In a new Municipal Journal article, David Phillips and Neil Amin-Smith discuss what the government might be hoping for from its business rates retention pilots and analyse the financial implications of the pilots for both pilot and non-pilot councils.
Recent years have seen big changes to the local government finance system. These include the ending of annual spending needs assessments and the introduction of the business rates retention scheme (BRRS) in 2013–14.
In this blog, we discuss research studying the changing state of local government finance and runs through the key findings from a joint report with LGiU.
This report, jointly written by researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) and PwC, looks at how the views of councils’ decision-makers relate to the characteristics of the councils they represent or work for.
In a new article in the Local Government Chronicle, IFS Associate Director looks at the tension between localised funding and centralised standard-setting in social care. The article is available here and reproduced below.
In yesterday’s English Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement, the government announced councils will be able to set a ‘Social Care Precept’ of 3% a year over the next two years, rather than the 2% a year previously planned, to raise additional funds for adult social care. We calculate that yesterday’s announcements could increase the amount available to spend on adult social care by a maximum by £700 million over the next two years relative to previous plans. But they provide no boost to spending beyond that.
David Phillips, Senior research economist, gave this presentation on the implications of the Autumn Statement for local government to a range of council staff and other stakeholders.
Last month, researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies launched first paper the from a new programme on local government finance. This paper looked at a range of issues including, changes in councils’ spending and revenues over the last seven years, and issues related to the evolving English business rates retention scheme (BRRS). Today, we publish two spreadsheets with information for individual council areas: a spreadsheet showing changes to councils’ spending on services between 2009–10 and 2016–17; and a spreadsheet showing relative gains and losses from the BRRS since it was introduced in 2013–14.
The economy and post-Brexit uncertainties, rather than public services, was clearly uppermost in the Chancellor’s mind when he announced the Autumn Statement. The Statement, informed by the OBR’s first forecasts since the Referendum, contained mixed news for Wales. This blog post looks at some of the key takeaway messages for Wales.
