Is leafy suburb’s cash boost ‘pork barrelling’ in action?
MINISTERS selected leafy Cheadle as a ‘left behind town’ in urgent need of cash shortly before last year’s election even though it was one of the places deemed least in need of help by their officials.
The government has been accused of ‘cherry picking’ areas for the first slice of its flagship £3.6bn ‘towns fund’ after the National Audit Office found 90 per cent of towns had been ruled out of the bidding process early on – while a handful of comparatively affluent places were among those quickly prioritised.
The Stockport suburb of Cheadle was picked to receive up to £25m despite scoring seventh-lowest out of 541 towns ranked by civil servants on a range of measures, including deprivation and potential exposure to economic shock.
It had the lowest score nationally of any town to be given funding under the programme.
Despite being categorised as ‘low priority’ for funding by officials, it was granted a cash injection a couple of months prior to the election, along with 11 others in the same bracket. M.E.N. analysis shows more-or-less all were in a target seat either for the Tories or their opponents and all ultimately were won by the Conservatives. More than 250 places considered a higher priority under the scoring system drawn up by officials, including Swinton, Rawtenstall, Romiley, Irlam and Wigan, did not receive funding.
The NAO’s findings follow accusations last autumn that the Conservatives were ‘pork barrelling’ ahead of the December election, allegedly targeting public cash at seats in which they needed to win votes. Boris Johnson has previously insisted the money was awarded on merit.
The £3.6bn ‘towns fund,’ a key Conservative policy in the election, was originally proposed by the prime minister last summer as a way to boost places that needed extra social and economic support with one-off cash injections.
Over the following weeks ministers chose 101 towns to be offered the chance of bidding for up to £25m each, or in ‘exceptional’ cases £50m, based on a ranking of places initially drawn up by civil servants in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. But when the department refused to explain
Boris Johnson said claims of bias were ‘cynical’
exactly how the initial beneficiaries were chosen, the National Audit Office launched an inquiry as a result of ‘concerns raised in the media, including by some MPs, over lack of transparency.’
It found officials drew up a list of all 1,082 places they considered to be towns in England – immediately discounting those deemed the least deprived. They then scored the 541 that remained using seven criteria: official statistics on income deprivation, skills deprivation and productivity, plus judgements of their exposure to Brexit, economic shock, potential investment and ‘alignment to wider government intervention.’
The resulting list was split into ‘high,’ ‘medium’ and ‘low’ priority. All 40 of those recommended in the ‘high’ priority category, including towns such as Oldham and Rochdale, were selected by ministers for funding, as suggested by officials.
However, a dozen in the ‘low’ priority list of 181 possible places – which civil servants advised would need ‘strong rationale’ for selection – were also chosen, including Cheadle, with lowest score of all. All ‘low priority’ towns given immediate funding ahead of the election were won by the Conservatives in December and almost all were key targets for the main parties.
“When selecting towns from the low-priority group, ministers provided their rationales for each of the 12 towns selected,” the report said.
“The reasons given were varied and included criteria that were not used by officials to score the towns, for example poor transport links. A recurring reason ministers gave for selection was a town’s potential for investment or growth.”
While the decisions did not fit directly with their advice, officials decided they could be justified in public spending terms. In Cheadle’s case, they noted the area was ‘strategically located between Stockport and Manchester Airport, with strong motorway links to relevant job opportunities and a new link dual carriageway.’
A further 49 towns were also chosen from a 318-strong ‘medium priority’ category, from which officials had suggested a selection of 60 would be appropriate. That meant at least 269 towns with a greater need than ‘low’ priority towns such as Cheadle were not selected.
“Officials concluded that the overall selection was acceptable because ministers had selected all 40 highpriority towns and provided a rationale for each of the towns selected from the medium- and lowpriority groups,” the report said.
Asked about accusations that the funding had been allocated politically, Boris Johnson told the M.E.N. in September that any such claim was ‘pure cynicism.’