GCSE results in the North were a report card on this Government of how they handled the pandemic - Henri Murison

My case to them was simple. There was a plan to sort the transport out (but as I have learnt, just because government may have a plan doesn’t mean they’ll do it). There was a plan to create Metro Mayors and devolve more powers to them. But what we also needed was a plan to sort out what is happening in education in the North. Lucky enough for me at least, that was exactly what they thought needed to come next as well.

On starting work, under the leadership of Collette Roche, now chief operating officer at Manchester United, we undertook some serious analysis for our first piece of work on education and skills.

Published fortuitously around the same time as Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England at the time’s report Growing up North, we together made an argument that we have kept on making together since, with her now one of the Partnership’s Board Members.

It was this – it is time to close the gap between how children in the North do in education compared to those in the South. As the gap was driven by the performance of those from the poorest households, that’s where our focus was.

Almost five years later, it is of enduring frustration to me that we have not made more progress. Despite the commitment of local leaders like Coun Susan Hinchcliffe who stood up for and secured the Opportunity Area which has made a difference from children where I live in Bradford – as it has in Doncaster and Scarborough. Despite the work of school leaders, their teachers and their support staff, it is sadly Whitehall that doesn’t get it.

The A-level and GCSE results weren’t just about how every child in Yorkshire, and in the North, did personally. Or how their schools did. They were, when looked at across the North, a report card on this Government of how they handled the pandemic.

Whether you believe schools should have been shut, or for as long as they were, the issue is they were shut more of the time here than in other parts of the country. Just because you could open under the law didn’t mean the children or the staff, or both, weren’t off isolating.

It was Gavin Williamson’s fault that the laptops he promised didn’t turn up quickly enough, and it was left to those like The Sheffield Star, the local college and businesses like WanDisco to get laptops to children who needed them in cities like Sheffield.

Then after, it was time to address the damage done. The Government’s own education recovery tsar believed the ambition wasn’t great enough, and the tutoring scheme was rolled out without enough provision available of suitable quality in much of the North.

Alternatives, like South Yorkshire Futures providing wider mentoring, were supported first by the council in Barnsley and have now been rolled out further. Trusting those who knew schools and their circumstances best, and checking with them first what help was needed, was a far better approach – but not one taken by Whitehall.

This is the lesson of the pandemic – that seeking to support the most disadvantaged from the Department for Education failed.

It is time for the new Prime Minister, when they are elected, to change course. That is why alongside those including Fiona Spellman, the chief executive of education philanthropy charity Shine, which moved north to Leeds, we wrote to Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss last week to make clear our concern, and to make the case for a significant shift in how the resources are spent to address these issues.

Across in Merseyside, the organisation Right to Succeed, with the Steve Morgan Foundation and Shine, are seeking in North Birkenhead to make an impact on what is holding children back from achieving their potential in education. But it should be central government, funding our Metro Mayors like Steve Rotheram there and his equivalents across the Pennines including Tracy Brabin to invest.

Rather than centralising the support for the former opportunity areas and offering those other areas highlighted as needing investment more intervention from national initiatives which may often be completely unsuitable, it is time to take control from Whitehall.

Henri Murison is chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership (NPP).