The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), formerly the Ministry for Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG),[2] is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for housing, communities, and local government in England and the levelling up policy. It was established in May 2006 and is the successor to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, established in 2001. The department shares its headquarters building, at 2 Marsham Street in London, with the Home Office. It was renamed to add Housing to its title, changed to a ministry in January 2018, and later reverted to a government department in the 2021 reshuffle.
Overall housing strategy; Housing delivery and programmes; Affordable homes programme; Homeownership and home buying and selling process; Homes England stewardship; Tackling leasehold and freehold abuses; New Homes Ombudsman and Redress; Planning – casework, reform and design, and building better.
Asylum - including relevant Houses in multiple occupation (HMO) reform, Special Development Order-planning minister; Afghan resettlement - including Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme and Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy; Ukraine; Hong Kong BNOs; homelessness and rough sleeping; exempt accommodation; Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions policy; The Union and Constitution, and local government engagement in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; retained EU Law programme; planning casework; legislation: the Holocaust Memorial Bill & the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.
Parliamentary-Under Secretary of State for Levelling Up
Local growth funding design and simplification; Local growth funding delivery – UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), Levelling Up Fund (LUF), Community Ownership Fund (COF), etc.; Devolution deals and county deals; Planning casework.[4]
Integration, communities and faith, including Hong Kong British National (Overseas); RED local resilience and emergencies, including winter preparedness; COVID-19 inquiry; Planning casework; Lords work for the department.[5]
Overarching responsibility for housing strategy, including supply and home ownership; Investment Zones; Housing funds, including Affordable Housing Programme (AHP) and other housing / land and infrastructure funds; Homes England stewardship; Planning – reform and casework; Leasehold and freehold; Corporate matters.[6]
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing and Homelessness
Lords commitments; home ownership and homebuying process; HM Land Registry reform/stewardship and land transparency; climate change, Net Zero and energy efficiency; communities and integration; planning casework.[7]
DLUHC was formed in July 2001 as part of the Cabinet Office with the title Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), headed by the then Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott. In May 2002 the ODPM became a separate department after absorbing the local government and regions portfolios from the defunct Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions. The ODPM was criticised in some quarters for adding little value and the Environmental Audit Committee had reported negatively on the department in the past.[9][10]
During the 5 May 2006 reshuffle of Tony Blair's government, it was renamed and Ruth Kelly succeeded David Miliband to become the first Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). In January 2018, as part of Theresa May's Cabinet reshuffle, the department was renamed the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). In September 2021, Boris Johnson renamed the department yet again, calling it the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), being more powers outside of just England to manage funds across the United Kingdom.[11]
On 20 February 2021, it was announced as part of the government's levelling up policy, that DLUHC would be the first government department to have a headquarters based outside of London. Five hundred posts, including those of senior civil servants, will be moving to Wolverhampton by 2025.[12]
On 23 February 2021, the then Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick, announced he was hopeful that staff would be working in Wolverhampton by the summer of 2021. He also announced that they were considering building a new office development in or around the city centre to house the new headquarters. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, suggested it should be within walking distance of local newspaper Express & Star, where he previously did work experience.[13]
As DLUHC looks set to relocate some 500 members of staff to Wolverhampton, Robert Jenrick officially opened its new Wolverhampton offices at the recently completed i9 office development on 10 September 2021. At the opening of the new office development the Secretary of State was joined by the leader of City of Wolverhampton Council Ian Brookfield and the West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street.[14]
The Office for Local Government ("Oflog"), established in 2023, is an office within the department responsible for providing "authoritative and accessible data and analysis about the performance of local government, and support[ing] its improvement".[17]
The Levelling Up Taskforce was formed in September 2021 headed by former Bank of England Chief Economist Andy Haldane.[18] The Levelling Up policy was not initially defined in detail,[19] but would include:[20][21]
Investing in towns, cities, and rural and coastal areas
Giving those areas more control of how investment is made
Levelling up skills using apprenticeships and a £3 billion National Skills Fund
Helping the farming and fishing industries
Creating up to 10 freeports to help deprived communities
Digitising planning
DLUHC teams have been actively supporting digitisation of town planning processes as part of the Levelling Up Mission. Under the "Proptech innovation fund", DLUHC has been funding four rounds of digitisation initiatives within various local councils in England.
In January 2007, Ruth Kelly announced proposals to bring together the delivery functions of the Housing Corporation, English Partnerships and parts of the then Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government to form a new unified housing and regeneration agency, the Homes and Communities Agency (renamed Homes England in 2018). Initially announced as Communities England, it became operational in December 2008. This also includes the Academy for Sustainable Communities. The year 2008 was also when the department along with the Local Government Association produced the National Improvement and Efficiency Strategy[24] which led to the creation of nine Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships (RIEPs) with devolved funding of £185m to drive sector-led improvement for councils.
Devolution
Its main counterparts in the devolved nations of the UK are as follows.
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