English local government funding: trends and challenges in 2019 and beyond

Abstract

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

Inequalities in local government spending on cultural, environmental and planning services: a time-trend analysis in England, Scotland, and Wales

“…Although the decline in spending is almost ubiquitous, there is significant variation in the level of cuts between local authorities. During the study period, in addition to the massive funding cuts, there have been major changes in how funding is allocated to local government; how local government can raise revenue through local taxation, fees, and capital; and individual local authority prioritisation decisions given the uncertainty about future funding [ 32 ].…”

Path Clearing, Policy Acceleration or Trend Reinforcement: Potential Implications of Selected Local Government Responses to Covid-19 in the UK

“…Similar developments in both the UK and other parts of Europe have occurred through strategic leadership collaboration between key local institutions (Davies et al, 2020). These positive strands should not mask the resource crisis facing local government in the UK as the pandemic took hold (Harris et al, 2019;Murphie, 2023). Thus, practices such as deferred maintenance, restrictions on opening hours, tighter eligibility criteria, volunteer operation, or even complete closure have resulted in many areas in loss of community facilities and deterioration in the quality of the built environment (Barnett et al, 2020).…”

Inequalities in local funding cuts to environmental and regulatory service expenditure in England from 2009 to 2020

“…However, two-tier authorities are limited in their ability to redirect funding from services lower tier services, such as ER services, to upper tier services such as Social Care. Environmental and regulatory services have received substantial cuts since the introduction of austerity measures (2,12,13). These spending cuts have been accompanied by service changes, including reports of reductions in Food Safety staff by 13% between 2012/13 and 2017/18(14) a decline in food standards and hygiene sampling, and decreased waste removal (14–16).…”