Local government finance

Local government finance

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Local government finance

Showing 161 – 180 of 241 results

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Scotland's Fiscal Future (London event)

Event 23 March 2016 at 09:30 28 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JS
After months of difficult negotiations, a new Fiscal Framework for Scotland to accompany its new tax and welfare powers has been agreed. In this event, David Bell(University of Stirling and the Centre on Constitutional Change), David Eiser (University of Stirling and the Centre on Constitutional Change) and David Phillips (Institute for Fiscal Studies) will examine the agreement, paying particular attention to one key part: the adjustments to Scotland's block grant to account for the devolved revenues and additional spending responsibilities the Scottish Government will soon have.
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Scotland's Fiscal Future

Event 22 March 2016 at 10:00 <p>Holyrood Rd, Edinburgh EH8 8AS</p>
At this event in Edinburgh, David Phillips from IFS and colleagues from the University of Stirling examined the new fiscal framework, paying particular attention to the adjustments to Scotland's block grant.
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Council tax rises to ease the pace of cuts to local government budgets

Comment
Yesterday was a big day for local government in England. The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) published the Provisional Local Government Funding Settlement – which sets out how much in the way of core grants it plans to give each English council every year between 2016–17 and 2019–20. This observation analyses what it means for councils and council taxpayers, putting this in the context of the much bigger changes to council funding on the horizon: the full localisation of business rates, and the abolition of central government grants.

18 December 2015

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Local government: a devolution revolution?

Presentation

This presentation was given to the Local Government Association's County Council's network on the potential impact of recent and proposed changes to local government finance on county councils.

1 December 2015

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Funding the thin blue line

Comment

Public spending on the police was cut by 14% in real terms between 2010–11 and 2014–15. This Observation article, which summarises the main findings of new IFS research, places these spending cuts in the context of the large spending increases over the 2000s, and explores the differences between police forces in how they fared over these two periods.

17 November 2015

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Delivering fiscal squeeze by cutting local government spending

Journal article

The financial crisis of 2008 and associated recession led to a permanent deterioration in the outlook for the UK's public finances. As part of the fiscal consolidation implemented by the UK government, grants to local authorities in England were cut by more than a third in real terms between 2009–10 and 2014–15. On average, the distribution of the cuts across authorities does not seem to reflect the principle of ‘equalisation’ that was, at least in theory, in place up until 2013–14; the local authorities with least revenue-raising capacity (which are typically the most deprived) have on average actually seen the largest spending cuts.

15 September 2015

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How much is too much borrowing?

Comment

This week has seen various statements by public figures about borrowing and debt. George Osborne announced that the government will legislate to require the UK government to run a budget surplus ‘in normal times’. Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party have tabled an amendment to the Scotland Bill to open up the possibility of full fiscal autonomy for Scotland, arguing that – even if this meant running a deficit in Scotland – this would be possible because ‘the UK has been in deficit in 43 of the last 50 years’. So what level of borrowing can or should the UK or Scotland have in the longer-run?

11 June 2015

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Local housing taxation

Presentation

This presentation was given at a meeting of the Commission on Local Tax Reform held in Edinburgh on 19 May 2015.

19 May 2015