Nearly two years on from the General Election that brought us the phrase ‘levelling up’, recent weeks have seen a series of announcements by the UK Government of funding to local authorities.

Yet, we still don’t know what the economic strategy underpinning this policy is.

What are we levelling up? And what does success look like? How does it differ from what has been done before?

Recent decades have witnessed a range of approaches to local economic development. Devolution led to a rethinking of how to deliver enterprise support in the devolved nations – a process still ongoing with the recent creation of a new South of Scotland Enterprise Agency, while England created and then abolished regional development agencies before handing power to City-Region mayors in some parts of the country and Local Enterprise Partnerships elsewhere.

It has sometimes seemed to be a case of ‘devolve and forget’, followed by ‘remember and reorganise’.

Part of the problem is that economic development can sometimes be viewed as more of a political problem than an economic one.

This renewed interest in local economic development was not spurred by a sudden discovery of decades of underperformance and social challenges in parts of the country, but by a realignment of the political map of the UK.

This comes with a number of risks to the success of levelling up. Electoral calculus can change quickly, while economic development takes decades of sustained action, stability in the institutions delivering it, and reliable funding. It can also mean that resources follow political rather than economic factors. These challenges are particularly acute when central government is in the driving seat, pushing out funding and determining the strategy.

This is why one potentially promising aspect of the way in which the UK Government’s levelling up agenda is being progressed is its focus on working directly with local authorities.

Partnering with local authorities might work. It ensures local knowledge and input as well as providing institutional stability. It could enable local authorities, individually or working together, to develop their own economic strategy suited to local economic advantages and need. But there are risks.

After significant cuts to local budgets, with pressure on frontline services, the capacity of local government to deliver economic development is strained.

Added to which, some local authorities are arguably too small to be expected to successfully manage the delivery of major investment projects, and some do not include a significant economic mass.

The UK Government’s decision to make funding the product of competitive bidding by local authorities also risks creating significant up-front costs with a real prospect that the bid might be unsuccessful. Competition has benefits, but also costs.

We know that areas with existing economic strength find it easier to demonstrate ‘impact’ where this is defined in terms of traditional economic metrics. But if the whole point of ‘levelling up’ is to support development in a wider range of places, we perhaps need to look at different metrics.

The next funding milestone will be the launch of the Shared Prosperity Fund, designed to replace EU Structural funding. This provides some time to reflect on the experience of these initial funding calls. It also provides an opportunity for the UK Government to set out what its vision of local economic development is, how proposals will be evaluated, and how progress will be measured.

There is hope that renewed impetus to do so may come from the new Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and it is rumoured that there is to be a levelling up white paper before Christmas to set out some of the detail that is clearly needed.Given the importance of addressing economic inequalities, let us hope so.

Stuart McIntyre is head of research of the Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde