Council funding: past, future and implications for social policy

Understand this issue

How important is the OBR forecast?

podcast

The OBR forecast will underpin the Chancellor’s decisions at the next Spring Forecast.

12 February 2025

Change in selected departmental capital budgets since 2007–08

data item

The Ministry of Justice saw the biggest cuts to its capital budget over the 2010s, but then has seen the largest relative increases since.

11 February 2025

What is this government’s ‘theory of growth’? Nobody knows

comment

"Shifting the performance of an entire economy requires a long-term, consistent and persistent direction." Paul Johnson writes for the Times.

20 January 2025

Policy analysis

Scottish school spending, teachers and pupil numbers

report

Scotland’s schools are relatively well funded. Falling pupil rolls and workforce planning represent both challenges and opportunities going forwards. 

14 February 2025

Justice spending in England and Wales

report

We present the first consistent estimates of what has happened to Ministry of Justice funding since the early 2000s and put these changes in context.

11 February 2025

Real-terms Ministry of Justice resource (day-to-day) spending, 2002–03 to 2025–26

data item

Day-to-day justice spending in 2025–26 is set to be no higher than it was 23 years earlier, and around 16% lower in per-person terms.

11 February 2025

Academic research

Resource windfalls, public expenditures and local economies

working paper

We show that the redistribution of natural resource tax revenues to non-extractive municipalities stimulates economic activity in local economies.

18 November 2024

Unfunded mandates and taxation

journal article

In 2006, the Chinese central government increased civil servant salaries and pensions and used either unfunded and funded mandates in different areas.

14 March 2024

Cheapflation and the rise of inflation inequality

working paper

Using household scanner data for fast-moving consumer goods, we show that this was accompanied by historically high rates of inflation inequality.

14 August 2024