3Sustainability of the current system
Social care
39.As discussed in the previous chapter the demands on local authorities are increasing. This is particularly the case with social care (both for adults and children) which is taking up an increasing share of councils’ financial resources. Sir Amyas Morse told us “it is a fact that overall service spending has been reducing, and has been more concentrated on social care activities, which are statutory”.55 Professor Travers noted that “between 2000 and 2018–19, the proportion of comparable local government spending that is devoted to social care has gone up from around 44% or 45% to nearly 60%”.56 This trend is set to continue in the future. Analysis from the IFS on forecast needs for adult social care noted that “meeting projected demands for adult social care spending would require an increase in the share of local tax revenues allocated to these services … over the next 15 years”. The IFS found this to be the case even if council tax was to rise by 4.7% each year over the period.57 The IFS considered one of the reasons that county councils were struggling financially was that they had “less flexibility to make cuts elsewhere while still protecting social care”.58
40.The written submission from the MHCLG mentioned the forthcoming Green Paper on adult social care. It said that “Government has committed to publishing a Green Paper at the earliest opportunity setting out its proposals for reform to ensure the social care system is sustainable in the longer term.”59 Many of the submissions from local authorities expressed frustration with the delays to this paper, which was originally scheduled to be published in 2017. For example, Cambridgeshire County Council highlighted the uncertainty the delay was causing as the paper had “potential to significantly impact social care policy and funding for local authorities”.60 Other local authorities expressing concern about the lack of progress included Norfolk County Council, Hartlepool Borough Council, Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Leeds City Council.61
41.While the IFS analysis concentrated on adult social care, the costs of children’s services have also been increasing. Analysis from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism showed that “in-year budget monitoring reports showed nine out of ten councils were predicting an overspend on children’s services that year”. In terms of the overall level of overspend the Bureau’s work had found that in recent years children’s services was becoming the greatest pressure. It explained that “adjusted for changes in costs, the overspend across all councils on children’s social care reached £655m in 2016–17, while it was £536m for adult social care.”62
42.Lord Porter, the outgoing Chairman of the LGA, emphasised the importance of these services and the serious implications if councils did not have the resources for them:
If the Government think the policy going forward is to spend all your reserves, and then we will find some new money to give you after you have spent all your reserves, the first serious shock will be when a Secretary of State has to stand up and explain to the public why those people died because the money was not available. … Why do we need to lose people because of money? …. We managed to find all the money the health service needed. Why have we not found it for adult social care?63
43.Our report on Long-term funding for adult social care highlighted the financial strain that the social care system is under and concluded that there was a “clear need for increased funding”. The report stated that:
Given the scale of the additional funding likely to be needed, a combination of different revenue-raising options will need to be employed, at both a local but also a national level.64
We recommended that at the local level the move to 75% business rate retention should provide additional funding for local government to fund social care rather than being offset by reducing other grants. We also recommended reform of council tax in the medium term.65
44.The Minister for Local Government acknowledged that social care was “the key area of pressure” and that “the Secretary of State for Health and indeed my Secretary of State are currently absorbing your great report and others to figure out a longer term solution”66 He also noted that over the last year the most acute pressures seemed greater in children’s services than in adult social care. He told us:
Immediately after getting this job, a lot of the conversations were about adult social care. What I can see that has changed over the year I have had the job is that I hear more often about children’s services now than I do about adults.67
45.The rising demands of social care (both for adults and children) are placing local government under increasing financial pressure. These services help some of the most vulnerable in society so must be properly funded. Governments have been reviewing the funding of adult social care for some years but without conclusion. Without a solution local government will continue to be forced to cut back on the other services that it provides.
46.Our recent report on adult social care highlighted the need for increased funding. We reiterate the recommendations we previously made—there is need for new revenue resources both at a local and national level. Local government must be given additional central government funding or powers to raise more revenue to deal with growing demand.
Uncertainty
47.The local government financial settlement for 2019–20 represents the last year of a four-year financial settlement. We heard that the lack of clarity over funding from April 2020 onwards made planning very difficult for local authorities. Councillor Paul Carter told us:
You need medium term financial certainty. You cannot run an organisation the size of Kent County Council with a budget of £1 billion a year if you do not have a clue what you are planning for next year. Most of the decisions that need to be made have to be made in December, for public consultation, before the cuts are actually made and taken. We are going to run out of time fast, and we have no idea what target we are aiming for.68
48.Lord Porter of the LGA told us that without certainty, councils would have to prepare for the worst and “plan for service reduction the following year”. In some cases that may mean “people will be getting redundancy notices when they do not need to”.69
49.Frances Foster of SIGOMA agreed that there was a “need for medium term certainty for planning”. She also said that while receiving additional funds in the form of in-year grants was welcome “you are not necessarily getting value for money because you are trying to react in spending the money, and you perhaps would have done it differently if you had had it up front”. Councillor Fuller of the District Councils Network echoed this view saying that “you also get one-off grants midyear and it is too late in the year to spend them”. He considered that longer-term certainty was preferable noting that nearly all councils had accepted the previous four-year deal in 2015 despite the significant funding cuts as “we knew where we stood”.70
50.The submission from the LGA noted that “local government has welcomed settlements which cover more than one year at a time as they allow for forward planning and a more efficient allocation of resources”. The LGA’s proposed solution was “multi-year settlements tied to the life of a Parliament in order for these ‘cliff-edges’ to be kept to a minimum” or “multi-year rolling settlements which cover more than one spending review period would be one way of getting rid of cliff edges altogether”.71
51.Dr Carr-West of the LGIU expressed real concern about the situation:
These are actual life and death issues that are managed and delivered by local government day in, day out, for communities around the country. We do not know how those are going to be funded this time next year.
He expressed doubt that the Fair Funding Review and 75% business rate retention would be completed by the autumn which would make a long-term financial settlement for local government not possible.72
52.On 4 June 2019, in evidence to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury expressed doubt about the timing of the Spending Review. She said that it was “unlikely to happen, given the current timetable for the Conservative leadership election.” She explained that capital budgets for 2020–21 had already been set but there were no revenue budgets from April 2020 so these would need to be set if there was no full Spending Review.73 We asked the Minister about reports that the Spending Review would be delayed but he said that the team in the Department were still preparing “for a spending review, which will happen over the summer, conclude at the Budget and be for a multi-year period”.74
53.Providing a multi-year funding settlement has allowed councils to plan ahead. However, the four-year settlement is now coming to an end, with no plans for the next financial year. The resulting uncertainty is causing problems for local government. Without clarity about funding in 2020 some local authorities will need to prepare for the worst, making decisions which may unnecessarily reduce spending and represent poor value for money in the longer term.
54.Ideally local authorities would already know their level of funding for 2020–21 to allow them to effectively plan for the coming year. We recommend that MHCLG and HM Treasury provide a multi-year settlement for local government which runs for one year beyond the Spending Review period—the same approach that is currently used for Departmental capital budgets. In the short-term the Government should provide assurance on 2020–21 funding as soon as possible—for example by stating that no council will receive less in real terms spending power in 2020–21 than they did in 2019–20. Such a commitment should apply to services not covered by any ring-fenced resources for adult social care.
55.It would be better to adequately and sustainably fund councils and to rely less on one-off pots of cash. If necessary, any additional funding should be distributed as quickly and efficiently as possible with any bidding process kept to a minimum.
Business rates retention
56.During the course of our inquiry we discussed business rates retention. Neil Amin-Smith of the IFS told us that “from next year, councils will retain, as a whole, 75% rather than 50% of business rates revenues and grant funding will be reduced commensurate with that”. He explained that “the key advantage of making local government more reliant on its own revenues, is to provide an incentive to local government to grow those revenues and, ideally, promote economic growth within their areas.” However, he added that this could lead to greater divergences between funding levels and councils that “for reasons beyond their control, are less able to grow their local economies” could lose out. We asked Mr Amin-Smith whether or not there was any evidence that the system did give councils an incentive to aid economic growth in their localities. He said it was hard to get robust evidence in the absence of a control group although he added that growth in business floor space in a locality (which councils were incentivised to grow through the system) was not correlated with economic growth of an area.75
57.The Minister for Local Government thought that you needed a longer timeframe to really evaluate the effect of increased business rate retention. He considered that “taken in aggregate, it is probably valuable”. He considered that it had encouraged councils to become more pro-business and enterprising and that the pooling arrangements for some of the pilot schemes had resulted in councils working well together.76 Councillor Fuller provided an example, explaining that his council were investing in infrastructure of a business park to create “an investable opportunity”.77 One of his concerns was that local authorities may end up getting very little of the benefit of the business rate growth due to resets. He explained:
Let us say you work hard to get inward investment … [a company] opens their factory on 31 December 2024 and the reset happens on 1 January 2025, all that effort is wasted.78
He considered that there needed to be some “phased reset” so that longer term investments in projects such as link roads could provide a return for the council.79
58.Other witnesses we heard from had concerns with the system. Frances Foster from SIGOMA explained that the municipal authorities “have not been as keen on business rate retention, because many of our areas have not seen the growth that other areas have had”.80 Councillor Carter considered the future of business rates as a tax was “very high risk”. He pointed out that the increase in flexible working and reduction in manufacturing meant that “the big commercial ratepayers are potentially going to diminish, not increase”.81 Sir Amyas Morse also questioned “how realistic basing everything on business rates really is”. He went on:
If I happen to be running a large square footage distribution centre, you are going to get a lot of business rates from me, but on the other hand if I am in another business with a remote fulfilment arrangement somewhere else, and I am just doing everything online, you are not going to get very much from me at all. That is a really odd state of affairs to be in. Even though it may be convenient to go forward with it now, I cannot believe it will endure forever, because it is just such an odd way of trying to measure business activity.82
The Treasury Committee is currently conducting an inquiry on business rates, looking at the impact of the tax on business and into how well the current system is operating.83
59.Evidence from Leeds City Council raised other problems with business rates. It considered that “rates receipts are sensitive to a number of factors that we would argue are entirely out of the control of local authorities” highlighting the risk of appeals and avoidance techniques of some businesses. It also noted that if schools convert to become academies they are eligible for a mandatory charitable relief of 80% of business rates.84 The risk of appeals was also mentioned in many other submissions we received. For example, the submission from North East Lincolnshire explained that “multiple appeals has seen a financial impact measured in millions of pounds of reduced business rates that could not have been foreseen or influenced but has affected the funding available to the council at a local level with no central adjustment or relief for us”. It also highlighted the “increased risk” it was exposed to from its reliance on relatively few big payers of business rates.85 The Minister for Local Government agreed that appeals were a problem, telling us that “the volatility of appeals is the big thing … appeals volatility is cumbersome for councils to deal with. We are trying to find ways to reduce that volatility.”86
60.Dr Carr-West of the LGIU highlighted what he saw were “five key problems” with the business rate retention system:
Both the NAO and the IFS have questioned the link between business rate retention and increased growth, so I do not think it necessarily does what it is meant to do. It creates perverse incentives, in that it encourages you to encourage certain types of business, which might not be the ones you wanted if you were taking a more rounded place shaping view. There is no causal link between business rate income and need, to the point you were making earlier, Chair. It does not fit with that. It does not capture a lot of modern business activity. It is very volatile, which undermines its sustainability.87
Andrew Carter of Centre for Cities considered that “everybody is in agreement that the system does not work and yet there is no agreement at all on what the alternative ought to be.”88
61.One thing that united all the witnesses we heard from was that the business rate retention system had made the local government finance system extremely complex. Professor Travers explained that the element of redistribution within the system meant it was difficult to explain and understand.89 Dr Jonathan Carr-West’s assessment was that it was an “unbelievably complicated system of tariffs and top ups that nobody understands”.90 The Minister for Local Government acknowledged this and told us that he was “in violent agreement that it is a complicated system and, if it is possible to simplify it, we should.”91
62.A concern of Lord Porter from the LGA was that HM Treasury was taking a cut of the business rates. He considered that if local government was able to keep the whole £26 billion of business rates it would quite quickly be able to work out how it could be distributed fairly. Lord Porter told us “if you let us keep the £26 billion, we will show you what fair looks like.”92 London Councils made a similar point:
The 1988 LG Finance Act states that the entirety of business rates collected in England must be used to fund local government. However, the Government does not publish how the central share of business rates (i.e. the 50% share that not directly retained locally) is returned, merely that it funds “other grants” to local government. It is, therefore, unclear how the overall level of Revenue Support Grant (RSG) is set each year and is extremely difficult to verify when supposedly new funding is found.93
A further submission from London Councils said that “there is no transparency about how over £10 billion of business rates revenues are returned to local government as specific grants”.94 The latest figures available from MHCLG show that Core Spending Power of local government in England is set to be £46.4 billion in 2019–20—this is around £10 billion lower than the combined total of council tax (£31.4 billion) and business rates (£25.0 billion) forecast to be collected by local authorities in the same year.95
63.We welcome policies which allow local government to have more control of the revenue it raises and how it is spent. However, the business rate retention system is too complex and lacks transparency—the system attempts to create incentives for growth whilst also redistributing revenues according to need. The tax is already coming under pressure from changes in the economy and the Treasury Committee is currently conducting an inquiry on the tax and its impact on business. Calls for reform are growing louder—it is hard to see how it will endure over the long term.
64.MHCLG needs to reform and make substantial changes to the business rate retention system. The Government should consider making the system simpler by bringing back the Revenue Support Grant to redistribute to councils in need rather than trying to do this through an increasingly complex business rates retention system. The Government also needs to start considering alternatives to business rates as a revenue stream for local government, given the risks to this tax over the long-term.
Council tax
65.The cuts to central government grant mean that council tax is becoming an increasingly important funding stream for local government. For example, Essex County Council noted that in 2013–14 council tax made up 54% of their total funding but in 2019–20 it will amount to 73%.96
66.We asked the witnesses about council tax and whether or not they considered it needed reform. Lord Porter told us that the benefits of the tax were that it was “relatively easy to collect, because nobody can hide the house they live in”.97 Frances Foster of SIGOMA noted that “there have been various reviews over the years … which could not come up with any alternative that was better. We might have to accept it where it is”.98 Dr Carr-West of LGIU agreed noting “there is a stability and a predictability to it, which the sector finds very attractive” but he said that “there are things you could do to make it work better”. For example, he said that “you could add in extra banding and you could look at changes around the referendum threshold” however he considered that a “a full revaluation would be politically very hard”.99 Dr Carr-West and the LGA’s submission also highlighted the inconsistent approach that central government had taken to council tax since 2010—initially councils were given financial incentives to freeze it but since 2016 it has been assumed that councils will increase the tax above inflation.100
67.Property valuations for council tax banding are still based on the values of properties in 1991. Some of the witnesses considered that a revaluation should be undertaken. Andrew Carter of Centre for Cities told us it is “the most regressive tax we have in terms of how it falls and the amount paid as a share of income at the lower end”. He noted that “there was revaluation done in Wales … the world did not end in Wales … people still live there and they continue to pay their council tax”. He continued:
The idea that it is impossible to revalue I do not buy. It is politically difficult. You could go for a fiscally neutral resettlement, so you revalue and it raises no more on day one than it does currently; it is just distribution. Who pays what would be altered according to the changes in the values of house prices. It needs to be revalued as part of that. That may well mean that we introduce additional bands to reflect variations.101
68.Councillor Carter of the County Councils Network agreed with the need for
revaluation “you could look at the valuations of houses and regrade them into new tax bands. That is long overdue. It is very historic”. He noted that a borough like Hackney used to have very low house prices but now there are “million pound apartments”.102 Rob Whiteman from CIPFA considered that you needed “regular revaluations of council tax and business rates, rather than the system needing huge amount of change because [revaluations] get delayed and delayed”. Written evidence from Professor Travers highlighted that “council tax … is clearly in need of revaluation.”103 The written submission from SIGOMA highlighted the “regressive nature of the tax” noting that “there were 28 Councils where the average tax was over 0.7% of property values whilst there were 21 authorities where Council Tax was less than 0.3% of property values”. All of the low ratio areas were in London whereas the highest ratio areas included “some of the poorest metropolitan authorities including Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton on Tees, Blackpool, St Helens, Rochdale, Oldham and Stoke on Trent”.104
69.Analysis from CIPFA published by the BBC showed that in 2019–20 the North-East of England had highest average council tax for a Band D property—this was 28% higher than London which had the lowest level for Band D properties (Figure 2). Lord Porter said “you would have to question why, in some parts of the country, citizens pay one amount of council tax and, in another part of the country, they pay a different amount of council tax”.105
Figure 2: Average Band D 2019–20 council tax bills in England by region
Source: CIPFA survey of local authorities published by BBC, March 2019
70.The submission from Oldham Council contrasted their council tax level with that of Westminster:
how is it justifiable that Band D Council Tax in the prosperous London Borough of Westminster is £753.85 when compared to a ‘high needs’ borough like Oldham where, due to long-standing disparities in the assessment of spending need, it is £1,899.61. The regressive nature of the tax is also illustrated by the fact that full time weekly average earnings are just £481 per week in Oldham compared to £786 per week in Westminster.
71.Written evidence from Professor Travers noted that “Westminster City Council introduced a voluntary additional levy on higher-value homes for 2018–19 and has advocated powers to raise council tax levels on such properties”.106 Westminster City Council asked residents of the most expensive band H properties to consider paying an extra £833-a-year “community contribution”. A news report in the Guardian said that around 2% of those households had agreed to make a contribution. The article also noted that the service charges on some expensive flats in Westminster amounted to over £20,000 a year whereas the annual council tax bill was less than £1,400.107
72.We have previously recommended reform and an updating of council tax valuations and bands.108 We asked the Minister for Local Government about council tax. He told us:
I do not necessarily accept that it is extremely regressive. There are also significant local council tax support schemes in place to help those who are more vulnerable in paying their council tax.
He made clear that he opposed revaluation telling us “I am not interested in revaluing council tax bands or introducing new rates.”109
73.Council tax is a regressive tax which has become disconnected from property values. All houses built over the last 25 years still have to be valued by the assessor as to what the value of the property would have been in 1991. This cannot continue. There needs to be a review of council tax including revaluation, the number of bands and the ratio between bands. Some form of revaluation of bands to reflect prices today is required. There is also potential for raising more sums from high value properties by increasing the number of bands.
74.As part of a review of council tax, the Government should consider the case for creating new council tax bands at the top and bottom of the scale. We will return to this in our progress on devolution in England inquiry.
75.A revaluation for council tax purposes is long overdue. The Government should hold a review into how a revaluation could be implemented without dramatic increases for individual households. Any revaluation should be revenue neutral at the national level. Revaluation also does not mean that significant changes in council tax must be put in place immediately, it could be phased in over time. We recognise there will be effects on individual authorities and adjustments to the equalisation system will be needed to deal with this. Under any revaluation the bands will need to be adjusted to reflect changes in property prices over time.
Fees and charges
76.Local government is able to levy charges for some of the services it provides. The submission from the LGA explained that local authorities receive over £12 billion annually from a variety of sales, fees and charges. This income is useful for local authorities as it can be used to support spending on certain services (the spending power figures quoted earlier in this report are net of this income). However, the LGA noted that many of these charges were set by statute and so did not recover costs. They provided the example of planning fees:
While the number of planning applications has increased since 2010, the funding available for this service has been cut in half. Evidence suggests that councils have used an initial 20 per cent planning fees increase to invest in new planners to help developers build the home communities need, however they will still be in deficit by £700 million between 2017–18 to 2021–22.
The LGA called for councils to be given more freedom to set planning fees so that costs could be recovered.110
77.The submission from the County Councils Network noted that the ability to generate income from fees and charges varied widely depending on the type of council and services it provided—in 2018–19 fees and charges made up just 5% of spending need at county councils but 15% for unitary authorities and 60% for district councils. They called for further powers to charge for accessing services or administering schemes. They suggested being able to make a “modest charge for access to services such as House Waste Recycling Centres, or to place a small administration fee on freedom pass applications”.111
78.The submission from the Centre for Cities called for more flexibility in how fees and charges could be used. It said that the “Government should allow sales fees and charges raised in one service area to be spent on any service area”.112 The LGIU reported that “almost all (97%) councils told us they plan to increase fees and charges this year”. It was concerned that local authorities were “having to increase charging to cover financial shortfalls from reductions in Revenue Support Grant”. It urged caution highlighting some of the risks:
Increasing use of fees and charges in this way risks undermining the democratic and redistributive aspects of local taxation; if people start seeing council services like waste as something they purchase separately, they may feel cheated when they are also charged council tax on top.113
79.We believe that, in general, the level of fees is best decided locally. Central government should not dictate fees for services, such as planning, at a level that means councils are unable to recover their costs.
80.Councils are turning to fees and charges to generate income. This is a logical consequence of significantly reduced central government support—increasing fees is one of the few ways councils can generate income, given council tax rises are restricted. Nevertheless, we have concerns about higher fees and the introduction of new user charges for essential services. Council taxpayers may feel like they are paying twice for services and fees are usually unrelated to the ability of a user to pay. There may also be unintended consequences—for example high waste disposal fees may encourage fly-tipping.
Inflationary pressures
81.A number of witnesses and written submissions explained that increasing wages and other costs were putting local government finances under strain. Councillor Carter told us about the “inflationary pressures” at work:
Our staff expect pay rises every year … Unless we have a settlement that reflects the pressures and the inflationary costs of the commissioned services, the domiciliary care contracts and the residential care contracts, the future looks exceedingly bleak.114
Councillor Fuller mentioned the local government pension scheme and the increasing minimum wage which had caused costs to go up.115
82.Written evidence from Hartlepool Borough Council noted that “pay costs are one of the largest areas of expenditure, whether this is on directly employed staff or staffing delivering services provided by partner organisation.” It noted that increases in national agreed pay awards, including the national living wage, increased cost for all local authorities but considered that this was particularly an issue for councils, such as Hartlepool, with a low council tax base as it was much more difficult for it to raise funds. It also noted that these wage rises helped increase central government tax take (income tax and national insurance) but local government saw no direct benefit.116
83.A number of other submissions mentioned the cost increases caused by rises in staffing costs. Norfolk County Council said that the “national living wage and market pressures through care worker and nursing shortages are causing costs to escalate year on year” and also noted that the Apprenticeship Levy had added to council costs.117 Care England, a body which represents independent care services, said that “the uplift in the National Minimum Wage was 4.4% in 2018–19 alone and 4.9% in April 2019.”118 Other councils which mentioned the unfunded cost increases caused by above inflation rises in the National Living Wage included Hampshire, Sheffield, Essex and Lancashire.119 Rutland County Council also mentioned auto enrolment for pensions as something which had caused increased costs for some employers.120
84.We asked the Minister for Local Government about what work the Ministry and HM Treasury had done on looking at the effects of increases in the living wage and minimum wages on local government costs and on the viability of some providers of services to local government. The Minister said that he was “acutely aware” of some of the risks surrounding the stability of the provider market and that it did factor cost inflation for different local government services in analysis for the Treasury. He explained:
We go down to a granular level on the inflation that is relevant for each individual service area. For example, take local government pensions, or whatever it might be, for the core HR component of local government infrastructure. That should feature; you are absolutely right, and it does.121
85.Increases in the National Living Wage and other new responsibilities for employers such as the Apprenticeship Levy can result in significant cost increases for local government. Councils ability to raise revenue to pay for these increased costs is extremely limited particularly in areas with a low council tax base. Increases in the pay for the low paid are important. However, while central government can benefit financially through lower benefit payments and higher tax revenues central government provides no additional funding for local government to recognise these above inflation cost increases.
86.When the MHCLG sets out the spending power increases of local government it doesn’t provide any context for the spending pressures that local government is under. Therefore, it is difficult to judge if the changes in spending power represent real-terms increases when taking account of increased costs of and demand for services.
87.The Minister for Local Government told us that MHCLG produces figures on the spending inflation levels of different local government services. It should publish past assessments (from 2015 onwards) on service cost inflation. It should also publish these figures and an average ‘local government inflation’ figure alongside other documents relating to the annual local government finance settlement each year. This will allow parliament and the public to assess whether councils are receiving real terms increases in their spending power or not. The Office for Budget Responsibility could have a role in overseeing the quality of such a process.
55 Q35
56 Q6
58 Q11
61 Norfolk County Council (FSR0017), Hartlepool Borough Council (FSR0024), Greater Manchester Combined Authority (FSR0034), Leeds City Council (FSR0048)
63 Q93
64 Health and Social Care and Housing, Communities and Local Government Committees, First Joint Report of Session 2017–19, Long-term funding of adult social care, HC 768, para 88
65 Ibid, para 89–90
66 Q176
67 Q165
68 Q107
69 Q107
70 Q107
72 Q139
73 Oral evidence taken before the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, The Spending Review - oral evidence, 4 June 2019, Q2
74 Q155
75 Qq23–24
76 Q199
77 Q110
78 Q117
79 Q110
80 Q110
81 Q110
82 Q65
83 Treasury Committee press notice, New inquiry launched into the impact of Business Rates on business, February 2019
86 Q207
87 Q133
88 Q133
89 Q23
90 Q133
91 Q203
92 Q115
95 MHCLG, Core spending power: final local government finance settlement 2019 to 2020, January 2019; MHCLG, Council tax levels set by local authorities: England 2019–20 – Revised, May 2019; MHCLG, National non-domestic rates to be collected by local authorities in England 2019–20, February 2019
97 Q118
98 Q112
99 Q135
101 Q135
102 Q122
105 Q95
107 The Guardian, Wealthiest households in Westminster failing to pay extra £833 in tax, 13 May 2018
108 Health and Social Care and Housing, Communities and Local Government Committees, First Joint Report of Session 2017–19, Long-term funding of adult social care, HC 768, para 90
109 Qq218, 219
114 Q92
115 Q83
119 Hampshire County Council (FSR0018), Sheffield City Council (FSR0044), Essex County Council (FSR0061), Lancashire County Council (FSR0077)
121 Q185
Published: 21 August 2019