Julia Goldsworthy

@h_kippin Is Greggs ready for Cornwall?? They better make sure their pasty crimping is up to scratch!

Is Cornwall ready for this @jgoldsworthy ??👀>>Greggs goes head to head with Cornish pasties in West Country expansion chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-eas…

Thank you @TheAntonDuBeke and @Everymanchelt for making my little girl’s year. Smiling from ear to ear, what a teacher for your first lesson! #strictly #happyfeet

Looks like a pretty radical report from George Osborne's think tank "England’s funding system for local government should ‘cut out’ Treasury" - on.ft.com/3yXcL5b via @FT

Lovely to contribute to The Times's International Women's Day article on women who inspire us. I went for Laura Kuenssberg, and there are loads of other brilliant women picked by my colleagues too: thetimes.co.uk/article/she-st…

Won’t there be loads of women like me, who will find providing photo id to vote a right palaver? I use my maiden name professionally (so NI/passport etc) and married name for h’hold/family stuff inc council tax and electoral reg, so need separate #VoterID electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/voter/v…

Pocklington to leave DLUHC amid Whitehall changes localgov.co.uk/Pocklington-to…

@calldritt @UKLabour @annabel___smith @adamjlent The Sustainable Communities Act (brought by private members bill in the 2005-10 parliament), tried to address this broader agency point, and reverse the burden of proof to make the case for power / resource transfers. Worth revisiting? commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-brief…

@AndrewCities And yet there is a world where the two circles in the Venn diagram *can* overlap

Classic tension in (British) policy when considering how to support growth. Levelling-up department talks about places. HMT talks about sectors. Ever thus.

This by @RileyResearch is the best and most thorough analysis of our falling labour force out there bit.ly/3Hr3IxB

Enlightening! I had not realised that Mandarin (the government official variety) was an international language… although disappointed not to see “pitch rolling” included

@JenWilliams_FT But isn’t exactly this a neutral position? eg to help places understand process and inform decisions at the centre. Not the fault of officials, but reflecting the realities of the power / resource / decision dynamics and not the “lobbying” for places @JenWilliams_FT reports

@JenWilliams_FT Previous incarnations of regional officers tended to act more as central gov messengers taking neutral position rather than “go-to” place embedded champions - not convinced the seniority of the levelling up directors would fundamentally have changed that dynamic.

Re the (unsurprising given progress to date) potential scrapping of levelling up directors, was struck by the thoughts of a council officer in a deprived area when I was doing interviews for yesterday’s piece on local govt. A regional go-to would have been ‘ideal’, they said 1/

@ahawksbee And, as with other competitive public funding pots, risks missing the wood for the trees. A myopic focus on apportionment of public £ and outputs for individual projects, not wider place based outcomes / ambitions

Problem with excessive focus on Levelling Up Fund (& UKSPF) is it implies levelling up is all about public money. Test should be whether public £ unlocks private £. In previous regen attempts, it hasn't. Andy Street agreed £4bn regen deal with L&G last year. Same as entire LUF!

no conversation about the £2bn round 2 of the levelling-up fund should ignore the cut in annual government funding to councils from £41bn to £26bn since 2010

Did a thing on the rhetoric from both main parties on English devolution: on.ft.com/3CTwIMS

Devolution is, gladly, now a contested political space. Read @JenWilliams_FT latest feat. @IPPRNorth. Progress?

Required reading for anyone folllowing the latest on #devolution / #LevellingUp - and a particularly useful refresher as we await those trailblazer deals in @greatermcr and @WestMids_CA

Michael Gove announces £1.4bn devolution deal for north-east England on.ft.com/3C4I942

Local authorities gave evidence to the Levelling Up, Housing & Communities Committee earlier this week about the funding streams available to them. A thread on what I learned:

Congratulations @martinrreeves and @OxfordshireCC - smart move on all fronts!