Councils in England will need to tighten their budgets and prioritise spending on core services as inflation piles pressure on resources, a Treasury minister has warned.
The combined impact of Covid-19 and the cost-of-living crisis will see a city council make “tough choices” on services as budget cuts of close to 20% loom.
A London council has agreed a multi-million-pound settlement following a legal dispute over cladding fitted during refurbishments to a private finance initiative housing estate.
Levelling up secretary Michael Gove has confirmed councils in England will receive two-year funding settlements from next year to help them plan with “a greater degree of confidence”.
Rising prices and wages have been tipped to cost councils an additional £3.6bn in two years’ time, putting pressure on authority budgets and risking the need for them to cut services.
Nottingham City Council has called the government’s announcement it could step in to run some of the authority’s services “clearly disappointing”, saying it is already making improvements by itself.
The forecast increase to the national living wage could mean councils have to cut services if they do not receive more funding from the government, sector leaders have warned.
Andy Burnham has criticised the “bidding culture” of local government funding, saying local leaders would make better use of public money than central government if they were given more power...
A council has taken hundreds of thousands of pounds of grants out of next year’s budget as part of a savings drive aimed at saving the authority millions.
Local Government Pension Schemes should make a significant push to reform complex governance arrangements to offer a more joined-up and coherent approach, according to experts.
Whether local enterprise partnerships are integrated into local authorities immediately or in the future, post-levelling-up, a seamless transition will be essential, says Mark Bretton.
A council in the south of England is set to reverse a decision to terminate an energy contract, after its supplier’s link to the Russian government ended.
Organisations need to take decisive action to improve the scope and role of internal audit, to avoid weakening risk-management and oversight, says Diana Melville.
An English council is set to terminate a property management joint venture after an independent review found the business offered “limited value” to the authority.
Proposals to expand the right-to-buy scheme to housing associations and earmark national infrastructure levy income for new social housing have sparked funding concerns among councils.
Some regions across the UK are likely to miss out on initial development funding as the government directs its support towards the most deprived areas first, according to experts.
A chief finance officer at a council in the north of England did not rule out issuing further section 114 notices over potentially unlawful spending, having already issued one last month.
The lack of clarity over ministerial involvement in approving Levelling Up Fund bids has been branded “unsatisfactory” by parliament’s Public Accounts Committee.
