Foreword

At a Glance

Spreading prosperity, creating high-quality jobs and unlocking digital talent in every corner of the country is essential to delivering a competitive economy in an increasingly digital world. Kulveer Ranger explores how business innovation can drive growth across the UK.

3 Minute Read

Kulveer Ranger

SVP, Head of Strategy, Marketing, Comms & Public Affairs, Northern Europe & APAC

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For decades, governments of all shapes have sought to reduce inequality by unleashing the creativity and industry of communities across Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

From the 1980s, Development Corporations transformed areas across Britain including Canary Wharf, Cardiff Bay and Central Manchester.

Under Tony Blair, devolution in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London along with regional development agencies and assemblies in England all looked to promote local jobs and growth. Local Enterprise Partnerships, Metro Mayors and city region and growth deals followed.

The results have been mixed.

Today, we have a patchwork of different democratic and funding models targeted towards the needs of individual areas.

The Government’s Levelling Up agenda is an ambitious programme that brings together a range of initiatives under one umbrella, underpinned by legislation. The aim is to raise productivity levels, improve health outcomes, increase incomes and spread opportunity in every corner of the country. This objective is a shared endeavour that cuts across political parties and one that will take many years to achieve.

At Atos, we believe that new technologies like artificial intelligence and cloud services, combined with new ways of working following the pandemic, mean that the UK can finally and meaningfully level up.

With colleagues in almost every part of the UK, Atos has a significant stake in improving the prospects of communities across the country. From Belfast to Bristol, Inverness to Ipswich, Atos is working with government and business to improve services and goods for citizens. Ensuring that pay, employment and productivity is rising everywhere is beneficial to us and the people who work for us as well as for the country as a whole.

Our view is that Levelling Up can only be achieved by creating sustainable jobs of the future through business innovation.

Innovating Up aims to bring businesses, local partnerships and political representatives together to find answers to how we can deliver sustainable growth in every community.

There are three themes Innovating Up will examine.

Innovating Digital will consider how business and government can utilise digital transformation to deliver growth.

Innovating Jobs will ask what the jobs of the future will look like and how we can locate them in local communities.

Finally, Innovating Skills will ask how business can work with government to make sure we have the skills needed to do the jobs of the future.

Key Takeaway

With the breadth of our operations and the range of private and public sector organisations we work with, we can bring people together to identify solutions to these questions.

This paper sets out some of our initial thoughts and we will be meeting with business leaders, political representatives and communities across the UK to make recommendations on how Levelling Up can be achieved by Innovating Up.