Sarah LonglandsThink tank

Biography

Dr Sarah Longlands is Chief Executive of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), a Manchester-based charitable think tank that develops progressive economics for people, planet and place. She rejoined CLES in June 2021 having previously served as Director of IPPR North and, before that, as Director of Policy at CLES from 2005 to 2011; she began her career in economic development roles in County Durham and North Yorkshire local government. She holds a PhD in Urban Studies from the University of Glasgow. In health and social care, she has written on the role of Integrated Care Systems as economic anchors and on the consequences of rising adult and children's social care costs for local government finances. In September 2025 she was appointed a Non-Executive Director of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, continuing in her CLES role alongside that position.

References

1. 1.Sarah Longlands | CLES staff page — Confirms current role as Chief Executive of CLES, career background, and PhD
2. 2.Dr Sarah Longlands appointed Non-Executive Director at MHCLG | CLES — Confirms MHCLG NED appointment in September 2025 and ongoing CLES CEO role
3. 3.Non-Executive Director – Sarah Longlands | GOV.UK — Official government record of her MHCLG NED role; confirms CLES CEO position and background
4. 4.Getting healthier and wealthier | The MJ — Documents her commentary on Integrated Care Systems as economic anchors and health/social care workforce
5. 5.Sarah Longlands: Labour should move from securonomics to loconomics | Local Government Chronicle — Documents her published arguments on rising adult and children's social care costs and local government finances

Expertise

Cited on

• Hospital discharge / bed-blocking
• Adult social care & reform

Stated areas of expertise

• Community wealth building
• Place-based economic development
• Integrated Care Systems as anchor institutions
• Social care funding and local government
• Health inequalities and local economies
• Devolution and regional policy

Notable achievements

• Appointed Non-Executive Director to the Board of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) in September 2025, while continuing as CLES Chief Executive. Source ↗
• Led CLES's work with the Birmingham Anchor Network, examining how Integrated Care Systems can use their economic weight to support local employment and health outcomes. Source ↗
• Authored commentary in Local Government Chronicle arguing the spiralling costs of children's and adult social care are structurally damaging local authority finances, calling for a place-based response. Source ↗

What they’ve said

• “private equity involvement in public services created 'conflicting motivations' that were driving”

  Chief executive of the thinktank Centre for Local Economies · Hospital discharge / bed-blocking · 27 Aug 2026 · ‘Financial pandemic’: £1 in every £11 spent on UK public contractors goes to private equity ↗

• “This is public money, our money, that we're talking about. But the way in which private equity companies are structured puts downward pressure on a service, and ends up creating an environment which is really bad for workers. There's increasing evidence about the lack of quality of care that's being delivered, too.”

  chief executive of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies · Adult social care & reform · 27 Aug 2026 · ‘Treating children like cattle’: what happens when private equity takes over a UK care home? ↗

Source references

1. ‘Financial pandemic’: £1 in every £11 spent on UK public contractors goes to private equitytheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026
2. ‘Treating children like cattle’: what happens when private equity takes over a UK care home?theguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026

Contact & links

• Staff pagehttps://cles.org.uk/about-cles/people/sarah-longlands/
• Xhttps://x.com/sarahlonglands
• LinkedInhttps://uk.linkedin.com/in/sarah-longlands-35128a29
• Websitehttps://www.gov.uk/government/people/sarah-longlands

Organisational contact points only, each taken from a page the organisation publishes itself. No personal or direct contact details are held or shown.