Inquiry looked into why such low score proved to be winner
MINISTERS selected 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 90pc of towns had been ruled out of the bidding process early on - while a handful of comparatively affluent places were among those quickly prioritised.
Cheadle was picked to receive up to £25m despite scoring seventhlowest 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.
Express 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 other 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 eventual December election, allegedly targeting public cash at seats in which they needed to win votes.
Boris Johnson has previously dismissed such suggestions as ‘cynical’ and 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 oneoff 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 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 had begun by drawing 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, which had the lowest score of all.
The other towns ranked as ‘low priority’ given immediate funding ahead of the election were Leyland, Southport, Brighouse, Morley, Stocksbridge, Todmorden, Stapleford, Redditch, St Ives, Glastonbury and Newhaven.
Like Cheadle, all were won by the Conservatives in December and almost all were key targets, either for the Tories themselves - who went on to win Stocksbridge from Labour and Stapleford’s surrounding seat of Broxtowe from Anna Soubry - or for Labour or the Liberal Democrats.
“The lowest-scoring town selected for a town deal was Cheadle, which had the seventh-lowest score out of the 541 assessed by officials,” finds the report.
“When selecting towns from the low-priority group, ministers provided their rationales for each of the 12 towns selected.
“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’.
“The area is part of Stockport borough council, which is looking to set up a Mayoral Development Corporation. Transport improvements in nearby Cheadle Hulme have primed the area for investment.
“The town ranks in the top half of the 541 towns for Index of Multiple Deprivation.”
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 high-priority towns and provided a rationale for each of the towns selected from the medium- and low-priority groups,” finds the report.
Asked directly last autumn about accusations that the funding had been allocated politically, Boris Johnson told the Express last September that any such claim was ‘pure cynicism’.
“What we want are stronger towns across the UK, we want to use the cash to help local people wherever they are to level up and invest in local things for their communities, to improve public amenities, to put in broadband and to bring life to their communities and that’s what we want to do for every town in the country,” he said.
Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts select committee, which commissioned the NAO report, criticised the process by which the towns fund had so far been allocated, however.
“This NAO report shows that some of the most deprived towns in England will be left behind once again,” she said.
“Nine out of 10 towns were ruled out with no explanation before they even reached the competition’s starting line, while some relatively affluent towns are still in the running.
“Ministers relied on flimsy, cherry-picked evidence to choose the lucky towns. Those that lost out have not yet had the chance to make their case.”