Spot the missing council income

20 Aug 09
In ‘Down your way’, David Wilson and Martin Yates offered advice to councils on coping with the impending pressures on resources (August 7–20). Am I the only one to see the obvious flaw in the table showing the financing of local authority revenue expenditure

In ‘Down your way’, David Wilson and Martin Yates offered advice to councils on coping with the impending pressures on resources (August 7–20). Am I the only one to see the obvious flaw in the table showing the financing of local authority revenue expenditure?

I refer of course to the column of revenue expenditure, which is actually net of a very substantial volume of income from charges paid by users for a variety of services provided by local authorities. Most financial statistics provided by government departments play down the existence of such resources. Cynics (like me) think this is designed to exaggerate the proportionate volume of government grant to local authorities.

The reality, though, is that almost 60% of local government expenditure is funded locally.

It’s a shame that no reference was made to service charges in the article. I’ve always believed that you should seek to maximise your direct income as well as minimising your costs during a financial crisis.

John Wilkinson
Formby

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