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BRIEFING PAPER Number 08431, 23 March 2021
Local government finances
By Philip Brien
Contents: 1. Local government in England:
structures and funding processes
2. Local government finance statistics
3. Devolved administrations 4. Further reading
http://www.parliament.uk/commons-libraryhttp://intranet.parliament.uk/commons-librarymailto:[email protected]://www.twitter.com/@commonslibrary
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2 Local government finances
Contents Summary 3
1. Local government in England: structures and funding processes
4
2. Local government finance statistics 5 2.1 Settlement funding
5 2.2 Spending power 7 2.3 Spending 12 2.4 What is the money spent
on? 16
3. Devolved administrations 18 3.1 Scotland 18 3.2 Wales 18 3.3
Northern Ireland 18
4. Further reading 20 4.1 Library briefings 20 4.2 Other
organisations 20
Cover image: Lancaster Town Hall Chambers, by Michael D
Beckwith. Licensed under CC0 (public domain)/image cropped.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/118118485@N05/21173023340/in/album-72157641232356043/https://www.flickr.com/photos/118118485@N05/21173023340/in/album-72157641232356043/https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
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3 Commons Library Briefing, 23 March 2021
Summary Local government in England is handled by several
different types of local authority – in some areas it is split into
two tiers (of district and county councils), while in others a
single authority handles all local government responsibilities. The
needs and relative deprivation of these areas vary widely, and so
does the amount of money available to each.
Metropolitan districts receive more grant funding per person
from central Government than any other type of local authority,
while shire counties and the districts within them receive the
least. These variations are considerably reduced when one instead
looks at the local authorities’ core spending power, which takes
into account the differing amounts of money that each authority can
raise on its own behalf.
On average in England, grant funding has decreased in real terms
since 2015-16 across all types of local authority, and has been
largely flat since 2019-20. Spending power has decreased less on
average, and as of 2020-21 it has begun to slowly increase, but
there is much more variation in spending power between individual
authorities than for funding.
The amounts spent per person by each local authority area show
broadly similar variations to those in funding – London boroughs
spend the most per person, and shire counties and districts the
least. There is a large range of spending between different local
authority areas, with the highest spending typically to be found in
London.
Spending per person has decreased in real terms in almost all
local authority areas (combining counties and districts) since
2015-16.
Local authorities mostly spend their resources on education
services and adult and children’s social care – these three areas
together made up well over half of local government spending in
2019-20, much of it as part of ring-fenced grants.
Similar statistics are also available for the devolved
administrations of the UK, but are not covered in depth in this
briefing.
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4 Local government finances
1. Local government in England: structures and funding
processes
Within much of England, local government responsibilities are
split between two tiers. The upper tier consists of 24 county
councils, while the lower tier consists of 181 district councils;
each county contains several districts. In other areas, a single
“unitary authority” takes on the responsibilities of both tiers;
there are 129 of these, including the 32 London boroughs and 36
metropolitan districts.1
In addition to these structures, there are 29 fire and rescue
authorities in England, some of which cover more than one
upper-tier authority area. Similarly, there are 36 directly-elected
Police and Crime Commissioners in England, plus the Mayors of
London and Greater Manchester (who carry out the role of PCC within
their areas).
Upper- and lower-tier authorities have access to three main
sources of finance:
• Council tax receipts;
• A proportion of business rates raised within the authority
area;
• Funding from central government.
Local authorities also take in money in the form of fees and
charges for providing services, but these offset the cost of those
services rather than being used as part of their overall pool of
money.
Central funding is made up of a number of different grants,
several of which are bundled together into the Local Government
Finance Settlement. (Authorities also receive several other grants
outside this settlement, ring-fenced for specific purposes.) The
calculations used to create the settlement take into account each
council’s ability to raise its own revenue, in order to balance
funding across authority areas and ensure that they are able to
carry out services.
The above is a very brief overview; for more details, please see
the Library’s briefing on Local government in England:
structures.
1 This total includes the City of London and the Isles of
Scilly, both of which have
unique governance structures for historical and geographical
reasons. Their financial arrangements are similarly unique, making
it difficult to compare them to other local authorities; they are
therefore not included in any of the summary calculations in this
briefing.
There are 24 county councils, 181 district councils, and 129
unitary authorities in England.
https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN07104
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5 Commons Library Briefing, 23 March 2021
2. Local government finance statistics
2.1 Settlement funding The Ministry of Housing, Communities and
Local Government (MHCLG) releases annual statistics on the amount
of funding provided to local authorities by central government
through the finance settlement.
Source: MHCLG, Final local government finance settlement:
England, 2021 to 2022, 4 February
2021; per-person figures calculated using data from ONS,
Population projections - local authority
based by single year of age, via Nomis; real-terms figures
calculated by smoothing the OBR’s GDP
deflator growth forecast across the years from 2019-20 to
2022-23 to remove the distortions
caused by pandemic-related factors.
The chart above shows that although settlement funding has
decreased across the board since 2015-16, the amount per person
varies according to the different types of local authority –
metropolitan districts receive the most per person, while shire
counties and districts receive the least.
This variation reflects (albeit imperfectly) the fact that
different types of local authority are associated with varying
needs and varying ability to raise their own revenue.2 The chart
below shows how close this relationship is:
2 For more information on this, see LG Futures, Reforming Local
Authority Needs
Assessment, October 2017.
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22
Shire counties and districts
Different classes of authorities receive different levels of
funding from central GovernmentSettlement funding to England, £ per
person, adjusted for inflation
Metropolitan districts
London boroughs
Unitary authorities
Metropolitan districts receive the most central grant funding
per person – shire counties and districts receive the least.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2021-to-2022https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2021-to-2022https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/communities-and-local-government/Reforming%20local%20authority%20needs%20assessment%20-%20full%20report.pdfhttps://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/communities-and-local-government/Reforming%20local%20authority%20needs%20assessment%20-%20full%20report.pdf
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6 Local government finances
Source: MHCLG, Final local government finance settlement:
England, 2021 to 2022, 4 February
2021, and English indices of deprivation 2019, 26 September
2019
Although there are some outliers – for example, Westminster
received a relatively high funding level of around £451 per person
despite below-average deprivation – the most deprived local
authorities also tend to be the ones that receive the most
funding.3
The chart below shows changes in funding for every local
authority in England for which we have data covering every year
from 2015-16 to 2021-22.
3 For more information on deprivation and poverty in general,
see the Library’s
briefings on Poverty in the UK: statistics and Deprivation in
English constituencies, 2019.
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
0 10 20 30 40 50
Sett
lem
ent f
undi
ng, 2
021-
22, £
per
per
son
Index of Multiple Deprivation average score, 2019
Knowsley
Deprived authorities receive more fundingUpper-tier local
authorities in England, counties combined with districts
Wokingham
Westminster
There is a strong correlation between deprivation and levels of
settlement funding.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2021-to-2022https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-indices-of-deprivation-2019https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN07096https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7327https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7327
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7 Commons Library Briefing, 23 March 2021
Note: The median line indicates the point where half of
authorities have higher indexed settlement
funding and half have lower – it does not follow the same
authority across all years. Real-terms
figures calculated by smoothing the OBR’s GDP deflator growth
forecast across the years from
2019-20 to 2022-23 to remove the distortions caused by
pandemic-related factors.
Source: MHCLG, Final local government finance settlement:
England, 2021 to 2022, 4 February
2021
This indicates that the amount of central grant funding received
by local authorities has decreased markedly over the last few
years, and that this is mostly consistent across local
authorities.4
We cannot provide consistent data going back further than
2015-16, because the set of local authority responsibilities and
the set of grants that make up funding changed regularly before
this point. However, in March 2018, the National Audit Office used
MHCLG’s data to estimate that total funding across England was set
to fall in real terms by 56.3% between 2010/11 and 2019/20.5 They
also published an online visualisation which allows users to find
an equivalent figure for individual local authorities.
2.2 Spending power Because of the large variations in local
authorities’ ability to raise their own revenue, it can be more
useful to look at estimated ‘core spending power’ – that is, the
total amount of money that local authorities have
4 The two authorities where funding has decreased much less are
the Isles of Scilly,
which has its level of funding set separately to all other local
authorities due to its unusual geographical situation, and the
Greater London Authority, which received a large increase in
funding in 2017-18 reflecting changes in the collection and
retention of business rates. See paragraph 1.6 of the GLA’s 2017-18
budget.
5 National Audit Office, Financial sustainability of local
authorities 2018, 8 March 2018
Settlement funding has decreased in real terms for every local
authority since 2015-16.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2021-to-2022https://www.nao.org.uk/highlights/financial-sustainability-of-local-authorities-2018-visualisation/https://www.nao.org.uk/highlights/financial-sustainability-of-local-authorities-2018-visualisation/https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/final_consolidated_budget_2017-18.pdfhttps://www.nao.org.uk/report/financial-sustainability-of-local-authorities-2018/
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8 Local government finances
available to them for making decisions, taking into account
their income from council tax, fees and business rates (although
not including certain grants which are passed on directly to other
service providers).6 Broken down by authority type, spending power
over the past few years has been as follows:
Source: MHCLG, Final local government finance settlement:
England, 2021 to 2022, 4 February
2021; per-person figures calculated using data from ONS,
Population projections - local authority
based by single year of age, via Nomis; real-terms figures
calculated by smoothing the OBR’s GDP
deflator growth forecast across the years from 2019-20 to
2022-23 to remove the distortions
caused by pandemic-related factors.
This chart shows that spending power fell in real terms for all
classes of authority between 2015-16 and 2019-20, before starting
to increase again. It also shows that there is much less variation
in spending power per person between types of authority than for
settlement funding. This is because those authorities which can
raise more of their own revenue typically receive less central
grant funding, meaning that the overall amount of money available
is more evened out.
As the chart below shows, this also means that deprivation is
much less strongly linked with spending power than it is with
settlement funding:
6 Spending power is a Government-defined concept – its full
definition and an
explanation of the methodology behind calculating it are
available on gov.uk.
0100200300400500600700800900
1,000
2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22
Shire counties and districts
Metropolitan districts
Unitary authorities
London boroughs
Core spending power is consistent between classes of local
authorityCore spending power in England, £ per person, adjusted for
inflation
Core spending power is largely consistent between classes of
authority.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2021-to-2022https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/core-spending-power-final-local-government-finance-settlement-2021-to-2022/explanatory-note-on-core-spending-power
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9 Commons Library Briefing, 23 March 2021
Source: MHCLG, Final local government finance settlement:
England, 2021 to 2022, 4 February
2021, and English indices of deprivation 2019, 26 September
2019
Although there is still a relationship here – local authorities
with low deprivation such as Windsor and Maidenhead tend to have
lower spending power than those with high deprivation, like
Blackpool – this relationship is much weaker than for funding, and
there is considerable variation in spending power between
authorities with similar levels of deprivation.
The chart below shows the relationship between funding and local
authorities’ ability to raise their own revenue by looking at the
amount that each authority is expected to raise in council tax –
shire counties and districts, which receive the lowest levels of
settlement funding, are also expected to raise the greatest
proportion of their revenue in council tax. This proportion has
increased for all classes of local authority.
0
200
400
600
800
1,000
1,200
0 10 20 30 40 50
Core
spe
ndin
g po
wer
, 202
1-22
, £ p
er p
erso
n
Index of Multiple Deprivation average score, 2019
Blackpool
Deprivation and spending power are weakly relatedUpper-tier
local authorities in England, counties combined with districts
Windsor and Maidenhead
Kensington and Chelsea
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2021-to-2022https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-indices-of-deprivation-2019
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10 Local government finances
Source: MHCLG, Final local government finance settlement:
England, 2021 to 2022, 4 February
2021
Geographical differences in core spending power across England
do not follow any obvious pattern, as can be seen from the map
below.
Source: MHCLG, Final local government finance settlement:
England, 2021 to 2022, 4 February
2021; per-person figures calculated using data from ONS,
Population projections - local authority
based by single year of age, via Nomis
This map shows that most of England has fairly consistent core
spending power. There are some outliers – some districts within
cities
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22
Shire counties and districts
Local authorities are now expected to raise more council
taxCouncil tax requirement as % of core spending power, England
only
Metropolitan districts
London boroughs
Unitary authorities
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2021-to-2022https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2021-to-2022https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/
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11 Commons Library Briefing, 23 March 2021
(particularly London and Liverpool) have higher spending power
than others. However, even these do not show an overall
geographical pattern; in particular, central London holds some of
the areas with both the highest and lowest per-person figures.
Looking at the individual authorities (including the individual
shire districts rather than combining them with their respective
shire counties) shows that the trend in spending power over time
has not been as consistent as for settlement funding. The grey
lines in the chart below represent every local authority where we
have a figure for core spending power in every year between 2015-16
and 2021-22.
Note: The median line indicates the point where half of
authorities have higher core spending
power and half have lower – it does not follow the same
authority across all years. Real-terms
figures calculated by smoothing the OBR’s GDP deflator growth
forecast across the years from
2019-20 to 2022-23 to remove the distortions caused by
pandemic-related factors.
Source: MHCLG, Final local government finance settlement:
England, 2021 to 2022, 4 February
2021
The overall trend for spending power has generally been a
decrease until 2019-20, followed by a partial recovery. However,
there is wide variation between authorities, and slightly over
two-thirds of authorities (68%) are set to have real-terms spending
power that is lower in 2021-22 than it was in 2015-16.
When we combine shire districts with the shire counties that
contain them and plot them on a map, a somewhat different pattern
emerges:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2021-to-2022
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12 Local government finances
Note: Real-terms figures calculated by smoothing the OBR’s GDP
deflator growth forecast across
the years from 2019-20 to 2022-23 to remove the distortions
caused by pandemic-related factors.
Source: MHCLG, Final local government finance settlement:
England, 2021 to 2022, 4 February
2021
This map shows that rural areas (where local authorities tend to
follow the shire district/shire county model) have generally seen
an overall increase in core spending power, even though almost all
of the individual shire districts have seen decreases. London
boroughs have also generally seen decreases, the largest being -8%
for Hillingdon.
2.3 Spending The amount actually spent by each local authority –
as opposed to the amount of funding available to them – is reported
back by each authority to MHCLG, which then publishes these figures
in its Local authority revenue expenditure and financing data.
These figures are typically significantly higher than those for
core spending power from the previous section. This is because
spending power is a Government-defined concept, designed to measure
the amount of resource that local authorities can use to make
decisions – much of the money that the authorities spend does not
come under this heading, but is instead simply passed directly on
to service providers (such as schools or the police). This means
that such spending does not count as part of authorities’ funding
or their spending power; it also means that figures
Total spending by local authorities is not comparable to core
spending power (which is a Government-defined concept).
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2021-to-2022https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financinghttps://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing
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13 Commons Library Briefing, 23 March 2021
for core spending power and actual spending are not directly
comparable.
Local authorities are also not obliged to spend all of the money
that they receive in a given year, and can end up spending more
than they receive if they either pay into or draw on their
reserves. However, spending more than they receive is not an
indication of an authority borrowing money, as local authorities
are not permitted to borrow to cover day-to-day spending.
Analysis of MHCLG’s spending figures allows us to break down
spending by type of authority.
Source: MHCLG, Local authority revenue expenditure and financing
data, 21 January 2021
As with the breakdown for funding and spending power, shire
counties (and the districts within them) spend less per person than
any other class of authority (87% of the overall average), while
London boroughs spend more than any other class (129% of the
national average).
Looking at spending by each area individually (again with shire
counties and districts combined) gives us the following map:
2,196
1,832
1,625
1,481
1,703
London boroughs
Metropolitan districts
Unitary authorities
Shire counties and districts
All authorities
Local government spending, by class of authority£ per person,
England only, 2019-20
Shire counties and districts spend the least per person; London
boroughs spend the most.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing-england-2019-to-2020-individual-local-authority-data-outturn
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14 Local government finances
Source: MHCLG, Local authority revenue expenditure and financing
data
This shows that the highest spending per person is generally
found within London, and much of the lowest is to be found in the
Midlands. Some of the unitary authorities and metropolitan
districts around Manchester and Liverpool also see relatively high
spending.
Since 2015-16, spending by all types of local authorities has
decreased, as can be seen in the chart below.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing
-
15 Commons Library Briefing, 23 March 2021
Note: Real-terms figures calculated by smoothing the OBR’s GDP
deflator growth forecast across
the years from 2019-20 to 2022-23 to remove the distortions
caused by pandemic-related factors.
Source: MHCLG, Local authority revenue expenditure and financing
data
The decrease in spending has not been entirely uniform across
classes of authority, with the largest percentage decreases between
2015-16 and 2019-20 in London boroughs (-14%) and the smallest in
unitary authorities (-9%).
The chart does show that some classes of local authorities have
seen increases in spending in some years. However, spending per
person has decreased overall in real terms for almost all
authorities between 2015-16 and 2019-20, as can be seen from the
map below:
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20
London boroughs
Spending by all classes of authority has fallen£ per person,
real terms (2020-21 prices), England only, net revenue spending
Metropolitan districts
Unitary authorities
Shire counties and districts
Spending has decreased in most local authority areas since
2015-16.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing
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16 Local government finances
Note: Real-terms figures calculated by smoothing the OBR’s GDP
deflator growth forecast across
the years from 2019-20 to 2022-23 to remove the distortions
caused by pandemic-related factors.
Source: MHCLG, Local authority revenue expenditure and financing
data
There is no obvious pattern as to where spending has decreased
the most. The largest decrease was in Bromley (-36%), where a very
large proportion of schools have been converted to academies and
are therefore no longer funded by the local authority (see next
section). The only one of these authorities to see an increase in
spending was South Gloucestershire, at +2%.7
2.4 What is the money spent on? In 2019-20, local authorities in
England had a net current expenditure of £95 billion. This money
was spent on the following services:
7 As with many other statistics in this briefing, the City of
London and the Isles of
Scilly are the exceptions to the rule, at +14% and -37%
respectively.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing
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17 Commons Library Briefing, 23 March 2021
Source: MHCLG, Local authority revenue expenditure and financing
data
Education services make up the largest area of spending,
followed by adult and children’s social care and policing.
As noted earlier, much of the spending by local authorities
takes the form of ring-fenced grants, such as the Dedicated Schools
Grant. Much of the above spending breakdown therefore reflects more
of the allocations that authorities receive from central Government
than of the spending decisions that they make.
There has been considerable variation between sectors in terms
of changes in spending since 2015-16. Across England as a whole,
total spending on services fell by 4.3% in real terms between
2015-16 and 2019-20, but spending on education services fell by
12.4% over the same period (probably partly due to schools becoming
academies and no longer receiving local authority funding), while
spending on social care rose by 9.6% and 7.7% for children and
adults respectively.8
Differences in sectors may explain much of the variation between
local authorities – for example, Bromley’s large decrease in
overall spending (mentioned in the previous section) is partly due
to its unusually large decrease in spending on education services
(-68.9%), as it is one of the local authorities with the highest
rates of academisation.9
8 Library calculations, based on MHCLG, Local authority revenue
expenditure and
financing data; real-terms figures calculated by smoothing the
OBR’s GDP deflator growth forecast across the years from 2019-20 to
2022-23 to remove the distortions caused by pandemic-related
factors.
9 Bromley had the highest rate of academisation in England (93%)
according to the NAO’s 2018 report Converting maintained schools to
academies.
Local authority spending, by service type2019-20, £ billions,
England only
Education services 32.6Highways and transport services
3.8Children Social Care 9.9Adult Social Care 16.9Public Health
3.2Housing services (GFRA only) 1.8Cultural and related services
2.2Environmental and regulatory services 5.1Planning and
development services 1.4Police services 12.2Fire and rescue
services 2.2Central services 3.2Other services 0.0Total 94.6
Education and social care make up by far the largest areas of
spending.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financinghttps://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financinghttps://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financinghttps://www.nao.org.uk/report/converting-maintained-schools-to-academies/
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18 Local government finances
3. Devolved administrations Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
have different local government structures and funding to those in
England. Their finance statistics are therefore also different, and
cannot be meaningfully compared with the statistics for England
(or, indeed, with each other).
However, information on local government funding within the
devolved administrations is available – some of the most useful
sources are listed below.
3.1 Scotland The Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe)
has published several briefings on local government financing. The
main ones are:
• Local government finance: Facts and figures 2013-14 to
2020-21, a briefing summarising the changes to local government
finances in Scotland since 2013/14. This is presented in terms of
the share of total government spending, as well as in real terms,
and includes information about reforms to funding and taxation.
• Local government finance: Budget 2021-22 and provisional
allocations to local authorities, a briefing looking specifically
at 2020-21 within the context of the Scottish Government’s overall
Budget. This mentions specific policy changes that apply to this
particular Budget, and also lists the full allocations that each
local authority will receive.
• Local Government Revenue Funding Allocations, a briefing paper
produced for the Local Government and Regeneration Committee
explaining the process by which revenue funding is allocated to
Scotland’s local authorities.
The Scottish Government publishes a series of statistics about
local government finance. The main resource it publishes is on
local government financial statistics – it also publishes Council
Tax statistics and Provisional Outturn and Budget Estimate
statistics.
3.2 Wales The Welsh Parliament’s Research Service has produced a
short briefing on local government in Wales, covering the structure
and powers of its local authorities.
The Welsh Government’s statistical repository (StatsWales) has a
number of datasets related to local government finance, including
revenue budgets and financing and the central funding
settlement.
3.3 Northern Ireland The NI Direct website provides an overview
of the 11 local authorities in Northern Ireland, along with a list
of their responsibilities. The Northern Ireland Department for
Communities also has a page on local government funding, but does
not provide financial statistics. Most
Local government works very differently in the devolved
administrations, and they publish their own data.
https://digitalpublications.parliament.scot/ResearchBriefings/Report/2020/6/24/Local-Government-Finance--Facts-and-Figures-2013-14-to-2020-21https://digitalpublications.parliament.scot/ResearchBriefings/Report/2021/2/5/f3669358-b9b8-4f1e-b9d6-08d428cbacfchttps://digitalpublications.parliament.scot/ResearchBriefings/Report/2021/2/5/f3669358-b9b8-4f1e-b9d6-08d428cbacfchttp://www.parliament.scot/S4_LocalGovernmentandRegenerationCommittee/Meeting%20Papers/20140423-Papers.pdfhttps://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Local-Government-Finance/PubScottishLGFStatshttps://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Local-Government-Finance/PubScottishLGFStatshttps://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Local-Government-Finance/DatasetsCouncilTaxhttps://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Local-Government-Finance/POBEStatshttp://www.assembly.wales/NAfW%20Documents/tb-07-024.pdf%20-%2028072009/tb-07-024-English.pdfhttp://www.assembly.wales/NAfW%20Documents/tb-07-024.pdf%20-%2028072009/tb-07-024-English.pdfhttps://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Local-Government/Financehttps://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Local-Government/Finance/Revenuehttps://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Local-Government/Finance/Settlementhttps://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/local-councilshttps://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/articles/fundinghttps://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/articles/funding
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19 Commons Library Briefing, 23 March 2021
financial figures for local authorities are best found on those
authorities’ websites.
The Northern Ireland Audit Office produces regular reports on
local government – the most recent contains an overview of the
amount of money that councils in Northern Ireland have received and
spent between 2014-15 and 2018-19, as well as information on other
financial matters such as staffing costs and borrowing. Previous
years’ reports are also available on the Audit Office’s
website.
https://www.niauditoffice.gov.uk/publications/local-government-auditors-report-2020https://www.niauditoffice.gov.uk/publications/type/localGover
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20 Local government finances
4. Further reading 4.1 Library briefings • Local government in
England: structures: this briefing provides
basic details of the structure of local government within
England, as well as more details on how funding arrangements
work.
• Reviewing and reforming local government finance: this
briefing covers the changes that are being made to the way in which
local authorities are financed, particularly the move to letting
councils retain 100% of the business rates they collect.
• The Library produces briefings for every Local Government
Finance Settlement – the most recent is for the 2021-22
settlement.
The Library has also created an interactive dashboard providing
details of settlement funding, core spending power and net spending
for every local authority in England, including comparisons over
time.
4.2 Other organisations The National Audit Office has produced a
Departmental Overview of local authorities, covering their finances
and some of the pressures currently facing them. It also produced a
report in March 2018 on Financial sustainability of local
authorities, which included an interactive visualisation of changes
to authorities’ funding over time.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn07104/https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7538/https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9129/https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/parliament-and-elections/local-government/local-authority-data-finances/https://www.nao.org.uk/report/departmental-overview-local-authorities-2019/https://www.nao.org.uk/report/financial-sustainability-of-local-authorities-2018/https://www.nao.org.uk/highlights/financial-sustainability-of-local-authorities-2018-visualisation/https://www.nao.org.uk/highlights/financial-sustainability-of-local-authorities-2018-visualisation/
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BRIEFING PAPER Number 08431 23 March 2021
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1. Local government in England: structures and funding
processes2. Local government finance statistics2.1 Settlement
funding2.2 Spending power2.3 Spending2.4 What is the money spent
on?
3. Devolved administrations3.1 Scotland3.2 Wales3.3 Northern
Ireland
4. Further reading4.1 Library briefings4.2 Other
organisations