Local Government Finance
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that local authorities receive adequate funding.
Answered by Jim McMahon
The Government is under no illusions about the scale of the pressures that local authorities are facing. Successive years of underfunding and increasing demand for services has left councils experiencing significant budget pressures and vulnerable to shocks, impacting the services councils can provide to local people.
To get local government back on its feet, we will work closely with councils to provide more stability through multi-year funding settlements, ending competitive bidding for pots of money and reforming the local audit system. The government will fix the foundations of local government and work closely with the sector to do so.
Future local authority funding decisions will be a matter for the next Spending Review and Local Government Finance Settlement. The department will work with local government leaders to ensure they are better able to fulfil their statutory duties.
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