LGA responds to PAC report on local government funding

Cllr Richard Watts, Chair of the Local Government Association’s Resources Board, responds to the Public Accounts Committee report on the financial sustainability of local authorities.


“The Committee has rightly recognised the significant funding pressures and huge financial uncertainty facing all councils over the next few years and into the next decade. Despite the best efforts of local government, we’ve reached a point where councils will no longer be able to support our residents as they expect - let alone help the country to prosper.

“Local government in England faces an overall funding gap of almost £8 billion by 2025. Plugging this gap would just keep services standing still and does not include any funding needed to improve services or reverse any cuts made to date.

“The next Spending Review will be make or break for local services and we agree that plugging the funding gap and placing local government on a long-term sustainable financial footing must be an urgent priority for the Government.

“Properly funding local services and giving councils the powers to work on behalf of their communities, is the only way to protect the vital local services that help improve quality of life and bind communities together and reduce pressure on other parts of the public sector.

“We are pleased the Committee has also backed our call for a long-term solution to the adult social care funding crisis. The long-term funding for the NHS needs to be matched by a significant investment in adult social care and public health services so people of all ages with care needs can access a wide range of reliable and high quality care they deserve and further crises in the NHS can be prevented.”

Notes to editors

  1. By 2020, local authorities will have faced a reduction to core funding from the Government of nearly £16 billion since 2010. That means that councils will have lost 60 pence out of every £1 the Government had provided to spend on local services. Next year, 168 councils will receive no more Revenue Support Grant at all.
  1. New analysis published by the LGA at its Annual Conference in Birmingham this week reveals that local services in England face a funding gap of almost £8 billion by 2025.
  1. An LGA survey published this week found 96 per cent of councils believe there is a major national funding problem in adult social care. Nine in 10 (89 per cent) of councils say national taxation must be part of the solution to securing the long-term financial stability of adult social care.