Addressing Regional Inequalities: four English examples

Some global cities have successfully addressed significant social and economic inequalities through innovative approaches in recent years. City-REDI and CIPFA have sought to assess whether English local authorities can replicate this success.

By using the nine key success factors outlined in City-REDI and CIPFA's 2022 report, Investing in regional equality: lessons from four cities, we investigated the experiences of four distinct English regions: Dudley, Enfield, South Yorkshire, and Tees Valley. 

All nine success factors identified from international experiences were evident in England. We uncovered instances of innovative practices across all four regions and identified a tenth success factor that is crucial for England: transferable learning and knowledge exchange.

Download and read the report. 

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Meet the authors

Abigail Taylor 

Abigail is a research fellow at City-REDI, University of Birmingham. Her research explores governance structures and institutions, funding flows, and regional and local labour markets. Abigail completed a secondment to the Industrial Strategy Council during which she worked on projects including analysing international examples of regions which have successfully levelled up, and the development of Local Industrial Strategies.

Anne Green 

Anne is Professor of Regional Economic Development and CoDirector at City-REDI. With a background in geography, her research interests span employment, non-employment, regional and local labour market issues, skills strategies, migration and commuting, urban and regional development, evaluation and public policy issues. She has longstanding experience of working in interdisciplinary research institutes in higher education.

Hannes Read

Hannes is a policy and data analyst at City-REDI. He has experience working in local government and academia to understand the impacts that anchor institutions can have in the local economy. His interests lie with how organisations can support and shape inclusive economic development at the local and regional scales.

Jeffrey Matsu 

Jeff is Chief Economist at CIPFA and a Visiting Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. Previously, he was responsible for market analysis and thought leadership at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and co-led the economy theme at the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence. He is currently a co-lead at the Local Policy Innovation Partnership (LPIP) Hub.