The Rotheram Record

Verdict: GVA has grown in absolute terms, but slower than the national average. The gap has widened by £3,100 per head. The city region is falling further behind, not catching up.

Verdict: LCR has actually dropped a place in business density — from 35th to 36th of 38. Business births have fallen. The Freeport exists but has leveraged only £0.8bn against £5bn+ potential. Securing the designation is not the same as exploiting it.

Verdict: Employment rate has barely moved in 7 years — from 69.8% to 70.6%. The UK average is 75.7%. Productivity has actually fallen further behind. Wages have risen but the gap with the national average has widened from £80 to £100 per week.

Verdict: Economic inactivity has risen, not fallen. 9,000 more people are on out-of-work health benefits than in 2017. The claimant count rate has worsened. A quarter of working-age people across the city region remain on the sidelines — and the number is growing.

Verdict: Bus ridership has collapsed — down over 25% even accounting for Covid. Rail journeys have barely recovered to pre-pandemic levels. The new Merseyrail trains are a genuine achievement, but the outcome question is whether people are actually travelling more. They aren't. Bus franchising and the £2 fare are inputs — ridership is the outcome, and it's heading the wrong way.

Verdict: Housing delivery has barely moved — ~4,500/yr against an estimated need of 10,000+. The "32,000 homes" figure cited by the CA conflates market delivery with mayoral influence. Affordability has worsened. For 1.6m people, the city region is building at less than half the rate it needs.

Verdict: Planning has got slower, not faster. Major decisions in Liverpool now take 73 weeks — up from ~50 weeks, against a statutory target of 13 weeks. The development pipeline has grown to £10bn but the planning system is a bottleneck preventing it from being delivered.

Verdict: Knowsley's Attainment 8 score has fallen to 33.3 — the worst of any local authority in England. Only 19.5% of Knowsley pupils achieve grade 5+ in English and Maths. Youth unemployment remains above the national average despite the Young Person's Guarantee. Graduate retention has inched up but remains well below Manchester's ~68%.

Verdict: The life expectancy gap has widened. Healthy life expectancy has worsened even more — 5.8 years below the England average. NHS dentist access has collapsed from ~45% to 36%. Health is the biggest barrier to economic activity and it's getting worse, not better.

Verdict: The flagship Mersey Tidal project has been in feasibility for years with no construction date, no funding secured, and no delivery timeline. Retrofit delivery (8,000+ homes) is a genuine bright spot. But no new energy generation capacity has been delivered. The city region talks about energy ambition without building anything.

Verdict: No independent scorecard of mayoral delivery exists. £150m in Covid Recovery funding was allocated with no published breakdown of what it achieved. There is no routine publication of outcome data for major CA programmes. Residents cannot see what their money delivered. This page shouldn't need to exist.