Council investment in land and buildings has dropped for the first time since 2011-12, according to data from the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Secretary of state Robert Jenrick has told local authorities he will “try his best” to secure more government funding for councils if it is needed as councils struggle to deal with financial burdens...
PF reveals the scale of the financial challenge posed to councils by Covid-19 and hears how finance chiefs are tackling budgets, given the lack of funding clarity.
£500m additional Covid-19-related funding from central government is not enough to prevent cuts to local authority budgets, according to the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities.
Tuesday’s government announcement of infrastructure improvements will lead to more than £3bn extra spending this year relative to the Budget, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies.
The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead has been warned it could be forced into a section 114 notice in a CIPFA report which found a flawed process for setting reserve levels.
London mayor Sadiq Khan has asked GLA Group members to consider recruitment freezes, spending cuts and the use of reserves as he seeks to deliver £500m of savings due to the financial hit from Covid-...
Liverpool City Council has submitted a £1.4bn post coronavirus recovery fund to the government, aimed to prevent a socio-economic crisis deeper than the 1980s recession.
The Centre for Public Scrutiny and CIPFA have released a new guide for local authorities in England to support effective financial scrutiny following the Covid-19 pandemic.
The National Audit Office has published new guidance to help audit and risk committees advise their organisations on financial management and reporting during the coronavirus pandemic.
Virtual working and the reallocation of workers to new roles has given Durham County Council’s staff a better understanding of how their council operates, according to John Hewitt, corporate director...
Kerry Lorimer spoke to finance directors to find out how the new CIPFA financial management code was helping them understand the sustainability of their organisation’s finances.
Ministers have been called to temporarily relax the borrowing rules for local authorities to cover-day-day spending, according to a report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies.
Specialist spend management systems, comprising Travel, Expense and Invoice management, are still a novelty in many parts of the public sector, but activity continues to grow.
England’s largest councils could be forced to make “large-scale reductions” in services in order to set legal budgets this year, according to a report from the County Councils Network.
Calls have been made for the government to issue immediate help to more than one million people who have “fallen through the gaps of coronavirus support schemes”, according to a report by the...
CIPFA has proposed a modification to its guidance for councils under budgetary pressure due to Covid-19, to give them the time and space to explore alternatives to freezing spending via section 114...
A government review into the risks of fraud and corruption in local government procurement has called for councils to make fraud-awareness training mandatory, after a majority of respondents conceded...
Ralph Sangster, cabinet member for Resources and Performance at Hertfordshire County Council tells PF how the authority is coping with the challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and what it...
