Briefings and responses

The local government finance settlement is the annual determination of funding to local government from central government. This briefing covers the provisional settlement for 2022/23. We expect the final 2022/23 settlement to be laid before the House of Commons, for its approval, in late January or early February 2022.

This briefing covers the provisional local government finance settlement for 2023/24 which was announced on 19 December 2022.

The evidence of the financial strain on councils has been growing and today’s settlement does not provide enough funding to meet the severe cost and demand pressures which have left councils of all political colours and types warning of the serious challenges they face to set balanced budgets next year.

The changes in the 2003 Local Government Act and 2003 Capital Finance Regulations that introduced the Prudential Code were a major step in freeing local government from centrally imposed borrowing controls

Read the Public Sector Audit Appointments (PSAA) consultation on 2021 audit fee scale.

The LGA strongly supports the move by the Government to ban the distribution, sale and supply of new psychoactive substances (NPS).

The practice note includes a lot of technical detail that is primarily written for auditors and we have not previously commented on its content, or on recent consultations on changes to it. The reason we feel the need to comment this time is not because we have concerns over the approach taken by the Public Audit Forum to date, but because local audit is currently in crisis, and we would welcome any action that can be taken to help provide solutions that can alleviate the effects of the crisis.

The removal of the public health ring-fence is important if we are to take full advantage of the relocation of public health to local government.

It is disappointing that the Public Health Grant allocations for 2023/24 have been published so late (15 March). With two weeks away from the start of the financial year and councils are only just being formally told how much money is being made available for councils to tackle costly public health issues such as sexual health, drug and alcohol services and stop smoking services.