A community resilience-based approach to place-based funding: lessons learned from England's levelling up policy

Regional inequalities in health and wealth across England have widened in recent years. The UK Government’s Levelling Up policy sought to address these disparities through six key funding programmes, collectively allocating £8.64 billion to local authority districts (LADs) in England. Using Levelling Up as a case study, this research assessed the alignment between actual and modelled ‘fair share’ allocations, using a Community Resilience Index (CRI) as an objective measure of need. Findings revealed significant variability in funding allocations, with only a moderate correlation to CRI scores (r = −0.52, p < 0.0001), highlighting inequities among LADs with similar resilience levels. Northern and coastal LADs generally received more than their ‘fair share’, while those in the South and inland areas were underfunded. Only 36.2% of LADs received funding proportionate to their modelled need, and 30% of total funding would need to be reallocated to achieve a distribution fully aligned with need. While the overall trend of allocation was in the expected direction, these findings emphasise the importance of transparent, needs-based funding criteria. The CRI offers a systematic approach that could inform future place-based funding initiatives.