Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

DEREK HEALEY: Who is to blame for Dundee’s ‘Levelling Up’ funding row?

Political leaders in Dundee have been locked in a spat over access to funds offered by the UK Government.

The city’s SNP council leader, John Alexander, was accused of turning up his nose at the Levelling Up scheme because the cash comes from Westminster.

But freshly uncovered emails reveal Mr Alexander was on the case as early as March 2021, urging officers to put together a bid.

That is despite the scheme’s transport element arguably encroaching on an area of policy devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

Why didn’t Dundee submit a bid?

Dundee City Council is entitled to bid for two projects – one for each of its MPs – and a further transport bid.

Critics, such as North East MSP Maurice Golden, say the council should have had applications ready to go before the first round of bidding closed last year.

Maurice Golden

Dundee will have further opportunities to submit bids but they argue the failure to apply early could see vitally important projects delayed and council officers miss out on feedback for future applications.

Mr Alexander says the council did not prepare a bid in June 2021 – despite being considered a high priority case – “as it takes time to pull firm proposals of that scale together”.

Email correspondence reveals the authority believed internally it could get the transport proposal ready before the deadline but ultimately ran out of time.

Who is to blame?

Whether the blame for that should lie with council officers for failing to get their affairs in order or Michael Gove’s Levelling Up department for setting unrealistic timescales is ultimately a matter of perspective.

No fewer than eight councils in Scotland submitted successful bids – and at least a third of all 32 local authorities are known to have applied in the first round.

But the Levelling Up scheme is a poorly designed funding mechanism that puts local authorities in a difficult position.

Michael Gove.

Council bosses and politicians have been working behind the scenes to convince the government to look again at the application rules.

The tight timescales for bids to be made and projects to get underway means any successful application would need to be deliverable within a very narrow timeframe.

The first set of funding awards was scheduled for Autumn 2021 but projects had to be “shovel ready” by March 31. For large scale projects, that is a big ask.

Further issues for councils

Officials also believe that only bids supported by local MPs are likely to be approved but in local authority areas like Dundee that creates further issues.

MPs are allowed to support one project each so which authority should Stewart Hosie – whose constituency covers councils in both Dundee and Angus – give his backing to?

Capacity funding of £125,000 has also been made available to support bids but can only be used to develop later submissions.

These are problems being felt across the country.

The kind of major projects being discussed for the Levelling Up fund in Dundee could be game changers for the city.

They are far too important to be the subject of political football or funding criteria set to such arbitrary deadlines.