Our Levelling Up Index continues to show the public being most positive about their local areas when it comes to internet provision, primary schools and wellbeing 

Ipsos has devised a Levelling Up Index to measure public perceptions and regional differences against each of the 12 missions within the Government’s Levelling Up White Paper. 

Research conducted by Ipsos UK in May, shows widespread geographical inequalities in how the public feels when it comes to government spending, with residents in Wales, Northern Ireland, the North of England, and also in rural and post-industrial areas feeling most left behind. The data shows little change in this sentiment since the first wave of the Levelling Up tracking survey conducted in February. Two thirds of people in Wales (66%), three in five (58%) in Northern Ireland and just over half (53%) in Scotland feel that the Government in Westminster spends less on their area than other local areas – this compares with 44% in England. Within England, the perceived imbalance in spending is most acutely felt in the North-East (69% say government spends less in their area compared to 29% of residents in the South-East). 

The Ipsos Levelling Up Index

The Ipsos Levelling Up Index has been devised to track the public’s perspective on the Government’s 12 Levelling Up missions.  The Index consists of a score (between +200 and -200) for each of the 12 missions, based on several different attitudinal and behavioural survey questions relevant to that mission. In each case, the higher the score, the more positive the public perceptions associated with that mission. 

Overall, the Index shows that the public is most positive about their local areas when it comes to internet provision, primary schools, wellbeing and life expectancy. In contrast, the public is most negative about their local areas on devolution, R&D investment, crime, and housing.

There are also clear national and regional differences in perceptions. By nation, scores on the questions relating to the economic missions such as pay, employment and productivity and skills and training tended to be lowest in Wales. Within England, these Economic missions have a lower Index score in the North of England, with the South-East being the most positive. Perceptions of R&D investment are also lower in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and in the North of England.

Across England, pay, employment and productivity scores are mostly positive, but noticeably more so in the South-East (+28) and the South-West (+24). Scores in the North- East (-3) and Wales (0) are substantially weaker, with dissatisfaction just outweighing satisfaction in the North-East, reflecting the fact that increasing wages and improving job opportunities are seen as a priority in this part of the country. With regard to skills training, the South-West is the most positive (+15), while more negative sentiment slightly outweighs the positive in Wales (-1). 

Feelings of pride in place is another mission which shows a steady progression of scores falling as one moves from south and east to north and west, with London (+40), the South-East (+50) and the South-West (+56) being the most positive, and the North-West (+29) and North-East (+26) being less positive.  

Overall, the improvements that the public would most like to see prioritised for their local areas are remain reducing crime (41%), improving mental health and wellbeing (41%), increasing wages (39%) and more jobs (36%) with little change since February.  However, public priorities for Levelling Up do vary by region, with increasing wages (46%) and improving job opportunities (43%) more of a priority for residents in the North-East (where this specific index score is one of the lowest), whilst tackling crime and anti-social behaviour are more of a priority for residents in the West Midlands (45%), North-West (45%) and London (46%). 

Few members of the public continue to believe that the government’s Levelling Up strategy will make a positive difference to their area in the next few years (9% and no change from February), and just a third (34% - also no change from February) think it is likely that the strategy will reduce inequalities within the next 20 years (compared with 59% who say unlikely - up 3 points from February).  Still concerning, four in five members of the public do not think the government cares about them (16%) or their local areas (18%).  Instead, there is majority public support (62% vs. 10% oppose) for giving local authorities greater control over local decisions around public spending, public transport and policing. 

Technical Note

Ipsos interviewed online a representative UK sample of 12,088 adults aged 16+ between 19-25 May 2022. This data has been collected by the Ipsos UK KnowledgePanel, an online random probability panel which provides gold standard insights into the UK population, by providing bigger sample sizes via the most rigorous research methods. Data are weighted by age, gender, region, Index of Multiple Deprivation quintile, education, ethnicity and number of adults in the household in order to reflect the profile of the UK population. All polls are subject to a range of potential sources of error.  Details of the exact questions used to create the scores for each mission are available in the report.