Local government finance

With substantial budget cuts and ongoing major reforms to the finance system (such as business rates retention and the Fair Funding Review), what scope is there for fair and sustainable funding for local government? This presentation, by David Phillips, IFS Associate Director, was given at the CIPFA annual conference in Bournemouth.

It is now just over two years since the UK’s vote to leave the European Union. Since then, it is fair to say that there has been a confusing barrage of apparently contradictory claims about the state of the economy.

The Prime Minister has committed to spending increases for the NHS over the next five years and promised this would be at least partly funded by a ‘Brexit dividend’. This is not the first time that NHS spending increases have been linked to the UK’s exit from the EU – the now infamous £350 million per week pledge was a significant feature of the 2016 referendum campaign.

How should we fund social care? When you try to answer such a big question, you quickly realise there are a whole host of underlying questions one needs to think about.

This presentation was given to the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association's Local Government conference on 23 May 2018.

David Phillips and Neil Amin-Smith examine the plans for radical overhaul of the council funding system, explore the impact of the funding pilot on local authority spending and question whether it is creating fairer distribution of funds for local authorities.

A second round of councils began piloting so-called 100% rates retention this month. Neil Amin-Smith and David Phillips from the Institute for Fiscal Studies look at the financial implications of the pilots.

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.

With a national roll out of 100 per cent business rates retention unlikely in the next few years, David Phillips from the Institute for Fiscal Studies asks if it is worth looking to the longer term and more radical tax devolution.

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.

Last week’s Queen’s Speech inevitably focused on Brexit. A lot of the subsequent media coverage highlighted the Conservative manifesto pledges that were missing. But councils will have noticed another notable absence: a Local Government Finance Bill. With the 2016/17 Bill failing to pass before the election, where does this leave reforms to the local government finance system?