Councils Can: 2019 conference paper

Councils in England face an £8 billion funding gap by 2025. Pressures are growing on increasingly fragile services that support the most vulnerable such as children’s services, adult social care, and efforts to tackle homelessness. This is leaving less money for councils to fund other services, many of which prevent additional cost burdens on other parts of the public sector such as health, policing and welfare.

Our #CouncilsCan campaign calls for long-term investment in local government, but this is about much more than money. This paper sets out the case for a New Localism Settlement for England that empowers councils, as the democratically elected leaders closest to their communities, to take on greater responsibilities for their places.