David Phillips

The past nine months have seen huge swings in households’ spending, both in total and across various goods and services. In this briefing note, we analyse the geographical patterns of these changes.

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.

The COVID-19 crisis is having immediate effects on councils’ budgets as a result of increases in spending on local services and reductions in income from sales, fees and charges and commercial activities.

The COVID-19 crisis is increasing councils’ spending and reducing their incomes. This report analyses councils’ forecasts of these pressures and potential policy responses.

The COVID-19 crisis has brought to the fore increasing concerns about inequalities not only between different population groups – such as the gap between the rich and poor, young and old, and different ethnic groups – but also between people living in different places. Even prior to the crisis though, there was a sense that the UK is not only a highly geographically unequal country, but also an increasingly geographically unequal one.

A lack of transparency over where spending is expected to be lower is contributing to confusion about the overall scale of fiscal support being provid

European Structural and Investment (ESI) funds help to pay for initiatives supporting business development, research and development, investment in digital and green infrastructure, as well skills and training interventions and support for job-seekers. But with the UK having formally departed the European Union, the country will stop receiving new ESI funding at the end of 2020. Thus, for 2021 and beyond, the UK government faces choices over what to replace ESI funding with.