Society of
County Treasurers
County Treasurers
The National Audit Office (NAO) has warned that upcoming reforms to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system must address growing pressures on home-to-school transport, one of the fastest-rising areas of local authority spending.
Around 520,000 children and young people in England receive home-to-school transport, costing councils £2.3bn in 2023-24—up 70% since 2015-16.
The NAO found councils overspent by £415m last year, struggling to meet their legal duties to eligible pupils while balancing budgets.
Rising numbers of children with education, health and care plans (EHCPs), longer travel distances, driver shortages, and higher fuel and wage costs are driving up expenditure.
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Schools in England spent £1.25 billion on supply teachers in 2022-23, with more than 80 per cent of the total paid to private agencies, according to research by the National Education Union. The report found that while schools often pay agencies over £200 a day per teacher, many supply staff take home nearly half that amount. A dozen large firms dominate the market, with eight of the biggest agencies increasing their combined turnover by 30 per cent and gross profits by 55 per cent over the past three years.
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Communities secretary Steve Reed has not ruled out postponing more local elections to make way for local government reorganisation.
At the Local Government Association’s councillors forum today, leader of the Reform group Stephen Atkinson asked the secretary of state if the “deferral of elections has been actively considered”.
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The current system for capturing developer contributions is failing local communities, leaving vital public amenities like schools and GP surgeries underfunded, MPs say.
The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has warned that current systems — including Section?106 agreements and the Community Infrastructure Levy — are failing to deliver the investment local areas need.
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Reorganisation frontrunner Surrey will have its 12 councils replaced by two unitaries, with £500m of Woking BC's debts written off, The MJ understands.
The bailout is a recognition the council's £1.5bn debt cannot be managed locally, but it will only go part way to filling the council's financial black hole.
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Almost half a million under-16-year-olds are taking transport to and from school funded by their local authorities, according to new government data. The data, which comes amid warnings from local government of the pressure their budgets are under, show that six per cent of all pupils receive funded transport, while 40 per cent of pupils under 16 have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The LGA said the pressure had ramped up over the past three years, highlighting in a recent report that: “Continuing to fulfil the current statutory responsibilities for home to school transport is becoming increasingly financially unsustainable, posing a real threat of bankruptcy for some, and necessitating cuts to other vital aspects of children's services provision in many more."
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Local authorities in the Midlands and the North of England may lose funding, it is reported, after the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities (SIGOMA) warned that a last-minute government formula change heavily weighting housing costs could shift hundreds of millions of pounds away from urban councils.
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It has been reported that councils in London will not lose out as much under the Fair Funding Review as they initially feared. Sources close to the Fair Funding Review said some distribution decisions have been “watered down”. A final funding review is due to be published in late November.
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The Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has announced that all schools not
earmarked for rebuilding should be free from reinforced autoclaved aerated
concrete (RAAC) by the end of this parliament.
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The Chancellor is facing a larger-than-expected gap in initial Budget numbers due to long-running poor productivity in the UK economy. It is understood the downgrade to productivity performance from the Government’s official forecaster could lead to a £20 billion gap in the public finances on its own.
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Councils are expected to cover over half of the increased labour costs passed on by providers from the fair pay agreement for social care, according to government analysis. The impact assessment found the NHS would contribute 17 per cent and self-funders pay 31 per cent.
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Analysis of government data has found that local authorities across England are expected to generate an estimated £505 million this year from council tax premiums on second homes from April 2025, with more than 200 councils introducing double charges for second home owners. The LGA said that there is a desperate need for more affordable housing across the country and charging a council tax premium for long-term empty and second homes is part of a suite of tools available to tackle housing shortages.
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Councils across England are facing a £4 billion funding shortfall this year, according to a report by Unison. The union has called on the Chancellor to take action in the Budget to address the gap, highlighting that rising demand for services, such as social care and emergency housing, is placing significant pressure on local authority budgets.
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Shropshire Council’s projected overspend has grown to £50m and the unitary said it needs exceptional financial support in this financial year to avoid issuing a section 114 notice.
Shropshire said a detailed analysis of its finances so far this year looking at actual spending so far, which will be published next month, said thing were worse than expected and that it may over spend by £50m, but has just £34m in its general fund reserve.
In September the council declared a financial emergency and its chief executive announced his departure two weeks later. At this point the revenue budget overspend was projected to be £35m.
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The Government has insisted it ‘remains confident in its plans to get Britain building' after housebuilders warned ministers will not hit their homes target.
Housing secretary Steve Reed has insisted the Government is ‘absolutely committed' to getting 1.5 million homes built in England by 2029 despite just 117,400 new-build home starts in the year to the end of June 2025.
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Nearly half a million under-16s in England use taxis, buses and other transport funded by their local authorities to get to school, according to government estimates.
The new data comes amid warnings from councils about the growing cost of providing transport for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (Send). A head teachers' union said the transport played a "crucial" role in getting many children to school, but councils were having to make cutbacks.
The data suggests that 6% of all pupils in England receive funded transport, and that 40% of those pupils aged under 16 (180,000) have Send. Local authorities spent £1.5bn on transport for under-16s with Send in the 2023-24 financial year, about two-and-a-half times, external what it was in 2015-16.
The new data from the DfE suggests that, across England 470,000 pupils under the age of 16 (6% of the total) use home to school transport, 50,000 pupils over 16 also use funded transport and 9% of under-16s who receive funded transport because of Send travel alone in single-occupancy vehicles.
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Surrey will be split into two unitary authorities, the government has announced.
Final proposals were submitted in May and the government consulted on two options. Nine of the 11 districts were in favour of three unitaries while the county and two remaining districts backed a two-unitary solution.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government has opted to split the county into east and west unitary authorities. West Surrey Council will have a population of 663,000, while East Surrey Council’s will be 551,000.
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Simon Edwards, Chief Executive of the County Councils Network, said:
“Today’s decision to proceed with the creation of two unitary councils in Surrey is the right decision. With Surrey seeking a mayoral combined authority, the creation of more than one council was required in this area and the county council put forward the most credible, compelling and evidence-based proposal in line with the government’s criteria, one that commanded a great deal of support from residents, businesses and public sector partners.
“Importantly, we strongly welcome the government sticking to its own statutory guidance, creating two new councils with populations in excess of 500,000. The County Councils Network’s (CCN) research has clearly shown this is only way to deliver significant efficiency savings, maintain financial resilience and minimise disruption to care services, while creating a sustainable platform for driving economic and housing growth. Looking ahead, today’s decision must therefore be a marker in the sand for other areas. Failure to keep to their original guidance and criteria will lead to serious questions over whether there has been a robust evaluation of proposals.”
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Sector leaders have voiced frustration over the delay to promised Send reforms, warning children, families, schools and councils cannot wait for the crisis to be resolved.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson this week announced the schools white paper outlining reforms to services for children with special education and disabilities, due this autumn, has been delayed until the new year.
Speaking at yesterday’s Local Government’s Association’s councillors’ forum, the chair of the association’s children, young people and families committee Amanda Hopgood (Lib Dem) said: “We haven’t got time to continue backing this off. This is absolutely crucial for the future of the delivery and wellbeing for our young people; it’s also critical for councils finances.”
Send spokesperson for the County Councils Network Bill Revans (Lib Dem) said the current system is “in crisis,” citing the number of young people receiving education, health and care plans “faster than ever before and the cost of that support is increasing massively”.
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Long awaited proposals to reform services for children with special educational needs and disabilities have been postponed until next year.
A white paper outlining the government’s plans to improve the system was promised for this autumn in the spending review in June.
However, the education secretary Bridget Phillipson said in a letter to the Commons’ education select committee, published this afternoon, this has been delayed until the “new year” while “policy options being considered” are tested with parents, educators, experts and representative organisations.
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Zia Yusuf has stepped down as the head of the Reform party’s Doge.
Alongside his Doge role, Mr Yusuf took on the position of head of policy in September and will remain in this post.
Deputy leader of the party Richard Tice is taking over at Doge, which was created to “assist and support local councils to find efficiency savings and deliver value for money”.
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Newham LBC plans to raise council tax rates by 8.99% for a second consecutive year as it struggles to close a growing budget gap.
The council’s medium term financial strategy forecasts a budget gap of around £53m in 2026-27, rising to £80m by 2028-29.
One of the most significant options being put forward to plug the gap is increasing council tax by more than the referendum limit, usually 5%, set by the Ministry for Housing, Communities & Local Government.
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A district leader has launched a campaign to prevent cities and large towns in Lancashire being “merged” to preserve their “unique character”.
Burnley BC leader Afrasiab Anwar (Ind) is leading the charge against local government reorganisation proposals to divide the county into two, three or four unitary authorities.
A petition launched by Cllr Anwar in opposition Burnley and Pendle BC joining a unitary with Blackburn with Darwen BC has been signed by over 2,200.
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The UK’s system for supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is ‘no longer fit for purpose’, according to a new report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).
The think tank found that requests for Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) assessments have risen by 250% since 2014, pushing local authorities and families to breaking point. Last year, fewer than half (46.4%) of EHCPs were completed within the legal 20-week limit, while thousands of children waited over a year for support.
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The Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) for England and Wales has continued to grow in size and is bigger than it has ever been, the latest release of statistics from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has shown.
Statistics showed that total LGPS assets surpassed £400bn as at the end of March.
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Cambridgeshire County Council has formally approved a major plan to reorganise local government, paving the way for the creation of two new unitary authorities.
Known as Option A, the proposal aims to establish ‘more equal, effective and sustainable’ councils that each serve around half a million residents.
According to the council, the boundaries of the unitaries will align with local health, care, and economic areas.
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The government review of local government statutory responsibilities will take “around a year” but some changes could be made sooner.
In its response to the Commons’ housing, communities & local government committee’s report on council funding and sustainability the government said “where benefits [from the review] can be delivered sooner than this we will do so”.
The committee had recommended a review should begin this year and be put out to consultation by next June so changes to legislation can be made in this parliament.
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The sector is facing a recruitment crisis for section 151 officers, The MJ has been told.
An increasing number of s151s are understood to be moving to interim roles, where they can command premium rates of as much as £2,000 per day for such a high risk and stressful role.
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Unitaries with a population more than 350,000 tend to spend more per resident on services but are also more likely to run into financial difficulties, research has shown.
According to the analysis by the District Councils' Network (DCN), levels of deprivation were most likely to determine how much a council spends on services, and any correlation between population size and the sum spent for each resident was weak.
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The special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system, as it stands, is failing too many children and families. Despite ever-increasing investment, outcomes are worsening, and too many children are not achieving in line with their potential. At the same time, local authorities are under unsustainable financial pressure, struggling to meet rising levels of need within a system that was not designed for the scale or complexity of today's challenges. ADCS has long been clear that incremental fixes are no longer enough — what is needed now is root-and-branch reform.
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Coventry City Council has been named among nearly 500 employers found to have underpaid staff the National Minimum Wage, according to a new list published by the Government.
The employers, who together face more than £10m in fines, were identified as part of the Government’s Plan to Make Work Pay initiative.
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The use of bailiffs by local authorities in England and Wales has surged by 30% in just two years, according to new analysis from Debt Justice.
Referrals rose from 1.3 million in 2022/23 to 1.7 million in 2024/25, coinciding with a 10% rise in average Band D council tax bills and growing arrears.
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New vocational courses called V-levels will be rolled out for 16-year-olds under government plans to simplify a "confusing landscape" of qualifications in England.
They are set to replace Level 3 BTecs and other post-16 technical qualifications.
Ministers also plan to reduce the number of teenagers resitting maths and English GCSEs by introducing a new "stepping stone" qualification.
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In its submission to the Chancellor ahead of the autumn budget, the LGA has warned that budget overspends in areas such as adult social care, home to school transport and temporary accommodation continue to threaten the financial sustainability of councils and emergency bailout agreements risk becoming "normalised". It said empowered and financially sustainable councils hold the key both to addressing the needs of their local communities and to enabling the Government to tackle challenging areas of policy reform. Cllr Louise Gittins, LGA Chair, said: "The country’s success depends on places like Barnsley, Buckinghamshire, Cambridge, and Cumberland being able to thrive. Councils have the legitimacy, local knowledge and ambition to make that happen. But they need a fair financial foundation to stand on." This story is also covered in the MJ, Mail, Standard, Press Association and on LBC Radio.
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Labour may be forced to water down the triple lock pledge in the Budget as pressures on the public purse mount, experts warn. The triple lock policy ensures state pension payments go up in line with whichever is highest: 2.5 percent, inflation or the rise in average earnings. New ONS figures suggest state pension payments would go up 4.8 percent next April, using the earnings metric.
This would raise the full new state pension from the current £230.25 a week to £241.30 a week, or £12,547.60 a year. Steven Cameron, pensions director at wealth firm Aegon, warned there is a slim chance the Government may change the policy at next month's Autumn Budget.
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The UK economy grew slightly in August, official figures show, as focus intensifies on what measures the government might unveil in next month's Budget.
An increase in manufacturing output helped the economy expand by 0.1%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, but the figure for July was revised down from zero growth to a contraction of 0.1%.
The government has made boosting the economy a priority, but economists predict growth will remain sluggish partly due to people waiting to see what measures Chancellor Rachel Reeves announces in the Budget.
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The chancellor should be "bold" in next month's Budget or risk future spending cuts and tax rises, an influential think tank has said.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) is projecting Rachel Reeves will need to find £22bn to make up a shortfall in the government's finances, and will "almost certainly" have to raise taxes.
Finding this amount would allow the government to maintain the £10bn of headroom it has built into the system - but the IFS says there is a "strong case" for trying to increase it beyond this amount.
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The impact of reorganisation and the fair funding review will ‘throw all the cards up in the air' for councils trying to hit budget, a sector expert has warned.
Analysis in The MJ this week by consultancy Impower found councils were already finding it much harder to stick to budget, with an average overspend of 7-8% in each of the last three years. Children's social care has overspent on average by more than 10% in six of the last seven years.
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Take up of a government invitation to councils to join the business rates retention pooling scheme in 2026-27 is expected to be low.
Through the scheme, councils can collectively pay less levy to the Government and retain any benefit from growth in business rates. Pools can be formed of two or more councils.
But councils have been told by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to join the scheme for 2026-27 by 14 November – before the outcome of next year's fair funding review and the resetting of business rates.
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Local authorities in England are set to be poorer by the end of this parliament than they were in 2010, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Government (IfG).
The Public Services Performance Tracker 2025 found that one in six upper-tier authorities will rely on emergency funding in 2025/26, while reserves have fallen to their lowest levels since 2011/12.
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The creation of new unitary authorities in the South of England is due to cost councils millions of pounds.
Local government reorganisation (LGR) plans to create ‘mega councils’ in place of county and district councils will reportedly amount to over £12m over two years.
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Collectively raising council tax by 1% above the referendum limit would raise £500m for the sector, according to the latest IFS Green Book report.
Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies ahead of the Budget suggests that raising council tax by lifting the referendum limit or hiking up the highest bands will “strengthen” public finances.
Their calculations, in partnership with Barclays, reveal that the chancellor Rachel Reeves must find £22bn to plug the forecasted £10bn overspend by 2029-30 and meet her fiscal rules of balancing the books by this date.
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The Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been warned that the upcoming Autumn Budget could be a “make or break moment” for businesses, with the British Chamber of Commerce urging her to avoid further tax increases.
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One of two unitary authorities proposed for Warwickshire amid local government reorganisation ‘would exist with a budget deficit from day one', a report has warned.
A Warwickshire CC report said a proposal to split the county geographically would create a ‘loser' council in the north of the county and ‘winner' in the south.
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Plans to split large councils into smaller unitary authorities could hit vulnerable people with a ‘triple whammy' of worse services, higher costs and staff shortages, county leaders have suggested.
A County Councils' Network (CCN) report by consultancy Newton claimed that breaking up existing counties into councils serving fewer than 500,000 residents would add up to £270m in annual care costs, require over 1,000 additional senior roles and risk lowering care quality.
CCN urged the Government to stick to its original 500,000-population guide.
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Birmingham City Council and trade unions have reached a final agreement to settle historic equal pay claims.
The claims, brought by UNISON and GMB on behalf of their members employed by the council and Birmingham Children’s Trust, relate to longstanding pay inequalities between female employees and male colleagues performing work of equal value.
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A major overhaul of the planning system is set to grant powers to the secretary of state in a bid to cut delays and speed up the planning application process.
New powers for the secretary of state to stop councils rejecting planning permissions, “tackle barriers” imposed by the courts, and “accelerate” large housing schemes are amongst a package of reforms announced by the government today.
These reforms, which have been brought in as government amendments to the Planning & Infrastructure Bill, aim to remove the “burdensome bureaucracy” which the government claims continues to “blight our outdated planning system.”
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More than six in ten teachers believe some parents seek special educational needs and disabilities diagnoses to gain exam advantages, while nearly three-quarters say the system is failing pupils, a YouGov survey for Bett found. Over half fear upcoming reforms will make things worse, with many warning they lack the training and resources to meet pupils’ needs.
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A record 1,611 people died while homeless across the UK in 2024, a 9% increase on the previous year, according to a new report from the Museum of Homelessness.
The latest ‘Dying Homeless Project 2025’ report highlights that a significant proportion of people died while living in hostels, B&Bs, or exempt accommodation.
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Moving to a national assessment system for social care could offer consistency and efficiency benefits, a study suggests.
In a report by The King’s Fund titled ‘Fixing social care: the six key problems and how to tackle them’, the think tank argues that the Casey Commission, which was set up by the Government to explore social care reform in England, should discuss transitioning to a national system of assessment to cater to people’s social care needs.
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A final decision on the new unitary structures for Surrey has been delayed, council chiefs have been told.
Plans for the future shape of local government in the county were due to be revealed next week but will now be delayed until the end of October – or possibly later – The MJ understands.
The delay is set to make what was already a challenging timetable for implementation even more squeezed.
In a letter to chiefs, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: ‘As you know, we hoped to be in a position to announce next week which proposal will be implemented. We now think it will be in late October.'
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Westminster has ‘completely failed’ on social care and council tax, Andy Burnham reportedly told a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference.
The Greater Manchester mayor told the event that local government’s finances were on questionable ‘foundations’ and warned this was a ‘big risk’ to devolution.
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The Conservatives have promised to abolish business rates for high street shops and pubs if they win the next general election.
Speaking at the party’s conference on Monday (6 October), Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said Labour’s tax rises were ‘too much to bear’ for small businesses, warning that many towns were seeing ‘pubs closing, shops sitting empty, [and] high streets hollowed out.’
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Council finance experts have urged the Government to ensure that Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) remains temporary and does not become ‘embedded in the public sector'.
The Government's stance has been that EFS is not a permanent funding stream for local government, but it has already been in use for five years.
Senior policy manager at the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), Joanne Pitt, said her organisation had ‘deeply held concerns that funding flexibilities such as EFS risk becoming embedded in the public sector'.
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Analysis of the local government reorganisation proposals submitted by two-tier regions on the devolution priority programme reveal a reduction of up to 1,532 councillors.
Research by the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) revealed how following LGR would affect the number of local politicians in Greater Essex, Hampshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, West and East Sussex and Brighton.
Two-tier regions on the devolution priority programme had until 26 September to submit their preferred configuration of unitary authorities to the government.
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Companies recovering parking ticket debts are operating with an average profit margin of over 60 per cent, which has been described as a "market failure" by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
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Seven of the 12 councils seeking to establish five new unitaries across Hampshire & the Solent have backed an option that hinges on boundaries being drawn along parish boundaries, although those councils that would be carved up have backed other configurations.
Two competing submissions have been sent to the government. A joint proposal drafted by 12 of the 15 local authorities in Hampshire made the case for five unitaries, and most of the participating authorities have indicated their preferred option out of the three shortlisted.
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The Reform UK leader of Leicestershire CC has announced a ‘once-in-a-generation' external review of its £616m yearly budget.
Dan Harrison said: ‘Whatever they charge, it will be a hundred times to the benefit of the authority.
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Chancellor Rachel Reeves is braced for new forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility on Friday that could leave a £30 billion pound gap in the public finances, with a productivity downgrade alone expected to account for up to £18 billion pounds. The looming shortfall is set to intensify political clashes ahead of the November Budget.
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The shadow local government secretary has accused Labour of leaving councils with ‘short term fixes', identifying asylum hotels as a key area ‘showing strain'.
Writing exclusively in The MJ ahead of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester next week, Sir James Cleverly said: ‘When I was home secretary, we closed sites like The Bell Hotel in Epping and halved the number of asylum hotels. The principle was clear: hotels are not the right place for asylum seekers, and they are not fair on the towns that host them.'
He added that, since coming to power, the Labour Government had ‘reopened sites and increased reliance'.
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The Green party’s national spokesperson for housing and communities warns of the dangers to democracy when central government tries to tidy up the “messy” local government.
Green group leader on Darlington BC, Matthew Snedker, said the government’s plans for local government reorganisation and devolution would make it “harder to communicate, harder to consult, and harder to listen to people.”
Speaking to LGC ahead of this week’s conference in Bournemouth, Cllr Snedker said two-tier local government has operated in England for “hundreds and hundreds of years” and “has worked well”.
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Supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in England will cost the government an extra £3bn a year by 2029 if the system is not reformed, a think tank has warned.
The government is already spending £12bn this year on supporting those with Send, a figure that has risen by 66% in the last decade.
Under current projections, there will also be an extra 220,000 children and young people with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) by 2029, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says.
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The new extended producer responsibility (EPR) scheme is likely to place a ‘significant financial burden’ on UK retailers and households.
The vast majority of the new ‘packaging tax’ is likely to be passed on consumers, industry leaders have warned.
The new tax – or the extended producer responsibility (EPR) scheme, for which firms must submit their latest data on the packaging they have used by October 1 – is likely to place a “significant financial burden” on UK retailers and households, a survey of leading retailers for the British Retail Consortium (BRC) suggests.
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Rachel Reeves has said the government is facing difficult choices, as she promised she would not take risks with the public finances.
In her speech at Labour's annual party conference in Liverpool, the chancellor pledged to keep "taxes, inflation and interest rates as low as possible".
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A new body made up of employers and trade unions intended to boost the wages of care workers will be launched next year, the government has announced.
This adult social care negotiating body will be set up in 2026 and tasked with arranging the first ever fair pay agreement for the sector to come into force in 2028-29.
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The Government has insisted it is ‘absolutely committed to bridging the divides between our communities' despite axing a cohesion fund launched after 2024's riots.
A Community Cohesion and Resilience Programme provided £3.6m to local authorities in 2024-25 to ‘build stronger, more integrated communities and reduce harmful division' in 44 places.
However, ministers have confirmed there are no plans to run the programme again this financial year.
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Ministers and mayors are in talks about introducing a tourist tax and business rates supplement, the new devolution minister has revealed.
Speaking at the Labour conference on Monday, Miatta Fahnbulleh told delegates the country was one of the “most centralised… in terms of fiscal powers in the world”.
She said: “We need to unblock that. Mayors at the moment are having a conversation with us about tourism tax, about business supplement, and we are interested, and we’re trying to have that conversation in good faith.
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The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has appointed three experienced sector advisers to work with Whitehall and councils currently undergoing reorganisation.
Theresa Grant, Tony McArdle and John Metcalfe, who already sit on MHCLG's reorganisation advisory group, will work closely with the Local Government Association and other sector bodies to coordinate, with each assigned seven geographical areas.
MHCLG said the trio's role was to ‘provide support and offer a source of expert advice, bringing the benefit of their experience in the sector and of local government reorganisation'.
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Labour will not touch council tax bands during this Parliament, Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, has announced.
Mr Reed ruled out overhauling council tax during the Labour Party conference in Liverpool despite months of rumours that ministers were targeting wealthy homeowners. He said: “We’ve got enough on our hands – [council tax revaluation] is not on our agenda.”
Council tax bands are based on property valuations from 1991, which means areas with lower house price growth have disproportionately expensive bills. Mr Reed confirmed that re-valuation had not even been discussed with Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor.
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Councils must not lose powers over bin collections, the LGA has warned ahead of proposed reforms about how the nation deals with waste. The LGA said plans to force the businesses responsible for packaging waste to deal with the cost of disposing it must not result in councils losing control of household waste and recycling services, as per industry lobbying. LGA environment spokesperson Cllr Arooj Shah said: “Councils are proud to deliver waste and recycling services that are trusted by the public and tailored to the needs of local areas. We support the ambition of the [Extended Producer Responsibility] reforms, but they must be built on partnership and respect for what local government delivers every day.”
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A recent LGA report highlights that when the home-to-school transport duty was written into law in 1944, just one in five families owned a car. Today, half of families own one and just under 80 per cent of households have access to one. Increased recognition of conditions such as autism and ADHD – combined with a post-pandemic surge in demand and overstretched council budgets – has pushed some local authorities to breaking point, it is reported. Planned spending on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) transport in 2023/24 in England was meant to be £1.4 billion, while the actual expenditure was 25 per cent higher.
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Councillors in England will be allowed back into the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), Communities Secretary Steve Reed has announced. Speaking to an LGA fringe event at the Labour Party conference, Reed reversed the rules which banned councillors from the LGPS in 2014.
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Communities will be given new powers to seize boarded shops, save derelict pubs and block gambling and vape shops in order to revitalise their high streets, backed by a £5 billion investment, under the newly announced Pride in Place programme. The Government has revealed 169 areas which will receive £2 million every year for a decade and a further 95 will receive an immediate £1.5 million to upgrade public spaces. The funding boost comes after the Government granted six local authorities permission to raise the council tax levy above the 5 per cent cap for the 2025/26 financial year. The LGA has previously warned that local government funding “still falls short of what is desperately needed”. An LGA spokesperson said: “A sustainable, long-term financial model for local government must lead to all councils having adequate resources to meet growing cost and demand pressures.”
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Shropshire Council will have to rely on Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) to stave off a section 114 notice, according to a corporate peer challenge.
The newly-published report compiled by a team from the Local Government Association found Shropshire was projected to exhaust its reserves by the end of the financial year.
It stated the council was ‘a hair's breadth away from issuing a s114 and it will now need to rely on EFS this year and in the medium term'.
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Surrey districts are moving to transfer community assets to parish councils and community groups so their future is secured ahead of local government reorganisation (LGR).
The Government is expected to reveal its preferred plan for reorganising the county's two-tier structure next month and some districts are fearful ministers could soon impose financial restrictions which scupper any transfers ahead of new unitaries being formed.
Reigate and Banstead BC is due to vote on its proposed Community Asset Transfer (CAT) programme tonight. Its aim is to ensure valued community facilities remain in local hands and invites town and parish councils, voluntary groups, charities and social enterprises to take on ownership or long-term leases of assets such as halls, sports pavilions, allotments and public spaces.
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Devon County Council is backing a single county unitary covering its eight districts as the “least worst option” for local government reorganisation.
Leader Julian Brazil (Lib Dem) described the choice to consolidate the two-tier system along existing upper tier boundaries – with Plymouth City Council and Torbay Council remaining as they are – as the best way to avoid “a disastrous disruption to existing key services”.
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In her monthly MJ Plugged In column, Cllr Louise Gittins, LGA Chair, writes that as new ministers in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government take up their roles, the LGA is actively engaging with them to ensure the voice of local government is heard and to help shape reforms around devolution.
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The LGA has revealed councils in England are facing a £266 million funding gap for their spending on temporary accommodation, which has grown by 30 per cent in a year. Homelessness continues to increase, with 131,140 homeless households in England living in temporary accommodation, up 12 per cent on last year. Cllr Tom Hunt, Chair of the LGA’s Inclusive Growth Committee, said councils are “caught in a vicious cycle of ever-increasing temporary accommodation costs versus static rates they receive back to cover their costs”.
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Some councils are extending the gaps between rubbish collections as part of an initiative aimed at increasing recycling rates. More than two million people will wait an extra week for non-recyclable waste to be collected next year.
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Government data shows that fines and charges imposed on motorists by councils have reached £2.3 billion a year, an increase of 20 per cent in two years.
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The LGA has called for renewed action on the prevention of teen pregnancies, following an increase in the rate at which they’re occurring, with 28.8 conceptions per 1000 women under the age of 18. Cllr Dr Wendy Taylor, Chair of the LGA's Health and Wellbeing Committee, said that “We must now build on the achievements of the past 25 years by tackling persistent inequalities, digital exclusion, school absence and pandemic legacies. "We urge the Government to act now, restore national leadership for local delivery and invest in prevention and early help to stop any further rise in teenage pregnancies.”
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The Resolution Foundation has urged Chancellor Rachel Reeves to raise income tax, while cutting national insurance, in this year’s budget to address “unfairness” and increasing financial pressure on the public sector.
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Shropshire Council chief executive has announced his departure a fortnight after the unitary declared a financial emergency and a critical report revealed “morale problems”.
Andy Begley described his time in the top post as a “privilege”, one that he has held since August 2020. He is now set to leave in three months’ time, after 12 years at the authority.
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New rules aimed at helping to boost recycling rates and cut the amount of waste going to landfill or being incinerated are being rolled out by April. The Government hopes the new rules will raise the recycling rates in England, which have remained at just over 44 per cent over the last decade, to 65 per cent by 2035. The LGA said public satisfaction with local waste services remains very high, which councils have worked hard to achieve. An LGA spokesperson said: “What works in urban centres is different to rural communities. However, the separate collection of paper and card will require additional resource and time for implementation from April 2026. It’s also very important different councils have local flexibility where the additional bin is not practical, for instance due to inadequate space.”
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The most common failings plunging councils into financial crisis have been laid out in analysis published today by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA).
The body was responsible for carrying out assurance reviews at 12 of the 19 councils granted Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) in 2024-25 – accounting for £561m of the £1.5bn allocated by central government.
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Ministers are drawing up plans to give mayors significant new powers over hospitals and schools as part of a new wave of devolution which could change how public services are run in England. Local Government Secretary Steve Reed wants to give mayors control over many more local services, including reportedly some NHS services and parts of the criminal justice system.
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MPs have warned the Government over reforms to the special educational needs system they fear will cut back support for vulnerable children. Labour backbenchers reportedly say they are preparing to vote against any changes that “take away services” or “reduce support, financial or otherwise” for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
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Spending by councils in England on temporary accommodation for homelessness has risen by almost a third in a year, according to figures by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Net spending – the difference between the total outgoings for local authorities and their income – for the year to March was £1.44 billion. This was an increase of 30.5 per cent on the previous year, when expenditure, adjusted for inflation, stood at £1.10 billion. Cllr Tom Hunt, Chair of the LGA’s Inclusive Growth Committee, said the figures show how “local authorities are having to stretch budgets further”. He called for changes to the way councils are reimbursed by government for temporary accommodation costs, saying current housing benefit reimbursement rules for temporary accommodation are “outdated”.
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The Government borrowed more than expected last month, official figures show. Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed public sector net borrowing – the difference between public spending and income – rose to £18 billion in August, £3.5 billion more than in the same month a year earlier
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One of the biggest council pension funds in England plans to reduce employer contributions in a “measured” way as its funding position improves.
Merseyside Pension Fund, which had a market value of £11bn in March 2024, expects to see its surplus improve following this year’s triennial valuation, which examines whether it has enough assets to meet future liabilities.
Peter Wallach, the fund’s director of pensions, told last week’s LGC Investment & Pensions Summit his fund was “probably one of the less well funded” in the Local Government Pension Scheme.
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The government will no longer reimburse electoral staff for cancelled holidays when general elections are called at a short notice.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government wrote in the election business bulletin this week that it will no longer cover the costs of staff having to cancel or rearrange holidays due to a unplanned general election, which has been offered on a case-by-case basis since the 2017 election.
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The Education Select Committee has called for a "radical" overhaul of the way children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are supported, as the number of children with SEND rose to 1.7 million this year and climbing costs add increasing pressure onto council budgets.
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The Office for Budget Responsibility may downgrade its productivity estimates for the UK, which could potentially leave a £60 billion shortfall in the economy.
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The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee is widely expected to keep interest rates at 4 per cent when they meet today.
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Experts have urged caution after Whitehall officials are understood to have privately mooted allowing councils to balance budgets over a longer period than a year.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has asked for suggestions of ‘other measures that could support local authorities to manage their budgets over a multi-year period' as part of its consultation on the fair funding review.
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Local government reorganisation “is not just about savings” the devolution minister told MPs in her first appearance since being appointed.
Giving evidence to the committee scrutinising the English Devolution & Community Empowerment Bill Miatta Fahnbulleh faced questions on the right size for unitary councils, scrutiny arrangements for new mayoral bodies, involvement of parish councils and Cornwall.
Responding to questions about the government’s approach to LGR, Ms Fahnbulleh said the government wants to hear from places about what “works for their community” and committed to flexibility around the 500,000 population threshold.
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Just three Reform-led councils have hosted the party’s ‘Doge’ team, an LGC investigation has found, with those that have declining to share their data due to legal concerns.
Former chairman of Reform UK, Zia Yusuf, was made head of the party’s Department for Government Efficiency (Doge) in June when he rejoined the party, raising expectations that its cost-cutting taskforce would visit all 11 councils controlled or led by Reform UK.
Tech entrepreneur Nathaniel Fried had initially been brought in by Mr Yusuf to lead the Doge unit but quit on the same day Mr Yusuf stood down as chairman.
At the press conference announcing his leadership of the unit, Mr Yusuf promised to “assemble an all-star team of brilliant people” at Doge to “identify and cut wasteful spending of taxpayer money”, using “cutting-edge technology and deliver real value for voters.”
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A survey commissioned by the Parentkind charity has found one in three parents have sought a special needs assessment for their child.
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Prices in the UK increased by 3.8 per cent in the 12 months to August, driven up by rising food prices.
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ITV analysis of 52 councils found spending on transport for children with special educational needs has risen sharply, with nearly 62,000 pupils now using council-funded services. The LGA has previously warned that home-to-school SEND transport in England could cost councils nearly £2 billion this year, making it one of the fastest-growing pressures on local authority budgets.
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Parents are protesting against the possible scrapping of education, health and care plans (EHCPs) in England, warning they are essential legal protections for children with special needs. Previous LGA research found that more than half of councils are at risk of insolvency due to rising SEND costs.
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Miatta Fahnbulleh has been appointed devolution minister at the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government.
Ministerial portfolios were confirmed by the department this afternoon with responsibility for devolution and local government now split between two different people.
Local government minister Alison McGovern will oversee council finance policy and reorganisation alongside homelessness and rough sleeping.
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The government reshuffle gives MHCLG ministers a chance to think afresh on key reforms, writes the associate dean, School of Public Policy, at the LSE.
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The new communities secretary has told councils he is committed to his predecessor’s policy programme, including local government reorganisation “swiftly and effectively”.
A letter seen by LGC from Steve Reed to council chief executives and leaders outlines plans for “enacting the Fair Funding Review 2.0” and continuing with the devolution priority programme to hold mayoral elections next year.
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Plans to switch council tax billing from 10 to 12-month instalments could leave local authorities with cash flow problems, experts have warned.
A Government consultation on the 12-month instalment plan to ‘assist households in managing their finances' closed last week.
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Residents in new unitary authorities could pay increased council tax, the District Councils’ Network (DCN) has cautioned.
According to analysis by the DCN, local authority areas with populations of over 500,000 have average Band D council tax bills roughly £250 higher annually than areas with smaller population sizes.
Following the research, the DCN has warned that local government reorganisation could lead to negative outcomes for taxpayers.
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Residential care for looked-after children is costing councils more than ever, but many young people are still being placed in settings that don’t meet their needs, the National Audit Office (NAO) has warned.
According to the latest report from the national auditor, spending on residential care nearly doubled in five years, reaching £3.1bn in 2023–24 – an average of £318,400 per place.
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Financial experts have warned there is almost no way to assess whether the billions spent on England’s special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system represent value for money.
Funding for SEND has surged by £4bn since 2018, but legally binding Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) mean local authority deficits could reach £8bn by 2027, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).
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A report from the Social Care Foundation suggests that social care should be
funded through a new tax, with recommendations for a health and care levy, possibly in the form of an extra percentage levelled on National Insurance contributions by employees and employers. It comes as Baroness Louise Casey convened cross-party talks on adult social care, with MPs from across the political spectrum coming together to discuss their views on reform.
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The Chief Executive of the Confederation of British Industry, Rain Newton-Smith, has suggested the Chancellor should tear up Labour’s manifesto pledge not to increase taxes on working people, in what is seen as a significant intervention ahead of the Autumn Budget.
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Reform UK-led Warwickshire County Council has removed its chief executive’s flag-flying powers.
In July, Warwickshire CC's chief executive Monica Fogarty refused a request from council leader George Finch to remove a Pride flag from County Hall.
The head of Reform's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Zia Yusuf, described the move as ‘extraordinary', adding she was ‘not the monarch of Warwickshire'.
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Local government pension funds managing £400bn have backed a new white paper that sets out how the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) can scale up local investing to support the UK’s growth agenda.
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MPs have overwhelmingly backed new legislation giving local authorities greater power to safeguard ‘socially necessary’ bus routes.
The Bus Services (No. 2) Bill passed in the House of Commons by 362 votes to 87, aiming to make it harder for bus companies to cut services vital to communities.
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Reform group leader for the Local Government Association Stephen Atkinson (Ref) fears local government reorganisation is an “absolute disaster waiting to happen”.
At his party’s conference at the weekend, Cllr Atkinson told LGC losing districts would be “stripping away that direct connnection” residents have with their councils as new unitaries “will be so big that it would become so far away from the residents”.
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Senior Labour local government figures have said the new ministerial appointments have the experience to deliver on the sector’s priorities, following last week’s government reshuffle.
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Lincolnshire CC chief executive Debbie Barnes plans to retire next year after 20 years at the authority.
Ms Barnes joined the authority in 2006 and worked as the director of children services until 2020, before taking on the top post.
In 2018, Ms Barnes was awarded an OBE for her contribution to children’s services and is the lead advisor for children’s services and education for the Association of County Council Chief Executives.
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Kent CC chief Amanda Beer is set to retire after 21 years at the authority and two years in the top job after a replacement is found.
The council has confirmed this was the plan ahead of the elections, which saw the Reform party take control.
Chief finance officer David Shipton has also announced his imminent departure.
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A three unitary model would generate net annual savings of £38m in Essex, but five unitaries just £2m, leading to a much longer payback period for the initial investment, analysis for the county’s business case has said.
This contrasts with the figures published last week from the group of councils backing the five unitary model, which claimed their model would lead to greater savings.
Essex CC’s business case was discussed at a scrutiny meeting yesterday and will go to full council later this month.
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There is no reason to assume personnel change in itself signals a change in direction for local government reform, writes the chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit.
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A company is to assess how a council can save money - at a potential cost of £20m.
Somerset Council has appointed Newton Consulting to help it cover a projected funding gap of £190m over the next five years.
An initial £1.5m is being spent in the "first phase" of the contract but a statement from the council suggests that could rise significantly.
Councillor Theo Butt Philip said the firm has "proven credentials" in helping find savings, but campaigner David Orr said the move was "too little, too late".
In a statement, a Somerset Council spokesperson justified the agreement saying the contract is expected to return £2.50 to £3 for every £1 invested.
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The new Housing Secretary has vowed to “build baby build” as he seeks to deliver the Government’s ambitious housing targets, it is reported. In a meeting with civil servants this week, Steve Reed pledged to pull every lever to get Britain building and reportedly went on to say that he intended to “move on to the next stage in unleashing one of the biggest eras of building in our country’s history”.
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The Reform UK leader of Kent CC has said local government reorganisation (LGR) is ‘disrupting business as usual' and making recruitment to the council's most senior roles ‘very difficult'.
Speaking yesterday at the Reform UK conference at the NEC in Birmingham, Cllr Linden Kemkaran said: ‘I‘ve got to recruit for a new chief executive. I had to try to recruit for a new chief finance officer.
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Kent CC leader Linden Kemkaran (Ref) predicted that the government will drop local government reorganisation in her county for fear of Reform winning future local elections.
At a fringe event run by the Institute for Government during the conference, which took place prior to Angela Rayner’s resignation and the ministerial reshuffle, Cllr Kemkaran said: “I would like to put a bet on it, and I’m not a betting person, but I have a strong feeling that the government will not push forward LGR in Kent…
“They made their plans before… the rise of Reform UK and they didn’t expect us to win in Kent, which is why they let the local elections go ahead and they categorically misjudged the strength of feeling in Kent.
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Reform’s director of local government Jaymey McIvor (Ref) believes councils have become a “dumping ground for anything the government doesn’t want to do”, which is “probably one of the most unpatriotic things to do”.
Chairing a panel at the Reform party conference with council leaders, Cllr McIvor, who is a member at Epping Forest DC, said: “What we don’t hear enough is how local government is sometimes being forced to foot the bill and often just facilitate a enormous pressure [on our population], which is frankly a distraction from our own people.”
He asked Reform’s youngest council leader George Finch (Ref) about his “impression” of the “impact that the added pressures on our counties and a lack of the support from the government”.
Cllr Finch’s response was to say that Warwickshire CC’s £87m deficit in the special education needs budget is evidence that “the national government is doing nothing” but saying “let local government deal with it, they’re going to get turned into huge councils anyway”.
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Two new junior ministers were appointed to the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government on Saturday evening as the prime minister finalised his reshuffle.
Miatta Fahnbulleh and Samantha Dixon have been appointed as parliamentary under secretaries, filling the gaps vacated by Alex Norris’s move to the Home Office and Rushanara Ali, who resigned as homelessness minister earlier this summer.
On Saturday Alison McGovern was appointed as minister of state after Jim McMahon was sacked as local government minister.
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Steve Reed has been appointed housing, communities and local government secretary following Angela Rayner's resignation from the Government.
He has held the role of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs secretary since the General Election.
Reed served as shadow communities and local government secretary while in opposition from 2020 to 2021.
Prior to his election as MP for Streatham and Croydon North in 2012, he was leader of Lambeth council for six years.
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Local Government Association chair Louise Gittins (Lab) has said she is “gutted” while a combined authority mayor said she “could weep” after Angela Rayner resigned.
Ms Rayner who was housing and communities secretary alongside her role as deputy prime minister resigned at lunchtime after being found to have breached the ministerial code.
In a statement on X Cllr Gittins said: “I’m gutted to see Angela Rayner is leaving. She has been instrumental in getting the voice of local government heard in the heart of national government.
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At the Reform party conference Nigel Farage called on “experienced people” to join their next election campaign as the current cohort of inexperienced council leaders are facing “certain obstructions” from “civil servants”.
Mr Farage said: “I will admit we have some weakness… none of our senior figures have ever been in government before.
“We are beginning to see already, through the county councils that we run, certain obstructions from the civil service put in our way and I imagine that when we win the next election, we may face similar barriers at times for real change that this country needs.
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Jim McMahon has been sacked as local government minister in a move that will spark fears about the government’s commitment to the devolution agenda.
Mr McMahon, a former council leader, led on local government reorganisation and devolution under former communities secretary Angela Rayner, who once described him as “devo man”.
No 10 confirmed this afternoon he had left the government following a reshuffle of junior ministers earlier today. Meanwhile, Georgia Gould, who was leading on public service reform at the Cabinet Office, has been moved to the Department for Education.
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Councils are spending millions of pounds on incentive payments to landlords to house high-risk social housing tenants. Some 37 councils spent £31 million on 10,792 landlord incentives in 2024/25, according to a Freedom of Information request by campaign group Generation Rent. LGA Inclusive Growth Committee Chair Cllr Tom Hunt said: “Councils are having to use all the tools at their disposal to provide accommodation for people, even though that can mean they are left out of pocket as they end up paying significant sums to private landlords. Local government needs a long-term, sustainable solution to funding so that it can deliver sufficient, good quality and timely accommodation.”
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Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has announced her resignation from the Government.
The Prime Minister's ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus has concluded that she had broken the ministerial code in underpaying stamp duty when purchasing a flat in Hove.
Rayner will stand down as both deputy prime minister and housing, communities and local government secretary.
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Councils have awarded at least £3.4m in contracts for consultancy support with local government reorganisation so far this year, new data reveals.
The figures, which are likely to be an underestimate, come from the Tussell public sector procurement platform which compiles information based on published contracts data as well as council spending.
It shows 29 contracts have been awarded by 24 councils between January and August this year. At least seven of these were on behalf of groups of councils.
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Figures unveiled by the Department for Transport (DfT) have revealed every single English local transport authority has had its Local Transport Grant (LTG) funding frozen next year.
It comes amid continued warnings that the Chancellor intends to raise taxes in October’s Budget to plug a financial black hole estimated at around £50bn.
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The review should be the start of a more honest discussion about the future of local government and the broader public sector, writes the policy lead for finance of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives & Senior Managers.
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SEND transport costs hit a record high of £2.26bn in 2023-24, according to a new analysis of official data for England.
The costs of school transport for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) has more than doubled since 2015-16, according to the FT.
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One in four UK adults fear they will be unable to pay their council tax over the next six months, new research from StepChange Debt Charity reveals.
Polling by YouGov found that 12 million people are worried about keeping up with payments, with 70% citing rising living costs as the main reason.
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A think-tank has called for the abolition of Homes England.
Re:State's report, published today, argues mayoral authorities are ‘better placed to lead on housing and regeneration'.
The think-tank said the agency's £16bn in combined capital spend, 9,000-hectare land portfolio, and responsibility for housing quality should be devolved to mayors.
Their local expertise and knowledge would enable for better, place-based solutions to the need for more housing.
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The Government did not conduct its own assessment of the costs of local government reorganisation, the BBC has revealed.
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner previously claimed merging councils into unitary authorities in 21 areas would save ‘a significant amount of money.'
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) relied on a 2020 PwC report commissioned by the County Council Network (CCN), which estimated £2.9bn in savings across five years could be made if all 21 two-tier areas were replaced with a single unitary council in each area.
Updated figures published by CCN in March 2025 suggested 29 unitary councils with populations over 500,000 could still save £1.8bn. But replacing a two-tier system with 58 smaller unitary councils, some with just 300,000 residents, could cost £850m over five years and deliver no long-term savings.
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The sale of second homes has seen up to £55m less council tax revenue generated for local authorities.
While former housing secretary Michael Gove introduced a 100% council tax premium for second home owners in April, the change has not increased funds for local authorities as much as ministers initially thought.
A rising number of second home owners are said to have attempted to sell their properties since the introduction of the premium, with little uptake from buyers, according to The Times.
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Local authorities across the UK are selling off public assets – such as schools and care homes – to try and reduce a collective debt of £122bn.
The combined debts of councils grew by 7% last year and is now equivalent to £1,700 per UK resident, according to research by the BBC.
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Rachel Reeves acknowledged that the UK economy is “not working well enough for working people” as she announced that her second budget will take place on 26 November, amid mounting speculation over tax increases.
The later than usual date will probably lead to weeks of speculation about how the Treasury will raise additional revenue – but the chancellor hopes to use the time to set out new pro-growth reforms.
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Councils are spending millions of pounds on incentive payments to landlords to house high-risk social housing tenants.
The highest incentive was paid by Labour-run Southwark council, which offered landlords £15,385.
Experts have warned that councils are forcing landlords to take on “higher risk” tenants who are most likely to fall into arrears.
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Councils across England are increasingly spending millions of pounds a year in incentive payments to private landlords to persuade them to house homeless families, with campaigners describing it as a “senseless waste of public money”.
Data gathered by the campaign group Generation Rent via freedom of information requests showed that 37 councils spent more than £31m on one-off cash payments to private landlords on 10,792 occasions in 2024-25.
The data, from the 32 London councils and the 10 councils outside the capital with the biggest statutory homelessness issues, showed cash-strapped local authorities are increasingly using these payments to encourage landlords to house families who are homeless or facing eviction.
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Dozens of organisations have signed an open letter calling on the government to scrap office-to-residential conversions in England, which analysis has found led to the loss of almost 28,000 affordable homes.
Local government campaigners, housing providers and homelessness charities have all joined the call to abolish some permitted development rights (PDR), which grant automatic planning permission to building projects and are often used to convert office blocks into housing.
A major point of contention is that PDR developments are not required to make affordable housing contributions. New analysis by the Local Government Association (LGA) has found that nearly 28,000 affordable homes have been lost due to office-to-residential conversions under PDR in the past 11 years.
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Reform has vowed to slash council tax bills by up to £350 a year by rooting out waste across public sector pensions.
Richard Tice, the party’s deputy leader, will on Monday unveil plans to overhaul council-controlled pension funds, which he says are failing to deliver value for money after becoming blinded by net zero.
The chronic mismanagement of public sector pensions is costing taxpayers around £10bn a year, according to Mr Tice, who said households were paying the price for a “gravy train culture” of high fees and bad investments.
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Council spending on transport for children with special educational needs in England has hit a record high as a result of “huge inefficiencies” in the system, a major provider of taxi services has warned.
Andy Mahoney, chief executive of 24x7 Group, said he regularly encountered “absurd” scenarios where one taxi was sent to drive a student to a school 50 miles away while another one was used to ferry pupils in the opposite direction.
Mahoney, who runs the only major company in the UK that exclusively provides transport services for special educational needs and disabilities (Send) students, argued that with more central planning, Send school places could be reallocated so pupils are educated closer to home.
[ more...]
Acouncil tax raid on second-home owners has raised £55 million less than expected and helped to stifle the struggling economies of holiday hotspots.
Councils in England were given powers to charge second-home owners a 100 per cent premium from April this year in a move that was hoped would free up homes for priced-out locals and raise money for local authorities.
But the money raised could fall short of councils’ hopes, as homes caught in the trap are being put up for sale to escape the penalty — and this may not even benefit locals, with estate agencies suggesting that no one wants to buy the properties.
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At least one in 10 new homes built under Labour have been needed to house asylum seekers or refugees rather than British families. Conservatives accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of presiding over “a housing catastrophe” after 51,997 asylum seekers were granted refugee status or leave to remain since the General Election.
With the average household in the UK made up of 2.36 people, it means 21,610 homes are required – equivalent to more than 10% of the 212,587 new homes that have been built across the UK in the same time period, according to a Conservative analysis. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “Labour have flung Britain’s borders wide open while simultaneously failing to build enough homes. This is the cost of Labour’s failure, but the Conservatives will not stand by while fairness is torn up.”
[ more...]
The UK government did not do its own analysis of the cost of the biggest reorganisation of councils in England for decades, the BBC has learned.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said "a significant amount of money" could be saved by merging councils in 21 areas into single authorities. Rayner's department, the ministry of local government, based its cost estimates on a 2020 report commissioned by the County Council Network (CCN) that said £2.9bn could be saved over five years.
But the CCN has since revised its analysis and now says the reorganisation could make no savings and actually cost money in some scenarios. Tim Oliver, chairman of the CCN, said local government reorganisation "could unlock billions in efficiency savings to be reinvested in frontline services", if it was delivered at the right scale.
Oliver said the CCN supported the government's reforms but added: "We are concerned over the potential costs of reorganisation where proposals seek to replace the two-tier system with multiple small unitary councils."
[ more...]
Authorities are facing hundreds of complaints from second home owners who have been hit with the 100pc council tax premium, data shows.
Homeowners have been left distressed by a lack of communication from councils over their high bills, according to dozens of complaints seen by The Telegraph.
More than 200 town halls introduced a 100pc council tax premium on second homes in April, causing a typical bill to rise to £3,672. The Telegraph is calling for the levy to be abolished.
[ more...]
North Yorkshire Council has revealed it could be encountering its ‘most severe’ budget round yet.
In a performance monitoring committee meeting on Tuesday, council chiefs warned that ‘without action’, the local authority will need to use roughly £57m of its reserves by March 2028.
Councillors suggested that this will occur before the second fairer funding review that would provide formula changes.
[ more...]
Councils have been urged to consult more widely on planning applications after newly-published research found a majority of the population was in favour of local development.
A report by consultancy Public First advocated routine engagement with a representative sample of local residents on planning applications.
Its survey carried out last month found 55% of adults generally supported new buildings or developments in their local area, while 33% generally opposed them.
[ more...]
Local authorities in England are set to lose over eight times as many council homes in 2025/26 as were completed the previous year, a think tank has estimated.
The number of council houses sold off is expected to rise dramatically from 8,656 in 2024/25 to just over 18,000 in 2025/26, according to research by Common Wealth.
Only 2,260 council homes were built in 2024/25.
[ more...]
Local authority leaders have urged the Home Office to work much more closely with councils when it comes to decisions about asylum accommodation.
On Tuesday, the High Court granted a temporary injunction preventing asylum seekers from being housed in the Bell Hotel in Essex in a case brought by Epping Forest District Council.
The decision has reportedly prompted other local authorities to explore the option of launching legal challenges against the Home Office over its use of local hotels as asylum accommodation.
[ more...]
There has been a 60% increase in council debt over the last 10 years, figures have revealed.
Freedom of Information (FoI) request responses from 254 councils found that roughly a fifth of council tax revenue is being spent on payments for debt interest.
The data indicated that local authorities jointly owe £148.5bn or more, with interest bills equating to around £12.8m annually.
The figures from The Times found that emergency housing spending was valued at £2.2bn, with a further £1.1bn dedicated to libraries, culture, heritage and tourism.
[ more...]
Councils across England are poised to take legal action to remove asylum seekers from hotels in their areas.
It follows the High Court granting a district council a temporary injunction to block asylum seekers from lodging at The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex.
All 10 councils controlled by Reform UK will "do everything in their power to follow Epping's lead", the party's leader Nigel Farage said. A Conservative-run council in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, also said it is considering taking similar action.
[ more...]
Inflation hit 3.8% in July, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed.
Not since January 2024 have prices risen as fast.
It's up from 3.6% in June and is anticipated to reach 4% by the end of the year.
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Residents of county and rural regions will face ‘maximum council tax rises' under the Government's fair funding reforms, the County Councils' Network (CCN) has warned.
CCN chairman Tim Oliver said the redistribution of funding to urban areas placed a ‘disproportionate burden on council taxpayers in county areas to fund local services'.
Research by CCN found that while 22 rural and county unitary authorities were to receive £845m worth of grant funding increases, 16 authorities will have funding slashed by £470m.
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The LGA has called for “deeper reform” of local government funding, including greater freedoms for councils to raise money and a review of council tax, in its response to the fair funding consultation. While it said aspects of the Government’s plans, such as less competitive bidding and multi-year settlements, are positive, it warned that any real-terms and cash-terms cuts would be difficult for councils to cope with on top of existing cost and demand pressures. It urged the Government to design transitional arrangements that protect councils without forcing drastic service cuts or reducing the benefits of funding reforms for others.
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The County Councils Network has said that planned reforms to local government finance could see a band D household in rural areas pay an average of £2,756 in council tax by 2029, compared with £2,380 today. The proposals are intended to redistribute funding to more deprived areas.
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The number of long-term empty homes in England has increased by 32 per cent since 2016, with around 265,000 properties vacant for more than six months, according to government data. Bringing such properties back into use has been identified as a potential way of contributing to national housing supply targets.
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One in every five pounds spent by local government goes on interest payments, it is reported, due to historic borrowing and decreasing financial support from government, according to data gathered by the Times through FOI requests. Cllr Pete Marland, Chair of the LGA’s Economy and Resources Board, said: “The level of borrowing is down to a multitude of factors, the reasons for which vary by the circumstances of each authority. A sustainable, long-term financial model for local government must lead to all councils having adequate resources to meet growing cost and demand pressures.”
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The Chancellor is considering reforms to stamp duty and council tax ahead of the autumn budget, it is reported. These including replacing stamp duty on primary homes (for properties over £500,000) with a national property tax and changing council tax to a local property tax model to better finance local authorities.
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A new report by academics at the University of Sheffield on the scrapping of several government agencies in the “bonfire of the quangos” has concluded that abolishing the Audit Commission led to increased costs for councils.
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Pensioners are projected to make up more than a quarter of all UK adults by 2075 - rising from 22 per cent to 28 per cent – with the population aged 85 and over nearly trebling to 5.1 million and state pension costs climbing from about 5 per cent to 7.7 per cent of GDP, prompting a new review of the pension age.
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As of October 2024, there were almost 720,000 empty homes in England, according to the government.
On the face of it, bringing these empty properties back into use would make up a significant chunk of the 1.5m homes that the Labour government wants to add to the country's housing stock by the end of its term.
But so far that isn't happening enough. The question is why, and given it could, in theory, be a sensible solution to two growing problems, is this a case of a missed opportunity - or is the issue more complex still?
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Middle-class families in rural areas face paying an extra £376 in council tax under Angela Rayner’s plans to unlock more cash for deprived areas.
The County Councils Network (CCN) has warned that leafy towns and villages will “foot the bill” for a planned overhaul of local finances, hitting households in wealthier places such as Surrey and the Home Counties.
According to the CCN, which represents local authorities outside of big cities, a family in a band D countryside property will see their annual council tax bills rise to £2,756 by 2029, up from £2,380 today.
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There needs to be “deeper reform” to look at greater freedoms for councils to raise money and a review of council tax, the Local Government Association has said in its submission to the fair funding consultation.
The LGA’s submission to the government consultation on proposed changes to how funding is allocated welcomed “many aspects” including less competitive bidding and the guarantee of multi-year settlements.
But with some councils set to lose out through the changes the LGA said: “Given the scale of cost and demand pressures faced by the sector currently real terms cuts and cash terms cuts will be challenging for any council.”
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A feature piece reflects on the impact of the Right-to-Buy (RTB) scheme, which will be 45 years old in October. A third of England’s public housing was sold off between 1979 and 1990, with more than two million council homes sold in total through RTB, worth £371 billion. The current Government is reforming and restricting access to the scheme, with the stated aim of giving councils time to replenish their depleted housing stock. Last year research compiled for the LGA about RTB concluded it was “not fathomable for the scheme to exist in its current guise”.
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More than £300 million given to English councils to help Ukrainian refugees into accommodation has not been spent, it is reported. Freedom of information requests to 150 councils in England identified about a third of the £1 billion budget was still with councils, with most of the funds councils have spent used to pay staff and partner organisations.
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Council allocations under the Government's Simpler Recycling policy covering food waste could be delayed until the next provisional settlement. Under the policy, councils must begin offering weekly food waste collections by the end of March 2026. The LGA said that councils need certainty on funding to plan and deliver weekly food waste collections and that allocations must be confirmed as soon as possible to allow the necessary spending decisions to be made.
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The UK economy grew by 0.3 per cent between April and June, official figures show. This is better than economists had expected, but means growth had slowed from 0.7 per cent in the first three months of the year.
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Rachel Reeves has promised to use her Autumn Budget to prioritise fixing Britain’s record on productivity as she sought to downplay mounting tax speculation with a focus on economic growth. Setting out her priorities for the Budget for the first time, the Chancellor said tackling the efficiency of the economy through higher investment and reform of planning rules would form the backbone of her tax and spending plans
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The rise in temperatures this summer has led to a spike in pothole-related incidents up and down the country, according to new figures from The AA.
July’s AA Pothole Index revealed the roadside assistance provider was called out to more than 2% more breakdowns involving a pothole than the same time last year.
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Senior Local Government Association (LGA) figures have urged the organisation to consider opening a UK office outside London.
The LGA board is believed to have discussed the idea at a recent meeting.
There has been no mention of potential costs, and it is not yet known whether such a base would seek to replicate the London office or have different functions.
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The UK economy would be 3 per cent bigger had public sector productivity kept pace with private sector performance, according to the headline finding of a new report from Ernst & Young published this week.
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Financial reform cannot be separated from policy reform, writes the senior policy manager at the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy.
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More than £300m given to English councils to help Ukrainian refugees into accommodation has not been spent, while thousands of them face homelessness.
Freedom of information requests to 150 councils in England, shared with the Guardian, identified that £327m – about a third of the £1bn budget – was still sitting in council bank accounts more than three years after Russia invaded Ukraine.
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The Local Government Association (LGA) has warned proposed fair funding transition arrangements will not protect councils from cuts.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has put forward a ‘cash floor' as part of the fair funding 2.0 to help most councils that will lose out on their share of grant funding.
In its response to the Government's consultation, the LGA has said while the proposal ‘appears reasonable at first', in effect it will ‘not protect councils from real terms cuts in their core spending power'.
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A plan for a new tax on the sale of homes worth more than £500,000 is being considered by the Treasury as part of a possible overhaul of stamp duty and council tax, according to reports.
Officials have been told to study how a “proportional” property tax could work, according to reports in The Guardian.
Part of the work could look at how the tax could replace stamp duty – paid on home purchases – for owner-occupied homes. But the reports claim Treasury officials will also look at how a local property tax could replace council tax.
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Under-22s in England should be given free bus passes to help them get into work and education, according to a report by MPs. The Transport Select Committee said the number of bus journeys taken in England has dropped in recent years, while fares have risen faster than inflation, which was a barrier to opportunity and growth in some areas. The report was also critical of the short-term nature of funding for bus services, saying it has "hampered local authorities' ability to improve services". The LGA said it supports the committee's recommendation to end "stop-start funding" for buses and said more work is needed to attract people back onto buses, to ensure services are sustainable for communities.
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More funding and powers should be given to local authorities to better protect and improve declining local bus services, MPs have said.
A report by the House of Commons' Transport Committee welcomed the Government’s Bus Services Bill but said ministers should ‘go further to get bums back on seats.’
Department for Transport (DfT) data shows that the number of bus journeys taken in England outside of London fell by 21.7% between 2009 and 2024.
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The Bank of England has cut interest rates to 4 per cent, taking the cost of borrowing to the lowest level for more than two years. The cut, from the previous rate of 4.25 per cent, is the fifth since August last year.
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Reform UK claims to have saved over £100m in its first 100 days running 10 English local authorities by cutting green initiatives and stopping planned spending.
The party said it had saved £25m in Durham by scrapping electric vehicle upgrades, halting a heat pump installation, and reducing solar investment. It also said they had saved £32m in Kent by cancelling energy-efficiency upgrades, and £14m by abandoning a planned office move.
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Darren Grimes (Ref), deputy of leader of Durham CC, told LGC his party’s key priority is to settle the “care emergency” across the county.
In an interview with LGC to mark Reform’s first 100 days in power, and look ahead to future priorities, he said: “One area that keeps me awake at night is the cumulative deficit which is accruing as far as Send is concerned. These children have to be prioritised for their care. I am worried about the ‘care emergency’ we currently have and many of the officers I speak to share these concerns.
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Financial support will be delivered to help Woking BC repay its debt, the Government has reiterated.
The move comes from Jim McMahon, Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution, who confirmed the Government’s ‘commitment to financial assistance in advance of any reorganisation’ in a letter written to council leaders.
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A key part of the proposed fair funding formula must be removed due to ‘serious issues', London Councils has demanded.
The group said the relative needs formula for children's services put forward by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has ‘questionable overall robustness and accuracy'.
Analysis from the National Children's Bureau and data consultancy Public Alchemy, commissioned by London Councils, found £1.5bn of funding share could be redistributed away from the capital.
London Councils said: ‘Until this formula can be properly road-tested and scrutinised by the sector, it should not be used in MHCLG's funding reforms.'
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The Right to Buy (RTB) scheme resulted in councils handing over £82bn to tenants, think tank says.
According to a report by the Common Wealth think tank, the discounted sale of houses through the RTB scheme since 1980 has seen councils hand ‘£39bn in cash terms, or £82bn in today’s money’ to tenants.
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Local councils say they cannot afford “astronomical sums” being charged by private companies for the care of learning disabled and autistic people, as ITV News uncovers allegations of neglect at two providers.
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Kent CC leader Linden Kemkaran (Ref) has written to the government requesting a six month extension for their final proposal on local government reorganisation.
Cllr Kemkaran told a committee meeting dedicated to LGR yesterday that it is “utterly preposterous” that the area has to finalise its plans on disbanding the county council, the unitary Medway Council and the 12 districts and creating new unitaries in four months’ time.
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Kent CC's Reform UK leader has asked officers to draw up a detailed options appraisal for a single unitary with three divisions.
The idea was proposed by the council's deputy cabinet member for finance and cross-cabinet activity, Christopher Hespe.
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More than 49 local authorities have been warned they will lose out the most from fair funding review.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government has written to a group of 41 districts and eight London boroughs warning they would be offered the lowest minimum transition protection measures of all the local authorities.
The fair funding review consultation includes the option of a 0% cash minimum funding floor to protect “the vast majority”, which would guarantee that councils’ funding would remain at its current level until the end of 2028-29.
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Cambridge City Council has approved proposals for a unitary council with majority support from councillors.
The vote saw council members advocate for the establishment of a Greater Cambridge unitary authority, which could result in Cambridgeshire’s current seven councils being replaced.
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With each passing year the case for funding reform has sharpened as structural pressures and funding gaps have become more acute. Until this year, the system seemingly evolved to divert funding away from the most deprived areas who receive the least against their assessed need.
The Fair Funding Review 2.0 lays out long-awaited changes. Total funding available won't increase and there are big changes planned around where it will go – towards more deprived areas and away from shire districts and some London boroughs. Whilst this blueprint is understood, the measurements remain unclear. There is helpful insight into indicative individual changes in need, but no full exemplification.
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The Government has faced calls for higher pay and better conditions for social care workers as the number of British recruits has continued to fall.
Skills for Care's annual workforce data showed the number of international recruits halved from 105,000 in 2023-24 to 50,000 2024-25.
With the Government having enforced a ban on international workers from this month, the number of British workers fell by 3%, or 30,000.
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Local authorities should be given the power to revalue properties in their area ahead of a long-term overhaul of council tax, MPs said yesterday.
The House of Commons' Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee called for a wholesale review of local government funding that may even include the replacement of council tax.
MPs said until then local authorities should be able to review property bands, agree rates for each band, and apply or remove discounts and premiums.
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A Reform UK councillor has been confirmed as the country’s youngest permanent council leader.
Councillor George Finch,19, was yesterday elected as the full-time leader of Warwickshire County Council.
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Local government employers and the Unison and GMB trade unions have agreed a pay deal for the sector.
In a joint letter from local government employers and the two unions, council chief executives have been told both sides have agreed on a 3.2% pay increase for this financial year, backdated to April, covering chiefs and most other council workers.
Employers have also indicated that Unite, the third union in negotiations have refused to formally sign up to the agreement. In an email to councils they said Unite had ‘refused to have its details included in the pay agreement circular' for a ‘fifth consecutive year'.
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Prime Minister Keir Starmer has claimed there is ‘lots of housing’ that can be used to provide temporary accommodation across local authorities.
Sir Keir Starmer yesterday told the Commons Liaison Committee that he is ‘furious at the last Government for leaving tens of thousands of asylum seekers unprocessed, with nowhere to live, other than accommodation paid for by the taxpayer’.
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Reform UK candidate Liz Williams has filed a petition to the High Court claiming her loss in May's dead heat election in Worcestershire County Council’s Littletons division was fraudulent.
She lost out after being tied on 889 votes with Green Party candidate Hannah Robson, who was eventually elected following a drawing of lots.
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The Commons’ Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has called for the Government to give local authorities more control over the council tax in their areas, including the power for individual councils to revalue properties in their area, define property bands, set the rates for those bands, and apply discounts. The report says that devolving fiscal powers and responsibility to local authorities, must be part of any fix to the local government finance system. Cllr Pete Marland, Chair of the LGA’s Economy and Resources Board, said: “A sustainable, long-term financial model for local government must lead to all councils having adequate resources to meet growing cost and demand pressures.”
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The Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has appointed Sir James Cleverly as Shadow Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary in a reshuffle of her senior team.
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The LGA’s recent analysis about the growing gap between rents and Local Housing Allowance rates, which found there is a funding gap of around £700 million over the last five year, was put to the Prime Minister in his Liaison Committee appearance yesterday.
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Angela Rayner is pushing for councils to be given new powers to tax tourists. The Deputy Prime Minister has argued that councils should be given the power to tax visitors’ hotel stays, as a record 43 million international visits to the UK are expected this year, on top of domestic travel within the country. However, it is said that Treasury officials are opposed to a tourism tax amid fears it would be a fresh blow for hospitality businesses.
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End of life charities Marie Curie and Hospice UK have called for all people with a terminal illness to be exempt from paying council tax, following Manchester City Council’s implementation of the policy, in what is believed to be the first authority to do so. The LGA said councils would no doubt look at the scheme with interest as they have some discretion over council tax discounts.
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South Cambridgeshire DC has decided to permanently adopt a four-day week after a 27-month trial involving 700 staff.
The trial – the first by a council in the UK – showed the four-day week saved £400,000 per year, with job applications increasing by 123% and job retention increasing by 43%.
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Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has accused some council officials of obstructing the work of his councillors.
Last month Warwickshire CC's chief executive Monica Fogarty refused a request from the 18-year-old Reform leader of her council to remove a Pride flag from County Hall.
Farage told the BBC: ‘At the moment, we're finding that we're very, very hamstrung. We're going into existing administrations, we're facing obstructionism in many places and Warwickshire is a very, very good example.
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The head of Reform UK’s Doge unit Zia Yusuf has said local authorities the party controls will not be able to reduce council tax, contradicting earlier claims of potential cuts by its local leaders.
‘I think anyone who looked at the numbers knows that the idea of council tax coming down is not going to happen, given the pressures in terms of social care’, said Yusuf in an interview with the website Politico.
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In a report, the Public Accounts Committee said there remains a “very long way to go” in clarifying how much tax was owed to the exchequer by billionaires, despite the volume of information on their wealth which was publicly available.
Calling on HMRC to publish its plan for increasing the sums raised from the super-rich, the committee said the tax paid by the wealthiest had a disproportionately large impact on public finances.
“A billionaire has wealth and assets 500 times greater than a wealthy individual who just meets HMRC’s threshold for the wealthy population and so has huge potential on their own to affect the tax gap, and how much revenue is available for public spending,” it said.
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Nigel Farage has accused some council officials of obstructing the work of Reform UK councillors, as he defended the way the party is running local authorities.
Reform gained control of 10 councils in May's local elections in England.
But the party's leader told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that in some areas Reform councillors were being "hamstrung" by existing bureaucracies.
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Railways and health are areas where the English Devolution & Community Empowerment Bill is cause for disappointment, writes the associate dean, School of Public Policy, at the LSE.
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The government has announced major changes voter ID rules that will see UK-issued bank cards accepted at polling stations.
Furthermore, digital options will support voters and polling station staff – including allowing accepted IDs such as the Veteran Card and UK driving licence when they become available in digital format.
A new digital voter authority certificate will be created to ensure electoral registration officers can meet the digital needs of voters, reduce printing costs and ensure faster delivery.
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Thurrock Council will put forward its own local government reorganisation business case, after concluding that the two other proposals being developed for the county would not best serve its interests.
Until now Thurrock’s position has been to “reserve judgement”, council papers produced ahead of a cabinet meeting next week said.
But now the leader Lynn Worrall (Lab) has “instructed officers to explore a four-unitary model for Greater Essex”.
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All six areas involved in the devolution priority programme have met the tests to establish combined authorities next year, but only four will hold inaugural mayoral elections in May.
In a written ministerial statement this lunchtime, local government minister Jim McMahon said mayoral elections for Cumbria and Cheshire & Warrington would be delayed until 2027 to align with council elections.
The delays follow requests to do so from the councils involved. It means those elections in 2027 are likely to be held under the supplementary vote system under changes being introduced by the English Devolution & Community Empowerment Bill currently going through parliament.
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The Government has announced its plans to lower the voting age to 16 in time for the next general election. It also pledged other changes to the electoral system, such as expanding forms of voter ID, moving towards automatic voter registration, and tightening rules on political donations to protect against foreign interference. LGA Chair Cllr Louise Gittins said it is “encouraging to see efforts both to improve registration rates and lower the barriers to voting that some people experience”. Cllr Gittins also said it is vital the Government works with councils “to ensure that the introduction of significant changes is fair, secure and properly resourced” and that councils need more support to combat the impacts of abuse and intimidation on candidates, “including more consistent policing and a review of harassment offences against candidates and elected members”.
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Britain’s spending watchdog has refused to sign off the Government’s accounts for the second year in a row, which it said was due to late and inadequate filing by English councils on their finances.
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UK inflation rose to 3.6 per cent last month, up from 3.4 per cent in May, with the increase driven by motor fuel and food price rises.
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Council employers have unanimously reaffirmed their April offer of a 3.2% pay increase as ‘full and final' despite unions urging them to better their proposal.
Trade union Unite's officer for local government, Clare Keogh, warned the lack of movement would make her members ‘determined to press on with strike ballots'.
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Fiscal devolution would enable local authorities to raise £8.9bn a year for local services, a new report commissioned by the County Councils Network (CCN) has found.
The report also estimates that granting county and unitary councils the powers to administer and retain taxes would generate a yearly £4.4bn investment pot for top tier councils.
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Only one in five rural local authorities have planning targets for building new social homes despite a shortage of new houses in rural areas.
A new report by CPRE has found that nearly 80% of rural councils have consistently under-supplied new homes compared to the number of new households.
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Council leaders are working together in a bid to find common ground in response to the government’s plans for local government reorganisation (LGR) in Lancashire.
The government wants to scrap all 15 Lancashire councils, where there is currently two unitaries, one county and 12 districts, and replace them with larger unitary authorities.
But unlike other areas of the country, where one or perhaps two clear preferences have emerged, debate is still raging across the county.
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A survey by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) has found that councils in England recorded their highest social care overspend in a decade - £774?million by March 2025. The findings highlight that underfunding could jeopardise the Government’s 10-year plan for the NHS and the shift towards prevention and neighbourhood-based care. Cllr David Fothergill, Chairman of the LGA Community Wellbeing Board said that the survey showed how “councils are caught in the impossible position of having to choose between meeting people’s complex care needs and supporting other people’s wellbeing to prevent their needs from escalating.”
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The leader of Reform UK-controlled Kent County Council has urged the Government to rethink its plans to reduce health and social care visas to the UK.
Council leader Linden Kemkaran has written to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Minister for Care Stephen Kinnock to raise ‘grave concerns’ about 'unsustainable' proposals in the new Immigration Bill.
Co-signed by cabinet member for adult social care, Diane Morton, the letter highlights in particular plans to close the Social Care Worker Visa route to overseas recruitment for new applicants from 22 July 2025.
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Five year olds in England with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are now an average of 20.1 months behind their peers - prompting calls for urgent investment in early years, reforms to the SEND system, and enhanced funding to prevent lifelong disadvantage .
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Chancellor Rachel Reeves will today be unveiling a new scheme, designed to help up to 200,000 vulnerable children on issues such as school attainment, youth reoffending and homelessness. The £500 million Better Futures Fund scheme will run for 10 years and will bring government, local communities and charities together to support children.
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Councils across England have warned they do not have funding for extra workers, vehicles and bins in order to roll out weekly food waste collections by the March 2026 deadline. Cllr Adam Hug, environment spokesperson for the LGA, said councils need “local flexibility on how this service is delivered, alongside adequate funding and support”.
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Kent CC chief executive Amanda Beer has instructed council officers to “remain apolitical” amid controversy over a proposed transgender book ban.
In an email to staff, seen by LGC, Ms Beer called for “professionalism” as it is “the greatest strength” council officers have and advised it was “not appropriate for any of us to engage in politically focused social media exchanges and political debates”.
She told staff that senior management would be working to “correct fundamental inaccuracies that appear in the media” but “the organisation cannot and will not provide any further comment on the personal or political views of any of our elected members of the cabinet”.
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The supplementary vote system will be reintroduced to elect mayors in a move that is expected to reduce the chances of success for Reform UK.
Ministers hope to move back from first-past-the-post from 2027 onwards under a key measure in the 300-page English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which is expected to be introduced into the House of Commons early this afternoon.
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Reform-controlled Derbyshire CC has agreed to back a two unitary model with a north south configuration.
The decision overturns the previous Conservative-led administration's preferred interim option submitted to the Government in February for the county council and eight district and borough councils in Derbyshire to combine into one county unitary authority for the area.
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An investment of £5bn is needed to boost UK high streets and city centres, think tank says.
A new report by Centre for Cities, titled Checking out: The varying performance of high streets across the country, reveals the regional inequalities across UK high streets and their vacancy rates.
According to the research, regions such as Bradford and Newport have nearly one in five shops empty in their city centres, compared to London and Cambridge’s estimated one in 10.
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West Northamptonshire Council is set to become the first Reform-led local authority to scrap its net zero targets in a bid to “prioritise practical, realistic projects.”
At a cabinet meeting next Wednesday members will be urged to approve a motion “to no longer retain the current targets for achieving net zero carbon emissions: to be net zero in its own operations by 2030 and for residents and businesses by 2045.”
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The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill has been published. As well as legislating for local government reorganisation and handing new powers to mayors on housing, economic growth, planning and licensing, the Bill puts a requirement on local authorities to put in place "effective neighbourhood governance" and will create a new Local Audit Office. LGA Chair Cllr Louise Gittins said it was "critical" that all councils were "enabled to play a meaningful role in devolution and driving growth". She added: "Councils across the country are deeply invested in and vital to the success of English devolution.
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Taxis to school for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) can cost more than £100,000 a year for a single pupil, figures show. Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the system is “unsustainable”. It comes after the LGA estimated the overall cost of SEND transport to school would cost £2 billion this year, up from £654,000 a decade ago.
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Plans for the national Local Audit Office has been set out in the English Devolution & Community Empowerment Bill.
If the bill is enacted, this new body would take on duties from existing bodies for the appointment of auditors, the code of audit practice, the fees and overseeing the regulatory framework.
According to the explanatory notes on the bill, the LAO would have the power to keep a register of audit providers or designate an external registration body to hold such register. It would also have the ability to “establish or support a firm which could act as a public provider of audit”.
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The UK economy shrank in May, contracting for the second month in a row. The economy contracted by 0.1 per cent, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
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The Reform UK leader of Kent CC has revealed potential savings of £40m in her first full council speech.
Linden Kemkaran used the meeting to outline work already done by her party to identify savings and help reduce the council’s £744m debt. Kent’s budget for the 2025-26 financial year includes a net revenue budget requirement of £1.5bn.
She told a packed council chamber that the debt had already been reduced by £16m in the six weeks since Reform swept to power in May’s local elections.
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Trade union Unite has voted to suspend Angela Rayner’s membership over her role in the Birmingham bin strike.
More than 800 delegates voted on whether to re-examine their relationship with the deputy prime minister, Birmingham City Council leader John Cotton (Lab) and other councillors in an emergency motion that passed at the union’s policy conference in Brighton this morning.
The politicians have been suspended from their roles at the union due to claims they are “effectively firing and rehiring” bin refuse workers, and “bringing the union into disrepute”.
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Council tax could have to rise by more than 27 per cent in parts of London to cover Labour’s decision to redirect funding to the north of England, ministers have been warned.
Eight inner London councils have told Angela Rayner that cuts to their support could mean hiking council tax for residents to cover costs.
Last month Rayner, the deputy prime minister, set out plans for a “progressive” redistribution of local authority funding designed to ensure that more Whitehall money goes to areas with the greatest needs.
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Local government needs to scale back what it does to focus on “delivering the essentials”, Reform UK’s most senior council leader has told LGC.
In his first interview as the party’s group leader on the Local Government Association, Stephen Atkinson also called for a review of “well meaning policies” he claimed were interfering with councils delivery of services and insisted the national party was not telling councils what to do locally.
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The two-tier system created in 1974 is “sensible” and local government reorganisation would lead people to “disengage” with democracy, the country’s most senior Reform UK councillor has told LGC.
Stephen Atkinson, the party’s group leader on the Local Government Association, told LGC the party’s position came from an “intellectual point of view”.
“Metropolitan unitaries all have a very small footprint because of the population density so they can achieve the advantages of place setting, being a civic champion, [having a sense] of history and identity and the advantage of having the strategic services because of the size of the population,” he said.
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Moving towards more fiscal devolution is something the deputy prime minister is supportive of, but said it must come with robust “guard rails”.
Angela Rayner appeared before the Commons’ housing, communities & local government committee earlier today to answer questions about the Spending Review’s implications for her department.
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The deputy prime minister has faced a grilling from MPs over the extent of the government’s reliance on council tax to boost core spending power for councils.
Appearing in front of the Commons select committee on Housing, Communities & Local Government this afternoon, Angela Rayner addressed questions on the true core spending power increase for local authorities outlined in the most recent Spending Review.
Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found 80% of the 2.6% real-terms annual growth in core spending power over the spending review period is projected to be from council tax.
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Ministers are concerned about surging costs for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), while the number of children with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) has also increased by 71 per cent since 2018. The LGA and the County Councils Network previously said: “It is not hyperbole to say that it is becoming increasingly clear that SEND represents an existential threat to the financial sustainability of local government.” The LGA also found that more than half of councils which support SEND children would become insolvent overnight if special needs debts were brought back on to their main balance sheets.
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Ministers are reportedly looking at significant changes to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system which would remove the requirement for individual care plans for pupils. A plan to increase the number of places in SEND units at mainstream schools is expected to eventually phase out the need for individual education, health and care plans (EHCPs) over time, although individual care plans are likely to remain for those with the most complex needs.
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Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has described Kent County Council's spending on home to school transport as ‘beyond belief’.
On a visit to the council he said, ‘There are things called parents who for as long as modern times remember have had the aggravation of getting their kids to school.’
He acknowledged that there would be exceptions for children with special educational needs, according to the BBC.
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Up to 1,000 Best Start Family Hubs will be rolled out across every area of the country, to provide help with parenting skills, early development and childcare, alongside £400 million of extra funding for early years and reception classes. The hubs and early years support will be linked up through the Government's “Best Start in Life” strategy - which aims to make sure tens of thousands of children are ready for school at age 5. Cllr Arooj Shah, Chair of the LGA’s Children and Young People Board, said: “Councils want to ensure every child gets the best start in life, and we are pleased government has acted on our call to expand family hubs to all local authorities. Family hubs are an important opportunity for councils and partners to support families and to help them gain access to a range of vital services in their local area. We want to ensure the expansion sees fully integrated local support for communities. To do this, we need long term, sustainable funding, and local flexibility to ensure services meet local need.”
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The Government has set out proposed legislation to reform Right to Buy, which could increase the qualifying period for tenants to buy their property from 3 to 10 years and exempt newly built social homes for 35 years, ensuring councils are not losing homes before they have recovered the costs of building them. In a written statement, Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook said a new Council Housebuilding Skills and Capacity Programme, backed by £12 million of funding in 2025/26 would encourage local authorities to train staff to build their own homes. He added: “The Programme will enable the LGA to provide centralised training and guidance to councils to upskill their existing workforces and to expand its successful Pathways to Planning programme to help recruit graduates ready to undertake training to become qualified surveyors and project managers.”
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MPs, campaigners and parents have voiced concern at the Government’s overhaul of special needs education for children in England. A letter to the Guardian, signed by dozens of special needs and disability charities says parents fear the reforms may restrict or abolish the education, health and care plans (EHCPs) that more than 600,000 children and young people rely on for individual support.
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Experts have raised concerns over the “commodification” of vulnerable foster children as analysis reveals almost a quarter of all foster places in England are now provided by private equity-backed companies making millions of pounds in profits. Analysis for the Guardian by Common Wealth, a thinktank, found independent fostering agencies are making millions via public funding from councils to provide placements for foster children, while foster carers struggle to pay bills.
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People who depend on cars to get around are more likely to feel lonely and disconnected than those who have access to good public transport, a UK study has found. Analysing official statistics on loneliness and transport usage, researchers from the Social Market Foundation said there was a clear correlation between people without decent transport alternatives and those who describe themselves as feeling left out or without companionship.
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Young people living in the most deprived stretches of England’s coastline are three times more likely to be living with an undiagnosed mental health condition than their peers inland, according to new research. This “coastal mental health gap” means that young people in these towns are suffering disproportionately, often alone and with no help, said researchers from Essex University’s centre for coastal communities.
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The Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, announced at the LGA Annual Conference in Liverpool plans to reduce red tape for councils, as well as give rural councils more money to pay for the cost of being in remote areas.
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An article discusses the financial challenges around handing more control of local bus networks to councils. A National Audit Office report last week warned about putting more costs on councils that have already run up a collective £140 billion of debt. An LGA spokesperson said: “Continuing with an outdated funding system for running bus services makes it difficult to attract operators to run certain routes, despite proposed extra franchising powers.”
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An expert review suggests that schools in England need to implement three tiers of support for pupils with special needs, including universal support for all pupils, targeted intervention “for pupils not making expected progress”, and specialist support “for pupils with persistent barriers to learning”. The review highlights the need for complex and detailed changes in schools to accommodate more children with SEND
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A leading Labour councillor has warned the capital will lose hundreds of millions of pounds unless the fair funding review takes house prices into consideration.
Speaking at the Local Government Association conference this week, chair of London Councils Claire Holland said while the boroughs “absolutely support” the “whole aim” of the fair funding review “it is vital that we get this right because it’s not just impacting our residents but it is about enabling us”.
“If we are going to create a system that is genuinely fair and genuinely distributes resources on the basis of need, we do have to look at how we measure deprivation and get those formulae right,” she said.
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Leicestershire County Council’s cabinet has signed off on the Reform UK-led local authority's new flag flying policy.
The council’s previously agreed schedule was set to include flags that mark LGBTQ+ Pride Month, Windrush Day and others.
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Government support overcoming place-specific barriers to growth could help local authorities in England unleash £276bn of untapped economic potential, new research suggests.
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A report into South Cambridgeshire District Council’s four-day week trial has found most of the monitored services either improved or were maintained.
The trial requires council staff to carry out 100% of their work, in 80% of their contracted hours without a reduction in their pay.
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More than £1.5bn worth of capital funding pots are to be merged to help free councils from ‘needless bureaucracy’, according to deputy prime minister Angela Rayner.
The Levelling Up Fund, Town Deals and Pathfinder Funds – worth more than £1.5bn in total – will become a single pot and the 150 reporting requirements that come with them will be reduced to less than 50, the deputy PM said.
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Any funding reform that resulted in more money going to London boroughs would be ‘politically indefensible', a shadow minster has said.
David Simmonds, shadow local government minister and former Hillingdon LBC councillor, said London boroughs faced some of the biggest gaps between demand and funding in the country.
However, speaking at the Local Government Association (LGA) conference in Liverpool, Simmonds said it would be ‘politically indefensible' for them to emerge as big winners from the fair funding review in the current political climate.
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The previous Conservative government asked “too much” of local government and failed to treat councils as “equal partners,” the shadow minister has said.
Speaking at the Local Government Association’s conference, Kevin Hollinrake said: “I’m not here to claim our record in government was perfect. It was not.
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As Sir Mark Lowcock embarks on the 2025-26 CIPFA presidency, he brings a welcome sense of perspective and emphasises the institute’s capacity to be a voice for the public sector.
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Kent CC’s new Reform UK leader tells Andrew Vaux about the ‘terrific whirlwind’ since being elected, ahead of initial ‘Doge’ savings being presented to full council later this week.
Linden Kemkaran is definitely a woman on a mission.
Not so long ago, she was enjoying her career as a broadcast journalist with the BBC.
Now, with little political experience behind her, she has been thrown into the political spotlight as one of Reform UK’s new council leaders following the party’s dramatic victory in last month’s local elections.
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The Government is to review councils' statutory responsibilities and merge funding pots in a bid to cut bureaucracy and red tape.
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner announced the merging of the Levelling Up Fund, Town Deals and Pathfinder Funds in her speech at the Local Government Association Conference in Liverpool today.
Combining the capital funds, worth a combined £1.5bn, will reduce 150 reporting requirements to less than 50.
Rayner also announced a piloting of pooling budgets between public services focused on crisis prevention and a review of council's statutory duties.
It will involve the use of artificial intelligence to analyse 20,000 pieces of legislation, such as those governing councils' delivery of care services, and identify any ‘unnecessary burdens'.
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Jaymey McIvor, director of local government at Reform’s head office and a member of Epping Forest DC and Essex CC, delivered the party’s first ever plenary speech at the Local Government Association’s annual conference.
Following this May’s elections Reform gained enough councillors to form its own group on the LGA and Cllr McIvor predicted the party “soon will be the largest group on the LGA”.
Cllr McIvor told the audience: “Our mission is to save Britain, and right now, we are trying to do all we can to save our many broken councils.”
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Council spending on home to school transport for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is predicted to hit nearly £2bn this year.
The new analysis by the Local Government Association (LGA), published today at the LGA Annual Conference, represents a 200% increase on the amount spent in 2015/16.
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The Government has announced plans to build 180,000 new social homes by 2035 as part of the effort to tackle the shortage in temporary accommodation.
Delivered through the £39bn new Social and Affordable Homes Programme, these new houses are part of a package aimed at delivering 300,000 social and affordable homes.
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A government decision to close without warning two schemes for Afghans to apply for sanctuary could increase the number of illegal migrants heading to Britain on small boats, according to a Home Office policy paper.
The potential decision by desperate Afghans forced to flee the Taliban by illegal means would result in “wider costs” to taxpayers, the explanatory memorandum to a statement of changes to the immigration rules outlines.
There was a deliberate choice to end the schemes with “no notice” to “prevent a spike in last-minute applications and mitigate against an increase to the backlog of outstanding applications”, officials admitted.
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Almost 130,000 households in taxpayer-subsidised homes are among the top earners in the country, Telegraph analysis shows.
Official figures reveal that 3.2pc of those renting from local authorities and housing associations earned at least £71,344 last year.
It represents approximately 128,000 of the four million social housing households in England between 2023 and 2024. Some 315,000 were found to earn at least £46,176 a year.
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Changes to the integrated care boards outlined in leaked documents pose a “threat” to the protection of vulnerable people, an executive director of adult social care has told LGC.
A draft of the government’s 10-year health plan, uncovered by the HSJ, reveals ICBs will be “encouraged” to align their boundaries with the combined authorities with scrutiny powers moving from upper-tier councils to elected mayors.
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GMB members have rejected a 3.2% pay offer from the National Employers, which negotiates pay on behalf of 350 local authorities in England.
The union balloted almost 150,000 school staff, carers, and other council staff over the 2025-26 offer – with a majority of 77% rejecting the deal.
GMB local government and schools committees then unanimously agreed for the union to demand a meeting with the local government employers.
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Warwickshire CC's chief executive has refused a request from the 18-year-old Reform UK leader of her council to remove a Pride flag from County Hall.
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With council workers under threat, Mike Short, head of local government at UNISON, questions the value of Nigel Farage's unwanted audits.
With budget cuts looming after the Chancellor's spending review, councils face another round of difficult choices on how to allocate scarce resources. So, it's no surprise many staff at Reform UK-led local authorities feel unjustly targeted – threatened, even – by the party’s controversial efficiency hit squads.
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The “saga” with the backlog of local government audits showed it’s a "serious mistake to take effective audit for granted”, said the head of the National Audit Office.
Speaking at Public Finance Live in Birmingham yesterday, Gareth Davies, auditor and comptroller general at the NAO, said it was “embarrassing” that the backlog in local government audits had meant it was “impossible for me to give an opinion on the UK's whole of government accounts”.
He said the steps being taken through backstop dates and the creation of a new Local Audit Office were sensible and that “we need to rebuild the capacity and capability for local government audits if public confidence is to be fully recovered”.
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Councils are required to publish reports on pothole repairs by today as part of a £1.6 billion government initiative aimed at improving road conditions. Cllr Adam Hug, transport spokesperson for the LGA, said the extra £500 million for roads could be used more effectively without “additional bureaucratic hurdles that create uncertainty”. Cllr Hug said: “This funding uncertainty stops highways authorities from planning and commissioning works as cost effectively as possible, or from causing the least disruption to road users.”
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The Covid inquiry is to start looking at the impact of the pandemic on care services for elderly and disabled people today.
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The Government is to reportedly provide funding to set up youth clubs, libraries and community grocers in left-behind areas. Funding is set to be allocated to hundreds of areas in the coming years as part of Labour’s replacement for the last government’s “levelling up” agenda.
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A report by the National Audit Office says local bus services have continued to decline despite attempts by successive governments to bolster investment in services. Cllr Adam Hug, LGA Transport spokesperson said: “As this report shows, a lack of resources for councils and funding for bus services has been holding back improvements … The Government’s plans for extra support for councils who want to take up franchising and a long-term funding commitment as set out in the spending review will help.”
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The total amount of council tax arrears owed by households across Britain has nearly reached £8.3bn, an analysis of Government figures has revealed.
Data published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government show that council tax arrears in England have reached £6.6bn.
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A legal expert has warned Reform UK councils will not be able to slash local authority pensions.
Reform plans to cut ‘overgenerous' council pensions and exclude new hires from Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) membership.
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A Reform UK councillor has stepped down from his role as Warwickshire County Council leader due to health challenges, leaving 18-year-old deputy in charge.
Cllr Rob Howard yesterday resigned from the position after being elected in May, when Reform UK’s local election success saw the party form a minority administration in Warwickshire.
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Drivers were fined nearly £1 million from just 36 yellow box junctions last year after councils were given new enforcement powers, figures show.
The RAC, which obtained the statistics through Freedom of Information (FoI) requests, said the “enormously high number” of penalty charge notices (PCNs) should “send alarm bells ringing in council offices”.
Yellow boxes are used in an attempt to ensure traffic flows smoothly through busy junctions.
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Nearly 100,000 adults were unable to access social care due to funding cuts, according to a new report by the Institute for Government, which also shows that the number of people in England receiving care has fallen faster than the country's disability rate.
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The government plans to abolish the committee system and prevent the creation of new directly elected council mayors.
In a written ministerial statement, local government minister Jim McMahon said new legislation would require councils with a committee system to transition to a leader and cabinet model, and would ban the creation of any new directly elected council mayors.
While Mr McMahon said the government has no plans to abolish the 13 existing "legacy" directly elected council mayors, new measures will be introduced to "ensure a more consistent approach by not facilitating the creation of new ones".
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An end-of-life charity has called on councils across England to scrap council tax for people living with a terminal illness.
Marie Curie’s call follows Manchester City Council’s proposal to change its discretionary council tax policy to support people diagnosed with a terminal illness.
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Leading academics estimate that 90% of councillors could be lost due to local government reorganisation, in what they call a "hollowing out of local democracy".
According to the professors of local government Colin Copus and Steve Leach, if new unitary authorities in two-tier areas have populations of 500,000 then councillor numbers will decrease from around 12,000 to 1,200.
The stark claim comes from their report on the constitutional implications of the government’s directive to ensure local government reorganisation published today by think tank Localis.
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Online abuse and a lack of respect from the public are the biggest deterrents to people serving as councillors, an LGC survey has found.
More than half of respondents (52%) reported high levels of concern about the impact of abuse online, including via social media, on people deciding to stand as councillors in the first place or serving more than one term.
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Charity Barnardo’s has reported that over the past 15?years more than a third of family hubs and children’s centres have closed - alongside nearly £1.4?billion in funding cuts - resulting in a postcode lottery of support in England, while child poverty, mental health issues, and care entry rates have risen.
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Members of the trade union Unite have voted to reject this year's pay offer.
A total 84% of the union's council employee members who took part in the consultative ballot rejected the national employers offer of a 3.2% increase. The union was unable to give a figure for turnout in the ballot.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the pay offer "completely failed to address" how workers have had "years of real terms pay cuts".
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The Government has announced an eight-week consultation on a redistribution of local authority funding. Local government minister Jim McMahon said: “The formulae used to assess local authorities’ current needs, which are a decade out of date, will be updated to target money where it needs to go and ensure those places that have been overlooked get their fair share.” Cllr Pete Marland, LGA finance spokesperson, said: “Individual councils will need to know the implications and a transitional mechanism is crucial to avoid putting services at risk. Council finances remain under pressure and all councils need adequate resources to meet growing cost and demand pressures.”
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The statutory override, keeping high-needs deficits off council balance sheets, will now run until April 2028. The LGA has said more than half of councils risked becoming insolvent if the override ended next April as originally planned.
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Households could pay council tax bills over 12 months rather than 10 under council tax administration changes proposed by the Government. Under the plans, councils will have to wait longer before demanding a bill is paid in full and the costs charged to households through liability orders will be capped. Cllr Pete Marland, LGA finance spokesperson, said: "All councils already allow residents to pay council tax over a 12-month period, but we look forward to working with government on an approach that enables councils to invest in council tax collection practices that effectively balance the collection of vital revenues with measures that help those struggling to pay."
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Financial experts warn that the government's plans for how funding will be distributed between councils from 2026 could have a "very large" impact.
Ministers launched a consultation on the fair funding review on Friday which sets out the technical changes to the formulas that determine how much funding individual councils will get.
Kate Ogden, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said this such reform is "long-overdue" and "marks a return to the principle that if councils across the country set the same council tax rate, they should be able to afford to provide the same range and quality of services to their residents".
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Sector leaders are calling for special educational needs deficits to be written off in light of the government extending the accountancy loophole that keeps them off the books for another two years.
The government has confirmed an extension of the dedicated schools grant statutory override, which was due to end next year, to the end of 2027-28 as ministers launched a consultation on reforms to the funding formulas which determine councils' government funding.
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Adult social care disaggregation should not focus on scale, according to research published today.
The report by Impower for the District Councils' Network (DCN) found ‘no clear correlation between the scale of the organisation, population size and adult social care performance' and concluded that ‘some of the best-performing councils are amongst the smallest'.
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The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government will publish its consultation on local government funding reform today. It is expected to promise a cap on how much councils’ grant income can drop by, transitional protections for those that lose money, as well as extra weighting for rural and coastal areas with higher transport costs.
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The Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) report warns of looming financial cliff for councils — the Chartered Institute of Public finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) says government must act before time runs out.
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The accountancy loophole preventing local authorities from declaring effective bankruptcy due to special educational needs deficits will continue for two more years, the government is set to announce today.
The extension of the dedicated schools grant statutory override, which was due to end next year, to the end of 2027-28 comes as ministers prepares to launch a consultation on reforms to the funding formulas which determine councils' government funding.
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Local government minister Jim McMahon is "minded to" extend the intervention at Thurrock Council for another three years as its financial recovery "remains fragile".
This move comes in response to the latest report from the government-appointed commissioners, which Mr McMahon said "makes clear that the recovery remains fragile as the improvements still need to be embedded across the organisation".
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The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has told the Treasury to urgently address the estimated £5 billion deficit on high needs spending that will hit council balance sheets at the end of the financial year. Cllr Louise Gittins, LGA Chair, said the Government must “provide urgent clarity on how it plans to address high needs deficits”. She added: “Over half of councils have warned us they will become insolvent next year when the statutory override flexibility ends and we continue to urge the Government to write off these deficits.”
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Inflation has held at 3.4 per cent in the year to May, remaining the same as in April, according to the Office for National Statistics.
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Isle of Wight Council reportedly had to pay a private company £29,000 a week for the placement of a child with complex needs and behavioural problems after being unable to find an Ofsted-approved home. A High Court judge described the amount the company was charging as “eye watering”. The LGA has warned that that the number of children’s social care placements costing £10,000 or more a week has risen sharply over the past five years. There were 120 such placements in 2019, rising to 1,510 in 2023.
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The government’s ambitious local government reorganisation plans are “unengaged with reality,” the chair of the Commons' public accounts committee has told LGC.
Two-tier areas are in the process of drawing up plans for new unitary councils, but in its report – Local Government Financial Sustainability – published today, the committee highlights local government reorganisation (LGR) as a key area at risk due to the “financial cliff edge” faced by many local authorities.
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Surrey and West Sussex boundary changes could still be achieved despite the government’s rejection of an initial proposal for a new cross-border unitary authority.
The leaders of Crawley BC and Reigate & Banstead BC proposed forming a unitary council single unitary changing the borders of Surrey and West Sussex to remove the hard administrative boundary that cuts across the heart of the Gatwick Diamond.
Together the areas form a £13bn-plus economy - the largest economy in the sub-region and cojoined by the world’s busiest single-runway airport in Gatwick - and leaders believe the plan would maximise the future economic growth potential of our area.
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The Prime Minister has defended using council tax raising powers to increase local government core spending power in the Spending Review. Sir Kier Starmer said it will be up to individual councils to decide their council tax levels. The LGA said it estimated, before the Spending Review, that councils face a funding gap of more the £8 billion by 2028/29, which already assumed council tax increases of five per cent a year. It added: “All councils remain under severe financial pressure. Many will continue to have to increase council tax bills to try and protect services but still need to make further cutbacks.”
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The government has rejected the proposal for a new cross-border unitary centred around Gatwick Airport.
A bid for a unitary that would cover the geographical area of the airport by Reigate & Banstead BC in Surrey and Crawley BC in West Sussex will not be put forward as part of the local government reorganisation consultation in Surrey.
A spokesperson for Crawley BC said the council is "disappointed by this decision" and "we are also perplexed".
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Leader of the Government’s social care review of social care, Baroness Casey, has scrapped plans for cross-party talks, it has been reported.
The Telegraph said Baroness Casey would instead seek one-to-one meetings with representatives of opposition parties.
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Ministers have cancelled Surrey CC elections for a second year as they launched a consultation on reorganisation options for the county.
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner postponed 2025 elections for a year in February but today local government minister Jim McMahon said he expected the only elections in Surrey in May 2026 would be to the shadow unitaries, which would ‘go live' in April 2027.
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Nottinghamshire County Council, which is led by Reform UK, is set to carry out an ‘efficiency review’ in an attempt to find savings.
A council report said the review aims to 'provide assurance to Nottinghamshire residents about the extent to which financial management is robust, efficient, and provides value for money for the taxpayer.’
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The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government is required to make £50m in “efficiency” savings per year by the end of the Spending Review period.
Alongside the spending review last week, the Treasury published a list of government “department efficiency plans” which outline how much money each department is expected to save per year by 2028-29.
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The government will stop funding a multi-billion pound scheme to help decarbonise public sector buildings following the Spending Review.
Salix, a non-departmental public body wholly owned by the UK government, said the government “has taken the difficult decision to commit no further investment for the public sector decarbonisation scheme [PSDS] beyond currently awarded projects”.
Salix, which administers funds on behalf of the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero, said there will be no additional funding for the scheme, although all currently awarded projects in the scheme remain fully funded.
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Requests for data by Reform UK's DOGE unit are a ‘cyber-security disaster waiting to happen', shadow levelling up secretary Kevin Hollinrake has warned information commissioner John Edwards.
A letter from Reform to Kent CC – the first council to be visited by a team of auditors inspired by the US Government's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – asked council officers to provide them with extensive datasets, including contract data, correspondence on major procurements and whistleblowing reports relevant to financial matters. It advised Reform would ‘consider any obstruction of our councillors' duties to be gross misconduct'.
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Ever increasing costs and ongoing deficits caused by years of overspending on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) could push some councils into bankruptcy, council leaders have warned. The Government is expected to announce its immediate plans for the high needs deficit statutory override, which will expire next year. Cllr Tim Oliver, Chair of the County Councils Network, said: “The mounting SEND service deficits are the burning platform for many local authorities yet there was no resolution in the Spending Review."
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Speaking at the NHS Confederation conference, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has urged the NHS to “work better with local government”.
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Leaders of the 10 districts and the county council have all ruled out a single unitary for Hertfordshire.
The new leadership at the county council has halted all work on developing a business case for a county-wide unitary following the elections last month.
The Conservatives lost their majority and the Liberal Democrats are now the largest party at Hertfordshire CC but with no overall control.
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The absence of a narrative surrounding yesterday’s Spending Review means even the positive interventions will find few fans, write LGC editor Sarah Calkin
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Ms Reeves has said repeatedly that the Treasury had examined every department’s spending ambitions “line by line” in a detailed process known as a zero-based review.
However, Mr Johnson said virtually every department faced “exactly the same cut in its administration budgets” of 10pc over the next three years and then another 5pc in 2029-30.
During the IFS analysis of Ms Reeves’s spending review, he said this was “irrespective of [any] planned spending increase” for each department.
Visibly shrugging in the online event, Mr Johnson said: “That is not the result of a serious department by department analysis. I hesitate to accuse the Treasury of making up numbers, but…”
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One in 20 children in England now have an education, health and care plan (EHCP) after another 11 per cent yearly rise, new figures that will put more pressure on SEND reforms show.
The number of pupils with EHCPs is now 482,640 – the highest figure on record – and double the number in 2016.
The proportion of schoolchildren with a plan has now topped five per cent for the first time – rising from 4.8 per cent to 5.3 per cent in the last year.
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Local authorities will be forced to increase council tax and make further cuts despite some of the ‘positive’ funding commitments in the Spending Review, council chiefs say.
The Chancellor announced yesterday that there will be an additional £3.4bn of grant funding to the sector in 2028-29 compared to 2024-25, a real terms increase in core spending of 3.1% across the Spending Review period.
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In response to today’s Spending Review, CIPFA Chief Executive Owen Mapley said:
“The government’s Spending Review offers a mixed bag. While additional funding for the NHS and defence — both widely anticipated — has been confirmed, many unprotected areas will find little comfort in today’s announcements. For frontline services, significant pressures and concerns around long-term stability are likely to endure.
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Norfolk CC has set out plans for a single new unitary council for the area, which its analysis says could save £32m a year.
As part of local government reorganisation final proposals for Norfolk need to be submitted to government in September.
A report – which will be presented to councillors next week – outlines how a single authority would save £32m per year and repay start-up cost within 12 months, as well as avoid disruption, risks, and costs caused by splitting up county-wide services.
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Councils will receive an annual uplift of 3.1 per cent in “core spending power”, following the Spending Review. The calculation assumes council tax will continue to rise at previous rates during the next three years. LGA Chair Cllr Louise Gittins said it was positive that the Spending Review delivered “on some key LGA asks” and highlighted funding announced for children’s services and SEND, increased investment in affordable homes and the commitment to a 10-year rent settlement. Cllr Gittins added: “A re-commitment to multi-year local government funding settlements is essential for financial planning, while efficiency and innovation continues across local government. However, all councils will remain under severe financial pressure. Many will continue to have to increase council tax bills to try and protect services but still need to make further cutbacks.”
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The chancellor will confirm the budgets for each government department, as well as where she will invest billions in capital. But the Tories say this will be "a dangerous economic gamble that risks the country's financial future".
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Chancellor Rachel Reeves will deliver her Spending Review shortly, setting out the budgets for all government departments over the next few years
The NHS and defence are expected to get the biggest boost when Reeves lays out how taxpayers' money will be spent at 12:30 BST - here's how the day will unfold
But some government departments are likely to face real-terms cuts - and the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank warns "sharp trade-offs are unavoidable"
Reeves is also expected to announce £39bn to help build social and affordable housing over the next 10 years, as well as extending the £3 bus fare cap in England until 2027
Reeves has already said three quarters of pensioners will receive winter fuel payments, after a government U-turn, and free school meals will be expanded to 500,000 children whose parents are receiving Universal Credit
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Rough sleeping will be decriminalised next year under government plans to scrap a 200-year-old law.
Ministers are planning to scrap the Vagrancy Act, which outlaws rough sleeping in England and Wales.
The law was introduced in 1824 to deal with rising homelessness, but Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has called it "cruel and outdated".
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The most senior district councillor in the country has warned it could take up to a decade before savings from local government reorganisation are achieved.
Speaking to The MJ, the chairman of the District Councils' Network (DCN), Sam Chapman-Allen, said he thought ministers recognised reorganisation would initially cost money to push through, which would delay savings.
Last month Cllr Chapman-Allen's predecessor as DCN chairman, Lord Fuller, warned the Government ‘appeared to be sleepwalking' into a pensions payout for town hall bosses with ‘multibillion-pound implications'.
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The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has convened a reorganisation advisory group to provide expert advice and critical challenge on implementation.
It is understood the group includes individuals, including Birmingham City Council's lead commissioner and former local authority chief executive Max Caller, and organisations with reorganisation expertise, including those who have undergone or are currently undergoing unitarisation.
MHCLG promised it would publish terms of reference and members of the group.
The department has also co-convened with the Local Government Association a sector support steering group.
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Health services could deteriorate under proposed changes to Integrated Care Boards, a senior local government figure has warned.
A blueprint document has advised the boards to consider mergers and reduce headcount as part of a broader 10-year plan to modernise the health service, which has sparked concerns across local government after the sector was largely bypassed.
ICBs have been told their new geographical boundaries should pay regard to local government devolution, with councils having only one in their area and populations no smaller than one million.
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Local authorities will be forced to make ‘deep cuts to important services' if the Government pushes ahead with resetting the business rates baseline in 2026-27, the District Councils' Network (DCN) has warned.
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One third of council figures think setting the population threshold at 500,000 is 'about right' but 40% think it is too large, according to LGC research.
LGC’s latest Confidence Survey asked for views on the government's local government reorganisation plans, including whether they agreed with the government's proposed minimum population size for new unitary councils.
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There is no evidence of widespread waste in the services putting most pressure on council finances, the chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy has said.
Owen Mapley’s comments come after Reform UK broke though in last month’s local elections on a platform that included cutting “council waste” and sending in taskforces modelled on Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) into the authorities they now control.
Speaking to LGC, Mr Mapley said: “I absolutely think the reality of local government funding, after 15 years of constraint funding and unconstrained increases in demand, is that there are unlikely to be significant sums that are universally agreed as waste.”
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer presented her Spending Review to Parliament on Wednesday 11 June.
Full details and supporting documents can be accessed on the HM Treasury website.
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Councils can expect their core spending power to rise by 2.6% in real terms between 2025-26 and 2028-29, Treasury documents published the lunchtime reveal.
Documents published after chancellor Rachel Reeves’ speech say overall core spending power for councils is set to increase to £79.3bn. This includes money councils can raise themselves and the Treasury's calculations assume a 3% core council tax referendum principle and a 2% adult social care precept.
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The government has announced a massive £39bn investment in social housing in its bid to build 1.5 million new homes this parliament.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves used her Spending Review to announce “the biggest cash injection to social and affordable housing in 50 years.”
Reeves told MPs social housing had been “neglected for too long” and outlined: “a new Affordable Homes Programme – in which I’m investing £39bn over the next decade.
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London will join the areas on course to get an integrated financial settlement from the government from next year, the Spending Review announced today.
The Greater London Authority will join mayoral authorities in North East, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Liverpool City Region in getting an integrated settlement from 2026?27.
These five authorities will join Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, that received their first integrated settlements this financial year.
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The government has named 25 “trailblazer neighbourhoods” that will receive funding up to £20m for “community-led regeneration and renewal” as part of today's Spending Review.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government said the areas would receive “long-term investment for communities and early support to prepare for investment from a dedicated team”.
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Chancellor Rachel Reeves has confirmed over £1bn of financial support towards reforms to children's social care and the special educational needs (Send) system today.
In the Spending Review, the Treasury allocated £760m towards making the Send system to "more inclusive and improve outcomes for all children and young people".
This week, a new report commissioned by the Local Government Association revealed how the Send system is “not working well for anyone in it” and at its most extreme, causes “long-term misery, stress and hardship for young people and their families”.
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The Chancellor has backed a fair pay agreement for social care workers in a Spending Review that failed to address many of the struggling care sector’s concerns.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced an increase to NHS funding of 3% a year, which means the health service gets £29bn extra a year.
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Deprived communities set to benefit from local growth funding, reveals Chancellor Reeves.
In today’s Spending Review, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced ‘investments in up to 350 deprived communities across the UK’.
Chancellor Reeves declared the local growth investments will be made into mayoral city regions in the North and Midlands, ‘completing the transition from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund’ through the long-term funding strategy.
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Councils will have to wait until the autumn for details of reforms to services for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).
The Treasury's Spending Review, published today, states the Government's approach ‘will be set out in a schools white paper in the autumn'.
This will include ‘details on supporting local authorities as the Government transitions to a reformed system as part of the upcoming local government funding reform consultation'.
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Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced the government's Spending Review, which outlines the day-to-day budgets for departments over the next three years. Here BBC correspondents analyse how some key services have fared and what the decisions may mean for you.
The government is staring down the barrel of ever-growing demand for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support. The Spending Review does not seem to address deficits racked up by councils supporting those children, but it does appear to have set aside around £700m to reform the system.
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A new report commissioned by the LGA reinforces the case for reforming the SEND system ahead of the Spending Review. It is calling for an overhaul of the current system, where while in some cases an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) will be appropriate, for most children they will get the support they need in schools, without needing an EHCP. It follows regional and national workshops with young people, parents and carers, and leaders of health, education settings and local government that discussed how the SEND system could be reformed. Cllr Arooj Shah, Chair of the LGA’s Children and Young People Board, said a new SEND system should be an “inclusive system where an EHCP is not necessary, with a sufficient workforce and investment in early intervention” while Cllr Tim Oliver, Chair of the County Councils Network, said the report’s proposals outline a “sustainable path forward with greater inclusion within mainstream schools and early years at its core”
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Rural bus services have decreased by 18% since 2019 due to insufficient transport funding in county and rural areas, new research reveals.
According to a report from the County Councils Network (CCN), one in five rural bus routes have disappeared over the last five years.
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The next round of the Brownfield Land Release Fund (BLRF) will not be allocated by councils bidding, The MJ has learnt.
Well-placed sources revealed the Government was considering a further round of the fund, an initiative aimed at transforming underused or derelict brownfield sites into housing developments, with cash to be allocated.
Across all rounds, the BLRF has supported at least 89 local authorities with more than 160 projects, providing nearly £100m to facilitate the release of land for about 8,600 homes.
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Reform UK's Zia Yusuf will return to the party to run its team tasked with scrutinising council finances days after quitting as chairman.
Yusuf resigned on Thursday, saying that getting a Reform government elected was not a ‘good use of my time'.
He was joined in leaving by tech entrepreneur Nathaniel Fried, who led the party's unit inspired by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the US.
In a statement on social media over the weekend, Yusuf said his decision to leave the party had been ‘born of exhaustion.'
Reform's DOGE unit has now expanded from Kent CC to Lancashire CC.
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More than a third of nurseries are already limiting the number of government-funded childcare hours they offer or are considering doing so due to spiralling costs.
A poll of 816 early years providers across England, conducted by the Early Education and Childcare Coalition and shared exclusively with The i Paper, paints a stark picture of a sector under severe financial strain.
Nearly one in five nurseries (18 per cent) report that they are currently operating at a loss, while almost one in ten (9 per cent) indicate that they are likely to close permanently within the next two years.
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Children in the most deprived areas of England are less likely to achieve good developmental goals by the age of five, according to the aid agency Unicef UK, which has urged ministers to lift the two-child benefit cap.
A report by the UN agency mapped every local authority area across England measuring its level of deprivation and a range of early childhood health and educational outcomes such as oral health, weight and A&E attendance.
The analysis found that children in England’s most deprived areas are over twice as far from achieving the government’s target of 75% of young children to reach a “good level of development”, compared with the country’s most affluent areas.
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Rachel Reeves in standoff over policing and council budgets days before spending review
Chancellor still at negotiating table on Sunday as Home Office demands more cash
Explainer: The winners and losers in Labour’s first spending review
Rowena Mason Whitehall editor
Mon 9 Jun 2025 00.02 BST
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Rachel Reeves has been locked in a standoff over the policing and council budgets just days before this week’s spending review, which is set to give billions to the NHS, defence and technology.
Yvette Cooper’s Home Office and Angela Rayner’s housing and local government ministry were the two departments still at the negotiating table on Sunday fighting for more cash, after weeks of trying to reach a settlement.
Whitehall sources said the policing budget would get real terms rises, but there was still disagreement over the level of investment needed for the Home Office to meet its commitments.
Rayner’s department is understood to have reached an agreement with the Treasury late on Sunday night after last-minute wrangling over housing, local councils and growth funds
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When Rachel Reeves delivers her long-awaited spending review on Wednesday, there will be one group of people holding their breath more than others – council leaders.
The Chancellor is widely anticipated to deliver real terms cuts to local government budgets this week, as she looks to focus increases in spending on health and defence.
Should the axe fall disproportionately on local government accounts, those working within the sector believe the prospect of more councils filing for bankruptcy will become all the greater.
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Town and parish councils have warned against potential restrictions on their tax-raising capabilities amid talk of more being created under reorganisation. Local government minister, Jim McMahon, has advised areas considering new parish councils to “think carefully about how they might be funded, to avoid putting further pressure on local authority finances and/or new burdens on the taxpayer”.
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The Government has said any child in England whose parents receive Universal Credit will be able to claim free school meals from September 2026. Parents on the credit will be eligible regardless of their income and the Government says the change will extend free school meals to 500,000 more pupils, which Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said would “help families who need it most”.
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The National Audit Office has found flaws with the developer contribution system that is undermining councils' ability to hold developers to account.
A gap in capacity and skills within councils compared to large developers is hampering funding negotiations to fund affordable homes and essential local infrastructure, a report published today revealed.
Councils are responsible for securing developer contributions through section 106 agreements or set a community infrastructure levy (CIL) but are faced with a power imbalance when up against large developer who have specialist negotiators.
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The government has committed to legislating for remote attendance at council meetings when “time allows” and announced that it will also require upper tier councils to have proxy voting schemes for full council.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government yesterday published its response to a consultation it carried out last year on remote meetings and proxy voting for councils.
This confirmed that ministers would proceed with necessary changes to allow remote attendance at meetings, something many in the sector have campaigned for.
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Councils have been warned to brace for grant cuts after next week's Spending Review despite deputy prime minister Angela Rayner's attempts to shield the sector.
Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think-tank has found that, if the Government protects health and defence, real-terms cuts to other departments in the coming years would be inevitable.
Speaking to The MJ this week, IFS senior research economist Kate Ogden said: ‘Local government has done better in the last few years than other departments, but the Government has got lots of commitments and a tight envelope.
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Next week’s Spending Review will have huge implications for the future finances of local government. Martin Ford looks at what we know so far, and the key questions yet to be answered.
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Three minsters are reportedly yet to reach settlements with the Treasury, in the run up to next week’s Spending Review. These are understood to include the Home Secretary, the Housing and Communities Secretary, and the Energy and Net-Zero Secretary.
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The Chancellor is to announce billions of pounds of investment in transport infrastructure. The money will be spent on tram, train and bus projects in mayoral authorities in the Midlands, the North and the West Country.
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The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has proposed the formation of social care partnerships between new unitary authorities following reorganisation
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Fire chiefs in England have warned that fire stations are “falling apart”, with an estimated £1 billion reduction in funding over the past decade, during which callouts have risen by 20 per cent. The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) has raised concerns that these pressures could undermine public and firefighter safety, as they are responding to more emergencies with fewer firefighters.
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London Councils has warned that boroughs across the capital collectively face a deficit of £500 million this year. It cites pressures in adult social care, children’s social care and the cost of providing temporary accommodation to homeless residents.
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The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has opened an investigation into alleged fraud committed against Thurrock Council by Rockfire Investment Finance Plc.
Thurrock issued a section 114 notice, effectively declaring itself bankrupt, in 2022 with its debts reaching £1.5bn after investing in solar farms.
Debt-ridden Thurrock Council has welcomed a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into a company it invested millions of pounds in for solar farms.
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The Government has revealed how much of the £7.6m grant to support the cost of local government reorganisation each region will receive.
Ministers said that the 21 areas moving towards unitarisation would ‘receive a development contribution at a flat rate of £135,000, plus an additional 20p per person based on the latest ONS population estimates'.
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Sector figures have warned that large unitaries supported by neighbourhood committees would be "insufficient" to meet the needs of communities.
In a written minsiterial statement giving an update on local government reorganisation yesterday local government minister Jim McMahon reiterated the government position that 500,000 population thresholds for new unitaries would be a “guiding principle, not a strict target”.
He added that he viewed creating neighbourhood area committees as the best way to involve communities.
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The minister has said areas should submit one document outlining proposals for local government reorganisation as it revealed how much each area will get from a £7.6m fund.
Now that all areas have been sent feedback on their interim plans the government has published a summary and further guidance.
Earlier this year some areas submitted several separate interim plans to the government and Mr McMahon has now said that final proposals should be made through one submission.
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An influential Labour backbencher has questioned the Government's approach to rolling out English devolution.
Deputy chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Clive Betts, said the emerging boundaries proposed for mayoral combined authorities outside cities may not be the most effective.
In conversation with the Centre for Cities think-tank today, the former chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee said he welcomed the Government's commitment to the concept of devolution, and that Prime Minister Keir Starmer had realised ‘we can't deliver what we want from the centre'.
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Departmental funding cuts to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will pile pressure on non-urban authorities which already stand to lose out under changes to the way council funding is distributed, the County Councils Network said.
Those authorities face a funding gap of £2.2bn next year on the back of surging demand and costs, on top of an estimated £2.7bn deficit in special educational needs provision due to hit budgets in March when the current statutory override comes to an end.
Further funding reductions will potentially trigger a wave of fresh applications for exceptional financial support as councils struggle to avoid financial collapse, the network said.
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Owen Mapley said investigations modelled on the work of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the US, which could see senior officers threatened with gross misconduct for failure to comply, posed a serious risk to governance.
Kent County Council will be the first authority to have its finances probed as part of a programme of audits being rolled out by Reform UK after a string of victories in last month’s local elections.
In a “request for co-operation” sent to senior Kent officers, party leaders said a team of investigators would be sent in to review the council’s financial management, procurement activity and associated governance arrangements.
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Parents and school leaders have expressed alarm over potential changes to England’s SEND system, and the possible reduction or removal of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) in mainstream schools, it is reported.
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Just 21% of council figures say their authority is better off as a result of Labour’s actions since entering government last July, according to LGC research.
LGC’s latest Confidence Survey asked whether the government’s decisions have meant their council’s financial position is better or worse off.
Some 14% said they were ‘a lot’ worse off and 25% said they were ‘a bit’ worse off. Two fifths said they were neither better nor worse off.
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English mayors have urged the Government to allow councils to introduce visitor levies to boost regional economies, tourism and infrastructure.
In a letter signed by a coalition of English mayors, the group argued that tourism taxes would help ‘empower local places' by contributing to the growth of transport and cultural infrastructure.
The group argued English regions ‘risk being left behind' as Wales and Edinburgh introduce visitor levies of their own.
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Rachel Reeves will face “unavoidably” tough choices as the Chancellor sets out her plans in the Spending Review in just over a week, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says. The think-tank said prioritising defence and NHS funding will lead to real-terms cuts to unprotected departments, including for local government. The LGA said councils already face a funding gap of more than £8 billion by 2028/29 and they need a "significant and sustained" boost to funding so they can deliver vital services.
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Reform said it has assembled a team of software engineers, data analysts and forensic auditors, to visit each of the 10 councils the party now controls – starting with Kent today – to look at ways to save money.
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Rachel Reeves will use the Spending Review to announce a multibillion-pound investment package in the north and Midlands, it is reported. Across the country the Chancellor is likely to have up to £100 billion of capital investment to announce, having changed the fiscal rules in the Budget last year.
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A lack of support for children and young people with complex care needs and the associated spiralling care costs have been highlighted in a new report.
The new research – carried out by the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) on behalf of the Local Government Association (LGA) – warns the challenge of meeting the increasing complexity of children’s needs, along with a lack of appropriate care for these children and the difficulties of commissioning those placements, is leading to a massive escalation of costs.
The report reveals the number of children’s home placements costing £10,000 or more per week – the equivalent of over £500,0000 per year – increased from 120 to 1,500 between 2018 and 2023.
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New legislation will give ministers the power to force council pension funds to merge as part of a raft of measures designed to reform the Local Government Pension Scheme.
The government today published the outcome of its consultation on the biggest overhaul of the LGPS in a generation, which aims to consolidate the fragmented scheme and increase the amount it invests in the UK economy.
The Fit for the Future consultation set a March 2026 deadline to “complete” the decade-long pooling programme, which sees the assets of the 87 LGPS pension funds in England and Wales transferred to pooling organisations to invest on their behalf.
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Next month’s spending review could "make or break" county and unitary authority budgets without an injection of funding, the County Councils Network has warned.
With councils already facing a £2.2bn funding black hole – alongside billions in Send deficits – local authority chiefs fear any further reductions in funding could cripple local services and trigger a wave of councils applying for exceptional financial support to avoid them declaring bankruptcy.
In a survey of 38 county and rural unitary councils by the County Councils Network (CCN) and the Society of County Treasurers (SCT), which sets out the stark financial challenges facing England’s largest councils, 60% of councils say they’re “not confident” of setting a balanced budget without new funding.
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Barnet LBC is lobbying for adult social care costs to be adequately reflected in the Government's upcoming fair funding review.
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has vowed to ‘fix the foundations of local government by creating a fairer system', with the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities arguing deprivation should be a key factor in the review, which is due to be implemented from 2026-27.
However, Barnet chief executive Cath Shaw said: ‘People have a perception of deprivation being a driver of cost. Deprivation isn't actually a big cost driver. It's adult social care.'
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SCT member Aidan Dunn has been recommended as Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council’s new chief executive. The appointment is subject to approval by council on 3 June.
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The International Monetary Fund projected GDP growth of 1.2% this year, up marginally on the 1.1% predicted last month, before rising to 1.4% in 2026 as the economic recovery takes hold.
Monetary easing, positive wealth effects and an uptick in confidence were bolstering private consumption, while the boost to public spending in the October Budget would also help support growth, the body said.
However, global trade uncertainty could weigh on UK growth by weakening global economic activity and disrupting supply chains, it warned.
The government’s fiscal strategy for the next five years supported growth while safeguarding fiscal sustainability, the IMF said, but chancellor Rachel Reeves must “stay the course” and reduce fiscal deficits as planned over the medium term.
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The Government has announced a raft of reforms aimed at easing planning regulations and environmental protections to support smaller housebuilders in England.
Under the proposals, Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) requirements will be relaxed for smaller developments of up to nine homes and medium-sized sites of between 10 and 49 homes.
The Government argues the move will make the BNG rules simpler for small- and medium-sized (SME) housebuilders, making it easier for SMEs to deliver habitats for wildlife on their sites.
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The number of people in council tax debt has soared by 1.2 million in a year, The i Paper can reveal, as the Government considers banning the use of bailiffs.
Around 4.4 million people missed a council tax payment in the past 12 months, according to new research carried out by campaigners Debt Justice.
This is up from 3.2m just a year before and demonstrates that council tax debt is “spiralling rapidly as household budgets are stretched to breaking point” amid the cost of living crisis, according to Heidi Chow, executive director of Debt Justice.
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Rachel Reeves will put £113bn of new capital investment at the forefront of the spending review and argue that the billions of investment in homes, transport and energy would only have happened under Labour.
The billions unlocked by the change to the fiscal rules, which will be spent over the next parliament, will be at the centre of the government’s narrative in a fortnight’s time in an acknowledgment that Labour MPs need a better economic story to address rising discontent among the public.
The chancellor will champion the investment despite warnings about government borrowing after it reached £20.2bn in April.
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Councils could gain powers to fine developers for unbuilt homes, under new rules planned by the government.
Documents set to be published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) propose that developers will have to commit to delivery timeframes before they can get planning permission for new homes, and submit annual returns to councils showing their progress.
Councils have long argued that developers 'land-banking' is a problem.
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A joint statement from 100 organisations in the social care sector, coordinated by the LGA, has warned that, without extra funding in the Spending Review, services for people who draw on care will face “the most difficult [circumstances] we’ve seen in recent years”. It said: “In the past, governments have looked for savings and efficiencies to help plug immediate gaps. The scope for those is now extremely limited and the clear reality is that current funding levels are insufficient to tackle the challenges facing the sector, such as inflation, demography, workforce recruitment and retention, the inability to invest in prevention, and provider instability.?Without significant new funding in the Spending Review, the coming months will likely be the most difficult we’ve seen in recent years for all parts of the sector and – most important of all – for people who draw on care and support.” The LGA’s call – also backed by a range of organisations, including Carers UK, British Association of Social Workers, Social Care Future, Age UK, Care England, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the National Care Forum - comes just weeks after the release of the Terms of Reference of the Casey Commission, which will look at reforming social care.
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Teachers and doctors in England will receive a four per cent pay rise after the Government accepted salary recommendations from pay review bodies. Unions for both sectors criticised the deal, saying that the increase has not been fully funded, raising the prospect of strikes, it is reported.
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More children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are to be educated alongside mainstream pupils under planned reforms by the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson. The Government’s white paper on SEND comes months after it set up an expert group on school inclusion and appointed a strategic adviser.
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A study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found that Sure Start centres provided £2 of savings for every £1 in costs, prompting calls for the Government to look at such services as potentially paying for themselves.
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Reform UK has renamed several key positions and departments in Durham County Council to remove references to climate change, equality and inclusion.
A number of departments and cabinet titles have been renamed, including the neighbourhood and climate change position, which is now neighbourhoods and environment, and equality and inclusion which has been changed to stronger communities and belonging.
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The Government is continuing to issue feedback letters responding to interim reorganisation plans, with a fresh flurry released over the last few days.
All the letters had been expected to be sent by the end of tomorrow but The MJ understands the process will now extend into next week.
Some in the sector have expressed annoyance at Whitehall's handling, with the letters coming with little warning and after the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) failed to meet its initial April deadline.
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The Local Government Association (LGA) has urged councils not to respond to a request from a private inquiry into grooming gangs as it considers the implications.
More than £600,000 has been raised to fund the non-statutory inquiry planned by former Reform UK-turned-independent MP Rupert Lowe, according to its Crowdfunder page, which was launched earlier this year.
Lowe has asked councils to nominate an officer to ‘engage formally' with his inquiry and to commit to ‘expedite data subject access requests made by survivors'.
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The government’s ambition to reorganise all two-tier areas into unitary councils can be delivered during this parliament, the local government minister has told LGC.
Speaking to LGC at UKREiiF conference in Leeds today, Jim McMahon said: “We certainly have the capacity to deliver LGR during the course of this parliament and remain fully committed and confident to achieve this.”
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Angela Rayner, deputy prime minister, is locked in a fierce battle with the Treasury to secure cash for local services, amid claims that the climax of a multiyear spending review has turned into a “chaotic bunfight”.
Rayner and Yvette Cooper, home secretary, are said by multiple officials to be involved in the toughest fight with chancellor Rachel Reeves, as the Treasury nails down departmental budgets for the rest of the parliament.
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The rate of Consumer Prices Index inflation rose to 3.5 per cent in April from 2.6 per cent in March, the Office for National Statistics said. The rise is blamed on increased household bills.
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Reform UK's ambitions to shake up local government could be stymied by legal hurdles, an expert warned this week.
Party leaders have criticised councils with Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) posts, vowed to scrap Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) and suggested legal challenges to housing for asylum seekers.
But head of local government at law firm Weightmans, Simon Goacher, suggested Reform would face implementation challenges.
He said: ‘It's a steep learning curve for most councillors taking control for the first time and transitions of political control are not necessarily always smooth or easy for anybody.'
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Two weeks ago, joyous celebrations erupted among Reform UK members as the party celebrated its most successful ever elections.
Its surging performance – which one leading Reform councillor described it as ‘a tsunami’ - saw the party winning control of ten councils, two mayoralties and over 670 council seats, as well as the Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary by-election.
But as the memories and celebrations from that night fade, the true realities kick in, and the party must begin facing up to the enormous challenges that local government poses.
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Unite has launched a campaign calling for an overhaul of how local authorities are funded to prevent further bankruptcies and job and public service cuts.
The public sector union warned that local government debt, which has doubled since 2010 to £122bn, is ‘spiralling out of control’ and called for council funding to be ‘urgently restructured.’
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A think tank has urged the Government to boost social care funding by £1.5bn to support a £2,000 pay rise for care workers.
A new report by the Fabian Society describes the ‘low pay and poor conditions’ of England’s 1.6 million social care workers as a ‘national scandal’.
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Data obtained by the TaxPayers Alliance suggests 8 in 10 councils which introduced the second homes council tax premium did not complete an economic impact assessment beforehand. An LGA spokesperson said the premium is a way of “encouraging owners to bring these properties back into permanent use”, adding: “However, we remain clear that council tax itself has never been the solution to meeting the long-term pressures.”
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It is reported the Department for Education is considering restricting Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) to children in special schools. Speaking at the Schools and Academies Show in London, Dame Christine Lenehan, the Government’s strategic advisor on SEND, said the structure around EHCPs would “probably” change because it was “not fit for purpose”, but insisted any new system would “still be able to recognise and support children’s needs”.
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The UK's economy grew by more than expected in the first three months of the year, according to the latest official figures. The economy expanded by 0.7 per cent in January to March, stronger than the 0.6 per cent that analysts had forecast, which the Office for National Statistics said was largely driven by the UK services sector.
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A blueprint document detailing changes to Integrated Care Board (ICB) functions has sparked concerns across local government.
The document advises ICBs to streamline and reduce headcount, with a number of functions to be transferred to neighbourhood providers and NHS regions.
ICBs have been asked to submit plans by 30 May on how they intend to achieve a £18.76 per head of population operating cost envelope.
The concerned chief executive of the Local Government Association (LGA), Joanna Killian, said: ‘I know from conversations with many colleagues across the sector that both the way that the plan has been communicated, as well as its content, is unsettling and has created many questions.
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Liberal Democrats are set to run Gloucestershire and Devon CCs as minority administrations after becoming the largest party in both authorities, but falling short of overall majorities in this month’s local council elections.
In Gloucestershire, where 28 seats are needed for a majority, the Lib Dems have 27 and plan to work informally with Labour and Green councillors, who have ten seats between them.
Lisa Spivey, leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, told LGC: “With 27 seats we’re in quite a strong position, but not an overall majority.
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Two companies that receive taxpayers’ money to house asylum-seekers in hotels have said they will give back some of their profits to the Home Office.
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The Government has reportedly put together proposals for a renewed “plan for neighbourhoods” to invest in regenerating council estates and tower blocks. The plan is based on the findings of the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods, which has drawn up a list of more than 600 areas in England which are furthest from reaching the Government’s five missions. The government fund is set to form part of the Spending Review in June.
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The £392bn invested in the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) could be used to plough necessary funds into social and affordable homes, a think-tank has suggested.
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A significant increase of Right to Buy (RTB) applications could jeopardise the Government’s pledge to boost the number of affordable homes available in Britain, it is reported. The LGA said reductions to the discounts that tenants who buy their council homes through RTB receive would have a positive impact in the “longer term” but that the “spike in sales” of “desperately needed homes” would “exacerbate the homelessness challenges that councils are working hard to address”.
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Cllr Amos said the priority was addressing the projected financial deficit. He said: “We need to get the financial situation sorted out. I know technically a council can’t go bankrupt, but we are, we’re £35m short and projected £55m short next year. We’re also not happy that the council has spent lots of money on things which the public quite simply have no interest in at all.
“We want an audit showing how money has been spent and how money can go rampant and get out of control. For example, the home bus transport service was 50% over its budget in just one year. How can this be allowed to happen?
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The Government should plough £100m into preventing homelessness over a decade as part of a wide-ranging move away from the current reactive system, a paper has urged.
Local authority spending on homelessness services has more than doubled in 14 years – from £1.3bn in 2010-11 to £3.1bn in 2023-24 – and the number of people living in temporary accommodation has reached a record 127,890 households, an increase of 13.6% on the previous year.
The report by the Institute for Government (IfG) think-tank and Centre for Homelessness Impact charity said a £100m endowment fund ‘offers a powerful mechanism to drive transformative change'.
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Trade union Unison has joined GMB and Unite in recommending their members reject the pay offer from council employers.
Unison and GMB's consultative ballots will both run until 20 June while dates for Unite's ballot have yet to be confirmed.
Employers tabled a ‘full and final' offer of a 3.2% pay increase for 2025-26 last month.
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Multi-billion pound debts remain a point of contention in reorganisation negotiations as the deadline passed for the first of the final plans to be submitted.
Two rival proposals for Surrey submitted to the Government on Friday both hinged on Woking BC's stranded debt being written off, but doubt continues over whether ministers will agree to such a move.
A three-unitary model put forward by eight borough councils said stranded debt ‘must be written off' while Surrey CC-led proposals for two unitary councils insisted the write-off was ‘essential to the success' of reorganisation.
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New measures to tackle immigration will be announced by Sir Keir Starmer this morning ahead of the publication of the Government’s Immigration White Paper. It will include plans for migrants to have to live in the UK for a decade – up from five years - before they can apply for citizenship under plans to reduce reliance on foreign workers. New English language requirements will also be introduced across every visa route, which will extend to adult dependents for the first time.
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Unions and care providers have warned plans to restrict the overseas care worker visa route will put services at risk. They say the care sector is already stretched to breaking point and still relies heavily on international staff to keep services running.
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Some councils on the high needs deficit safety valve scheme have said government delays in opening new special schools are undermining their plans to reduce huge deficits. Nine councils – nearly a quarter of those on the scheme – have flagged delays. Cllr Arooj Shah, Chair of the LGA’s Children and Young People Board. “We would encourage the Department for Education to act swiftly on progressing special free school decisions to ensure children with special educational needs and disabilities get the support they need.”
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Crawley and Reigate & Banstead BCs have submitted a proposal to form a new cross border unitary centred around Gatwick airport for the government to consider as part of local government reorganisaiton in Surrey.
The leaders of Crawley in West Sussex and Reigate & Banstead in Surrey which together form a £13bn plus economy – the largest economy in the sub-region centred around Gatwick airport – fear the creation of a hard boundary between the two authorities would be detrimental to the government’s growth agenda.
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The Conservatives will retain the chairmanship of the County Councils Network, but with a significantly reduced share as Reform surged into second place.
After last week's elections, which saw the Conservative party lose around two thirds of the seats it was defending, the new political balance for CCN has been calculated. The Conservatives have 32.5%, down from 60% in 2023, when it was last calculated.
Reform, which did not have any councillors in 2023, has 26%, followed by the Liberal Democrats on 21.4%, up from 15.5% in 2023.
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Councils collected nearly £360 million in parking charges from resident-only schemes last year, it is reported, research by the Independent newspaper reveals. Cllr Adam Hug, transport spokesperson for the Local Government Association, said: “Councils work with residents to introduce parking schemes. Residential parking schemes benefit local people, offering better parking management, reducing congestion and traffic flow in an area and improving road safety.”
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The Bank of England is widely expected to cut interest rates today, with further falls expected later this year, it is reported.
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The LGA’s political proportionality following this month’s local elections is Labour 35.9 per cent, Conservative 24.1 per cent, Liberal Democrat 17 per cent, Independent 10.2 per cent, Reform 7.8 per cent, Green 4.6 per cent and Plaid Cymru 0.4 per cent. Labour remains as the largest group and will retain the chair of the LGA.
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Reform looks set to form a minority administration at Leicestershire CC, which the Conservatives lost to no overall control last week, after other parties ruled out working together and admitted Reform will be "in charge".
With 25 seats on the newly-elected council, Reform fell just short of the 28 needed for an overall majority. The Conservatives have 15 seats and Liberal Democrats are on 11. There are two Labour councillors, one Green, and a single independent.
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The Financial Reporting Council has effectively banned Sean Clark, a former chief finance officer at Thurrock Council, following an investigation by the regulator for accountants.
Announcing the sanctions today, the FRC said Mr Clark would be excluded from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants for five years and given a "severe reprimand". This means he could not be appointed as a chief financial officer at any other local authority.
This is the first time that the FRC has imposed sanctions on anyone working in local government finance.
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The government is set to breach its main fiscal rule by almost £60bn, making tax rises more likely in the autumn, according to an influential analyst.
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Updated government feedback for some two-tier areas working on local government reorganisation has removed a suggestion they benchmark proposals against a 500,000 population option.
LGC understands that three areas have this week received a revised feedback letter, just a week after an initial letter from the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government in response to the councils' LGR proposals.
The revised letter came after officials engaged with councils about their progress.
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Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf has vowed councils controlled by the party would launch legal action against the Government to close migrant hotels if necessary.
The threat comes despite previous attempts by councils to use the courts to block asylum hotels proving unsuccessful.
But Yusuf said: ‘Reform-controlled councils will launch the resistance to the dispersal of illegal immigrants into their communities within their first 100 days. A lot of these hotels, when you suddenly turn them into something else, which is a hostel, that falls foul of a number of regulations and that is what our team of lawyers is looking at at the moment.'
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Trade union GMB has recommended its members reject the pay offer from council employers.
A consultative ballot, including a commitment to industrial action, will run from Monday until 20 June.
Employers tabled a ‘full and final' offer of a 3.2% pay increase for 2025-26 last month.
GMB hopes the ballot of 150,000 council and schools workers will help them to secure an improved offer.
The union's national officer Kevin Brandstatter said: ‘Local Government and schools workers across England and Wales have suffered years of real terms pay cuts.
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An end to ‘public shaming' of councils has helped stem the tide of section 114s, local government minister Jim McMahon has claimed.
He believes a new approach of engaging with councils in financial difficulty has given the sector more confidence in approaching the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) before reaching crisis point.
McMahon told the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee: ‘Having that reset has gone quite a long way to reducing the number of section 114 notices.
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Almost 265,000 dwellings across England are long-term vacant, with close to 3 per cent of homes empty in some parts of the country, according to analysis. Housing experts say converting these vacant dwellings would help thousands of families who are trying to find an affordable home to rent or buy, and help tackle the soaring numbers in temporary accommodation. The LGA said councils must be given more power to reduce the number of empty homes. Housing spokesperson Cllr Adam Hug said: “Long-term empty homes represent a missed opportunity to provide housing for those in need and those on housing waiting lists. Councils share a collective national ambition to tackle local housing challenges. However, they must be sufficiently empowered and funded to carry out work on this area.” The LGA also said the qualifying period for Empty Dwelling Management Orders needs to be reduced to six months.
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A cross-party group of MPs has warned attempts to reform adult social care will fail unless ministers accept major investment is needed to overhaul a “broken” system that was failing millions of people. The Health and Social Care select committee said the costs of inaction included 2 million people aged 65 and over and 1.5 million people of working-age not getting get the care they need, millions more getting poor care and huge avoidable financial pressures placed on the NHS and local authorities.
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Reform UK plans to hire “taskforces” of auditors to cut council waste, but one council leader who lost his seat warned that this would be difficult to achieve.
At last week’s council elections Reform won a majority on 10 councils and are the largest party on four councils that are now under no overall control, including Cornwall.
The Conservatives lost control of all the councils they were defending at this election and the Liberal Democrats gained overall control of three councils.
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An organisation that pools the assets of 11 council pension funds has warned that government plans to force them to move to a new home could breach their fundamental duty to their members.
The government is seeking to consolidate the £400bn Local Government Pension Scheme, which is currently split between 87 individual pension funds and eight pools that invest their assets, in order to reduce costs and increase their UK investments.
All pools were told to submit business plans outlining how they would meet new minimum requirements by March 2026, and last month ministers rejected the proposals of Access and Brunel, telling their funds to find move to another pool.
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The government has confirmed that support with Woking BC's debt will be provided for any new authorities as part of local government reorganisation in Surrey.
Woking issued a section 114 in June 2023 and commissioners were appointed in December. The district had a debt of £1.9bn, while its revenue budget was just £16m.
Woking BC's papers confirmed that the government is "committed to providing an initial tranche of financial support for debt repayment for Woking in 2026-27, ahead of the implementation of re-organisation in Surrey".
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At least five Conservative county leaders lost their seats as the party was wiped out across the shires following Thursday’s elections.
By Friday afternoon, with some results still to be declared, the party had lost more than half of the 996 seats it was defending as well as control of 12 of the 16 councils.
Among the high profile casualties were Izzi Seccombe, the Conservative leader of Warwickshire CC for the past 12 years and former leader of the Conservative group at the Local Government Association, who lost her seat to the Liberal Democrats.
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Some of the first recommendations from the Casey Commission into adult social care in England might not be implemented until 2036. The independent commission formally began this week with its terms of reference published today. The LGA urged the Government to “revisit” the current timescales “to reflect the urgency of the situation, and the reality that people and organisations have already waited long enough for real change”.
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Local authorities across England are allowed to sell off playing fields to help close budget gaps, Angela Rayner says.
Following recent government guidance, councils have been advised to use their discretion in determining whether to sell school land they don’t need.
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Surrey's councils have published proposals for local government reorganisation, defying the Government's hope for unity on final proposals.
While Surrey CC has submitted a proposal for two unitary councils, eight out of the eleven districts have requested a three unitary model, outlining benefits including boosted local economies and strengthened democracy.
Separately, Reigate & Banstead BC has published a joint proposal with West Sussex's Crawley BC to create a unitary with a population of 276,000 and a £13bn economy centred around Gatwick Airport, which is seeking to expand.
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The Government is looking to hand all councils an extra duty to involve community groups in their decision-making, The MJ has learnt.
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) documents revealed a potential proposal for a new duty on community decision-making, which was presented to charities, civil servants and local authority representatives at a round table meeting last month.
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The freshly-appointed president of the Society of County Treasurers has called on the Government to give councils certainty over Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) deficits.
In an interview with The MJ this week, Rob Powell called for ‘clarity' over deficits of £6bn for services for children with SEND.
Ministers have yet to give any indication of what will happen when the statutory override keeping the deficits off council accounts ends in March.
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Wage pressures are contributing to the local government funding gap of £1.9 billion in 2025/26, councils across England have warned as unions consider a 3.2 per cent pay increase offer. The LGA has cited wage pressures, along with inflation and growing demand and complexity of need, as contributing to the sector's funding gap, which is estimated to reach £8.4 billon by 2028/29.
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The Valuation Office Agency (VOA), the body responsible for setting council tax and business rates values, is to close.
HM Revenue and Customs will take over the arm's-length body's responsibilities in a move the Government claimed move would ‘increase efficiency, business experience and ministerial accountability'.
The process is expected to be completed by April and is expected to make 5% to 10% of savings in administrative costs by 2028-29.
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The Government should prioritise investment in affordable housing, according to research published today.
The Resolution Foundation think-tank argued such a strategy would boost both social economic infrastructure and make the most of the dwindling funds available.
Targeted investment in affordable housing in areas with the highest demand for temporary accommodation – often urban areas with high productivity potential – could boost growth by attracting firms and high-skilled workers.
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Reform UK’s mayoral candidates for the new mayoralties in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull & East Yorkshire have clear leads over other parties, according to YouGov polling published today.
YouGov’s poll, conducted between 9 and 23 April, also found that he Green Party’s candidate is in the lead for the West of England mayoralty.
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The latest borrowing figures show the “clear risk” run by the government in adhering to its fiscal rules despite the uncertainty of official forecasts, analysts have warned.
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The Emissions Trading Scheme could end up costing councils up to £6.5bn by 2036, the Local Government Association has warned.
Councils are urging the government to look again at plans to extend the scheme ahead of the spending review with the potential cost to councils of £747m in 2028, rising to £1.1bn by 2036 and totalling £6.5bn over that period.
The Emissions Trading Scheme puts a market price on carbon emissions and currently applies to the aviation industry but is expected to be extended to waste incineration from 2028.
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Salford City Council is returning the delivery of some adult social care services for more than 800 residents back in house.
The services have been delivered by community interest company Aspire for Intelligent Care and Support for the past decade with around 350 staff providing 744,000 hours of care a year for adults with care needs including learning disabilities, dementia and care for older people.
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Councils are being overcharged by private landlords and hotels for accommodation to house people who are at risk of becoming homeless, with charges 60 per cent over market rates, it is reported.
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The independent pay review body representing teachers and NHS staff has recommended a higher pay deal than the Government has budgeted for, potentially increasing the risk of strikes in the public sector, it is reported
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Public sector trade union Unite has advised its members to reject this year’s local government pay offer and threatened industrial action this summer.
The National Employers for local government services last week offered council employees a 3.2% pay increase from 1 April 2025.
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The body representing senior local authority officers has welcomed the 3.2% pay increase offered to its members by employers.
The Association of Local Authority Chief Executive and Senior Managers believes the settlement recognises the important role senior officers play within local authorities.
Responding to the pay offer, Alace chair Tracey Lee said: “The pressures facing heads of paid service continue unabated. Their experience, judgement and impartiality has arguably never been more important.
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London Councils has warned the capital's ‘homelessness emergency' represents the ‘single biggest risk' to council finances and is pushing boroughs towards bankruptcy.
Skyrocketing homelessness and spiralling temporary accommodation costs have meant London's councils were forced to overspend on their homelessness budgets by at least £330m in the last financial year, according to the umbrella body.
It also highlighted the ‘growing mismatch' between temporary accommodation costs and government subsidy. This, the organisation claimed, rose to £140m in 2024-25 – a 45% increase on the previous year.
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Councils facing reorganisation face being ‘fleeced' by consultants keen to profit from the process, a former Northamptonshire CC commissioner has claimed.
Theresa Grant, who oversaw the bankrupt authority and its districts' transition into two unitaries has warned councils to ‘beware of experts'.
She said: ‘I'm very worried about local authorities that they are going to get fleeced and they're not going to get what they need.'
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A strong performance from Reform UK at next week's local elections will potentially transform local government, experts believe.
On 1 May Nigel Farage's party will be optimistic of dramatically increasing its England wide tally of 123 councillors. More in Common's analysis of opinion polling this week put Reform ahead of both Labour and the Conservatives.
‘If Reform UK performs strongly in the 2025 local elections, taking control of councils or establishing itself as the main opposition in certain areas, the consequences for local government could be significant both practically and politically,' said University of the West of England senior politics lecturer Thom Oliver.
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The Environment Agency is consulting on a “polluter pays” levy on water companies for sewage discharges to recover the costs of its enforcement activities.
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Local authorities are backing government moves to ban the public sector from making ransomware payments but want to see stronger obligations imposed on suppliers.
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Council employees have been offered a 3.2% pay increase from 1 April 2025.
The ‘full and final’ offer would mean the pay of the lowest paid employees, who are currently earning £23,656, would have increased by 33% since April 2021.
The offer also includes a proposal to delete the bottom pay point from the national pay spine on 1 April 2026.
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Nearly two-thirds of the public are not engaged with local government reorganisation, a new poll commissioned ahead of the local elections has revealed.
The Ipsos research commissioned by the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) found that 63% were not following closely or at all the Government’s overhaul of local government.
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Pothole-related breakdowns have increased by nearly 20% compared to the same period last year, according to the RAC.
The RAC Pothole Index data reveals that 9,439 pothole-related breakdowns occurred between January and March of 2025, a figure which has doubled since the end of 2024.
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Leaders in Surrey have ruled out a county-wide unitary despite a suggestion from the government to include the option in final proposals as a benchmarking measure.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government told chief executives in 11-page feedback letter, seen by LGC, that the inclusion of a single unitary option as a "benchmark" would be “helpful” to “consider the potential net savings from two and three unitary options”.
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The assault on second home owners is being pushed through by “dishonest” councils with thousands of empty properties on their books, Telegraph analysis has revealed.
Councils in England were given the power to charge a 100pc council tax premium from April 1 under laws passed by the previous Conservative government to ease housing pressures.
But government figures show there are 34,000 council-owned homes lying empty around England, plus a further 55,000 run by social housing associations.
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The Washington-based organisation said there were a string of threats to UK and global output, not least from the impact of the Trump administration's evolving trade war.
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Councils across England and Wales have lost almost a third of their staff over the past decade, according to new research by the GMB. The union said that 13 years ago, local authorities employed 1,894,700 workers, but by 2024 the number had fallen to 1,295,300. The figures were released as the GMB and other unions begin talks with the LGA over council workers’ pay claim for 2025/26. The LGA said working in local government has never been more valued or important, given the hundreds of essential services provided every day by councils and combined authorities to keep communities running. An LGA spokesperson said: “Significant staff shortages in local government risk having a serious impact on councils’ capacity to deliver services and help government meet key pledges. Government investment in local government and its workforce is key to ensure services are protected and also to delivering its own policy agenda.”
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The government’s reforms will provide a strengthened early warning system for councils facing financial difficulties, writes the local government minister.
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Politicians in Cumbria have said any devolution deal must include adequate funding to address years of underinvestment.
In its response to the consultation on creating a strategic mayoral authority in Cumbria Westmorland & Furness Council has said the government must recognise rural deprivation.
Andrew Jarvis (Lib Dem), deputy leader of Westmorland & Furness, said: “We need government to recognise there are significant pockets of deprivation within our area and there are real issues of rural deprivation.
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Portsmouth City Council has called on ministers to leave it out of reorganisation plans, arguing claims it is too small don't stack up with London boroughs and northern mets remaining.
In a letter to local government minister Jim McMahon, Portsmouth leader Steve Pitt argued the city was already a sustainable organisation and reorganisation was mainly aimed at two-tier areas or failing authorities, adding that the council was concerned at inheriting other authorities' budget deficits.
‘The Government is arguing we are too small and can be more financially stable through local government reorganisation (LGR) but there is no evidence for that,' he said.
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Councils and charities have joined forces to call on the Government to provide additional funding for children’s social care in the forthcoming Spending Review. It comes as latest government figures show there were 621,880 referrals to children’s social care in the year to March 31, 2024 – equivalent to 1,704 a day. Cllr Arooj Shah, Chair of the LGA’s Children and Young People Board, said support for children and young people was “central to the delivery of the Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity”. She said: “The Spending Review is an opportunity for long-term, sustainable funding for children’s social care and the services children and families rely on.”
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Councils hitting second home owners with double tax bills are spending as little as 9p in every £1 generated from the raid on affordable housing, Telegraph analysis shows.
Local authorities have been accused of treating the policy as a “cash cow to prop up day-to-day spending”, with some using the funds to implement 20mph speed limits and issue environmental grants.
Senior politicians and campaigners are now calling on officials to come clean about where the money is being spent amid concerns the funds have not been appropriately ring-fenced.
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Council chiefs have urged the Government to invest more into early intervention to support the children’s social care system and to prevent struggling children from ‘reaching crisis point’.
Inadequate funding is causing councils severe difficulty in providing children’s social care services, which receive referrals for roughly 1,700 children each day, many of which require additional support for complex needs.
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Cabinet ministers have been warned of an end to flexible deadlines for agreeing policy. Under the current system, departments back or raise concerns about policy proposals from No 10 and other parts of Whitehall under a procedure called “write round”. However, departments have been told that they need to “engage or get timed out” from the process and warned that delays were no longer acceptable.
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UK inflation has fallen to 2.6 per cent. This represents a second consecutive dip after inflation eased by more than expected to 2.8 per cent in February.
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The number of empty homes has increased to 719,470, up from 635,127 since an empty homes tax was first introduced in 2013, it is reported. Anti-tax campaigners say the rise shows why recent introduction of the council tax premium on second homes will be ineffective. The LGA said: “Charging a council tax premium, for long-term empty and second homes, is one way of encouraging owners to bring these properties back into permanent use. However, we remain clear that council tax itself has never been the solution to meeting the long-term pressures facing local services, and councils need the powers and resources to build more affordable homes.”
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Analysis by the Local Government Information Unit has found that reorganisation proposals submitted by English councils would result in average populations for new unitaries of approximately 544,000, though actual sizes would vary between areas.
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Two local authority pension pools, ACCESS and Brunel, have been told to merge with other pools after their plans to meet new standards were rejected by ministers.
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Former local government secretary Michael Gove has been appointed to the House of Lords.
Now editor of the Sectator magazine having left the House of Commons, Gove was granted a peerage as part of Rishi Sunak's resignation honours list.
He was first elected as an MP in 2005 until standing down at last year's General Election.
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Local authorities in Wales are raising council tax by an average of 7.2% in 2025/26 - the second largest rise for more than 20 years, though down slightly on last year’s rise of 7.7%.
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Local authorities in Wales are raising council tax by an average of 7.2% in 2025/26 - the second largest rise for more than 20 years, though down slightly on last year’s rise of 7.7%.
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Lancashire County Council has hit back at claims by Nigel Farage that it is on the brink of bankruptcy.
The Reform UK leader made the allegation on Wednesday while campaigning ahead of next month's local elections.
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Almost £40m has been set aside by councils in two-tier areas to prepare local government reorganisations proposals this year.
In a new analysis of interim plans submitted to the government last month, the Local Government Information Unit revealed that £38.4m has been set aside to prepare proposals and that the average transition cost will be £31.1m per two-tier region.
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The Local Audit Office will not be able to force councils to amend their accounts in response to auditor concerns, the government has confirmed following fears over the body’s independence and potential overreach.
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Essex County Council has told the Government that it cannot support the proposal for devolution in Greater Essex ‘in its current form’.
Council leader Kevin Bentley welcomed reorganisation as a ‘huge opportunity’ but objected to the voting arrangements for the board of the proposed Mayoral Combined County Authority.
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The wait for family-size social housing has risen to more than 100 years in parts of England, which charities have condemned as “ludicrous” and a “national scandal”.
Analysis from the National Housing Federation (NHF), Crisis and Shelter found that in 32 local authority areas across England, the wait for a home with at least three bedrooms was longer than 18 years – the duration of an entire childhood.
The worst three councils, all of which are in London, have waiting lists exceeding 100 years, while nine local authorities have waiting lists of more than 50 years.
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Using exceptional financial support to address recurring overspends “can't be a sustainable solution” but writing off debt for Woking BC would be a “moral hazard”, the National Audit Office’s comptroller Gareth Davies told MPs today.
Mr Davies was appearing before the Commons' housing, communities and local government committee for its inquiry into financial sustainability.
Committee chair Florence Eshalomi (Lab) asked: "Do you think it's fair for local taxpayers who will pay their council tax and business rates on time for councils that may have run into financial difficulties and haven't produced audits for many years, and in some cases, are in receipt of EFS?"
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Just 3% of England’s council-run road network received any form of road maintenance during the last financial year, a new analysis of Government data has revealed.
RAC found that nearly 4,900 miles – out of 183,000 miles – of all road types were strengthened, resurfaced or preserved in 2023/24.
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Spending on early intervention children's services has plummeted by more than 40% since the onset of austerity, research has found.
Analysis of English council spending by the Pro Bono Economics (PBE) think-tank found intervention funding fell by £2bn in real terms between 2010-11 and 2023-24, a decrease of 42%.
In the most deprived local authority areas of England the reduction amounted to 53% compared to 30% in the least-deprived areas.
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Radical short-term fixes followed by changes in policy are required to shore-up local government finances, MPs have been told.
Levying council tax on unbuilt homes, lifting the referendum cap, and flexibility on discounts were put forward as options to explore by CIPFA chief executive Owen Mapley as he appeared before the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.
He said there was a pressing need for immediate action over longer-term reform that ‘could prove distracting'.
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Artificial intelligence sensors that can send an alert if a vulnerable person has fallen at home or missed a meal are to form a major part of the plan for social care, Wes Streeting will suggest when he announces a new training programme for staff.
A qualification for social care workers, on using the cutting-edge technology, is to be unveiled by the Health Secretary on Wednesday.
He will argue that increased reliance on such tech could free up care workers’ time, relieve workforce shortages, and keep elderly people in their homes for longer.
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Council tax bills will soar by nearly 30pc under Labour, with residents in 28 areas hit with £3,000 average bills, analysis shows.
Campaigners said the figures poured cold water on promises made by Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, last week that households would be £500 a year better off thanks to this Government.
Figures, compiled by the Taxpayers’ Alliance on behalf of Telegraph Money, revealed a typical Band D house will be paying £2,750 a year by 2030, the end of Labour’s first term. It amounts to a 27pc hike from 2024.
[ more...]
The first day of April was a bleak one for household budgets. Water, energy, broadband, and rail fares have shot up for us all.
But for Phil Mandeville, a pensioner from Hampshire, the new financial year has been especially brutal.
Mr Mandeville is one of thousands facing a double council tax surcharge on his second home meaning he now has to pay an extra £2,000 per year on a second home he owns in Bradford, Yorkshire.
[ more...]
Healthcare workers will be sent from house to house in an NHS scheme to reduce the number of people who are signed off work on sick leave.
The programme is part of efforts to fix problems such as unemployment, debt and bereavement that are adding to pressures on the state sector. It will be rolled out in 25 areas in England.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said early versions of the scheme showed “really encouraging signs” in cutting the number of heavy users of services, whom he called “frequent flyers”, filling up A&E departments.
[ more...]
Quangos that offer ministers advice on migration, policing, drugs, housing and environmental policy could be abolished or merged as Sir Keir Starmer prepares to announce dozens for the axe as early as this week.
Pat McFadden, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, is drafting legislation that could shut down a swathe of quangos in a single act of parliament rather than requiring individual laws to abolish each one.
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A senior MHCLG civil servant has defended the Government’s reforms for local government while speaking at the Public Accounts Committee, arguing that concerns around council finances were “too pessimistic.” The article cites recent LGA research that nearly three-quarters of councils feel it will be difficult to set a balanced budget for 2025/26, and that councils will face a funding gap of £8 billion by 2028/29.
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East Riding of Yorkshire Council has alerted drivers that they will be switching off street lights along two main roads as part of an energy-saving pilot.
The council was awarded £3.3m to study more environmentally friendly ways of lighting main roads, as more efficient car headlights could make some lampposts redundant.
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Councils are being ‘pushed to breaking point' by the ballooning cost of homelessness support, charities, housing experts, MPs and sector leaders warned this week.
Ministers are coming under growing pressure to tackle the increasing housing budget blackhole councils are facing, including by removing the cap on local housing allowance that local authorities can claim on the cost of temporary accommodation, which has been frozen at 2011 rates.
On Tuesday it was revealed that only 2.5% of private rented homes in England were affordable for people on housing benefit last year – a significant drop from 12% in 2021-22.
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The Government is to set out how it will tackle the £6bn special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) deficit crisis later this year.
The statutory override keeping the deficits off council balance sheets is to end in March 2026.
Senior officials from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said details will be announced as part of the Spending Review in June and in the local government finance settlement, which they aim to publish in late November.
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The County Councils' Network (CCN) and Rural Services' Network (RSN) will not financially support legal action over ministers' axing of the £100m Rural Services Delivery Grant, The MJ understands.
CCN has warned the grant's removal will ‘further exacerbate the financial challenges faced by county and rural authorities' but neither it nor RSN are expected to join planned legal action by North Yorkshire Council.
Carl Les, leader of North Yorkshire, which is a member of both CCN and RSN, said he believed the ‘rationality' and equality impact of ministers' decision was ‘worth challenging'.
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The government received at least 40 separate local government reorganisation interim plan submissions, LGC analysis has found.
Across these documents at least 53 separate LGR options have been outlined for the 21 remaining two tier areas, with no area yet to have agreed a final geography for new unitary councils.
Experts have told LGC about concerns over local government capacity to deliver and called for “open dialogue” with the government to avoid wasting time.
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Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) is “bad government”; local government reorganisation will be a “distraction”; and the upcoming Spending Review offers no grounds for optimism.
Those were some of the opinions offered by Professor Tony Travers, professor in practice and Associate Dean at the LSE School of Public Policy during a Public Accounts Committee inquiry on local government financial sustainability today (3 April).
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Revamped recycling rules are set to be introduced for households and businesses across England, the Government has announced. Householders across the country will have to separate paper and card from waste like metal and plastic and dispose of it in a new recycling bin from 31 March 2026. Households in England dumped 5.6 million tonnes of packaging in 2023, according to analysis commissioned by the LGA, County Councils Network, and District Councils’ Network.
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