Director at Cabinet Office Levelling Up Unit
Director, Levelling Up Taskforce, Cabinet Office
Tom is the Director of the Levelling Up Taskforce in the Cabinet Office. Tom has been a civil servant for over 20 years working on economic growth, regeneration, housing, planning and environment policy. He was previously Director of Environment Strategy at Defra (2019-21), Deputy Chief Executive at Homes England (2017-2019) and Director of the Cities and Local Growth Unit in BEIS and MHCLG (2014-2017).
On 21 October 2021, CSaP hosted its first in-person networking event since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The annual meeting and reception, held at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London, provided an opportunity for 115 public policy professionals, industry leaders, and researchers to meet and share their experiences to improve decision-making.
Levelling up was an amorphous policy pledge in the Conservative Party’s 2019 manifesto. Since then, numerous academics and policy organisations have focused on what ‘levelling up’ means, and how it should be achieved. The upcoming Levelling Up White Paper is expected to specify a precise policy programme for this agenda.