The authors would like to thank Frantisek Brocek and David Eiser of the Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde for producing revenue and spending figures for Scottish local government finance, to enable comparisons with figures for England. In addition they would like to thank Graham Atkins of the Institute for Government for kindly sharing its 2019 edition of the Performance Tracker so that insights could be included in Chapters 2 and 3. The authors would also like to thank consortium members, Nicola Morton from the Local Government Association, as well as Paul Johnson from IFS and Neil Amin-Smith who was at IFS until July 2019, for helpful comments and suggestions. However, the views presented in this report are those of the authors alone. Any errors or omissions are also their responsibility.
ContentsExecutive summary 1. Introduction 2. Councils' revenues and spending: levels, trends and choices 2.1 Local government revenues and spending in 2019-20 2.2 How different is this picture from the one seen a decade ago? 2.3 How different are the choices councils have made in the face of funding cuts? 2.4 How have councils coped with the cuts? 2.5 Summary 3. The outlook for councils' funding: is austerity over? 3.1 The government's plans for 2020-21 3.2 The longer-term outlook 3.3 Summary 4. The impact of business rates retention and the New Homes Bonus on council funding: the story so far 4.1 The BRRS and NHB policies 4.2 How has the BRRS affected council funding? 4.3 How has the NHB affected council funding? 4.4 What evidence is there of an impact on councils' behaviour? 4.5 Summary 5. Conclusion Appendix A. Methodology Appendix B. Changes to councils' revenue and spending in Scotland Appendix C. Regression output References
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