Introduction
Local authorities provide a wide range of services; for example, parks, libraries, waste collection and temporary accommodation for homeless people. English local authorities spent £39.7 billion on providing services in 2016-17. Spending on social care is taking up an increasing proportion of this spend, leaving less for other services. Spending on services other than social care fell by 32.6% between 2010-11 and 2016-17. The overall levels of funding available to local authorities and the methodology for distributing funding is set by government. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (the Department) has overall responsibility within central government for local authorities’ funding. This includes bringing together information about the impact of funding reductions on financial and service sustainability, assessing the funding requirements of local authorities as part of Spending Reviews and supporting the financial sustainability of the sector by changing the overall funding framework if required. The Department supports HM Treasury on decisions about funding for local government, both long-term decisions at spending reviews and shorter-term decisions in between. We and previous Committees have scrutinised how the Department has fulfilled this role on several occasions since 2010, seeking assurance about service levels, service quality and financial sustainability. While the Department asserts that it has improved its understanding of the sector and its insight into the pressures it is under, it has not been open enough to demonstrate to us that this is the case and has rejected some of our recommendations for improvement.
Published: 6 February 2019