Local government finance

At this IFS event, experts discussed new financial pressures and service responsibilities for councils in England and Wales as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, forthcoming reforms to the council funding system and social care reforms.

For the first time, and co-funded by the Scottish Policy Foundation, the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a range of Scottish Election Briefing Notes on tax, benefits and public spending, and the parties plans for the coming parliamentary term. We presented the main findings of our analysis ahead of the election at a live webinar, in partnership with the University of Glasgow.

Scottish Labour set out a vision for big expansion of the welfare state - with no sense of how much this would eventually cost or how it would be paid for

The Scottish Conservatives offer extra spending on the NHS and a range of targeted measures – but an ambition to cut income tax looks unlikely to be realised without cuts to at least some services.

The SNP’s manifesto offers big gains to a number of targeted groups in Scotland - but would involve difficult trade-offs in a tight budgetary environment.

Are there any common themes in how the current Scottish Government has used these powers? Who are the winners and losers from the reforms it has under

How is Scotland's higher spending allocated across different services? How have these allocations changed over time? And how do a range of headline in

The COVID-19 crisis has both created billions of pounds of new costs for and demands on councils’ budgets and has hit many of their sources of income. We find that across the sector as a whole, the government has largely addressed forecast pressures in 2020-21. However, financial pressures have been, and will continue to be, uneven across councils. As a result, underlying the aggregate picture, many councils still face at least some shortfall this year – particularly among shire districts.

In this briefing note, we update and extend previous IFS analysis, to consider how employment, incomes, benefit claims and council tax payments have evolved over a longer period and have varied geographically, and draw out key implications for local government.

Last week, the IFS published research on how the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on consumer spending and behaviour has varied across the country. In a new observation, we consider the implications of this research for local government.

On Thursday, the government set out its plans for council funding in England next year. In this briefing note we examine plans for both core funding and top-ups for ongoing COVID-19 related costs, and look at some of the issues looming beyond next year.

The COVID-19 crisis has been a perfect financial storm for councils, pushing up spending and hitting local income streams. This event explained how the COVID-19 crisis has been affecting local finances and economies, how councils have been responding, and key issues for the next few years as we seek to recover.

Last week saw significant political debate about the amount of extra funding being given to English councils moving into tier 3 (‘very high alert’) of the government’s COVID alert system. Most of the attention focused on funding to help pay for additional business support measures – such as grants for businesses legally able to open but facing big falls in demand – on top of those being funded directly by central government.