Indeed. The theory essentially seems to be 'if you have a potential local tax base and lower social care costs, you should receive fewer grants, but you shouldn't be able to access your local tax base'...uh, come again?
Replies
Loads of fish in your river, but you’re not allowed any fishing…
aug 7, 2025, 9:00 am • 0 0 • view
Also given local authority services are now basically mostly targeted at the poorest and/or most vulnerable in society, there's a mindset shift needed maybe. There might be lots of wealth in an area but by definition the council there is working with people to some degree locked out of it
aug 7, 2025, 8:44 am • 12 0 • view
Like if local authorities were still, idk, running gyms there's an argument that in an area with a robust economy private sector providers can step in and/or many residents could afford to pay a bit more. But that all already happened a long time ago.
aug 7, 2025, 8:47 am • 5 0 • view
any that are still running gyms and leisure centres are, I'm sure, now doing so on a revenue-raising basis
aug 7, 2025, 8:57 am • 9 0 • view
My local authority still has sports centres/gyms/swimming pools, but parts of my area are very poor
aug 7, 2025, 10:57 am • 0 0 • view
Are they definitely not (eg) bettergyms in council buildings, with some subsidised memberships
aug 7, 2025, 11:01 am • 1 0 • view
I'd be surprised if they were overall being subsidised by the council though (there'll probably be discounted memberships for some demographics)
aug 7, 2025, 11:00 am • 0 0 • view
A basic check says they are, but under a lot of pressure: www.wirralglobe.co.uk/news/2475016...
aug 7, 2025, 11:08 am • 1 0 • view
Interesting! Most areas do have a patchwork of slightly random general-use services that have survived. May have been a very motivated local campaign base around them for e.g.
aug 7, 2025, 11:12 am • 0 0 • view
My council have kicked the can quite often, through good intentions - like not wanting to just provide the social services aspect of their remit. I think Liverpool run some leisure services as well, but two of their centers are likely to go to a community set up
aug 7, 2025, 11:24 am • 1 0 • view
oh yeah. I just think a lot of older people - not necessarily the government but voters - have a mental model where "the council" is there for all residents. Which leads to a) confusion about why there aren't more services b) a sense that "rich areas" need the council less
aug 7, 2025, 9:00 am • 5 0 • view
As a country we haven't adjusted to the fact that councils have become mostly emergency relief bodies with a small amount of wider civic stuff tacked on. Plus bins obviously.
aug 7, 2025, 9:01 am • 9 0 • view
if they're older then they'll probably know whether or not they'll get anything in terms of adult care
aug 7, 2025, 9:02 am • 0 0 • view
and a lot of them won't qualify for local authority support there, enhancing said confusion. "what am I paying council tax for?" etc
aug 7, 2025, 9:03 am • 3 0 • view
(or local authority funded support, I should say!)
aug 7, 2025, 9:04 am • 1 0 • view
Is the internal logic 'you are wealthy enough for the private sector to solve any problems you have'?
aug 7, 2025, 8:38 am • 6 1 • view
No, I think the internal cause is 'MHCLG believes in a measure of fiscal devolution, HMT doesn't, and because there is no overarching political project, instead of one department losing, they both just get to pursue their policy project despite them being contradictory'.
aug 7, 2025, 8:42 am • 41 5 • view
Hard to tell from the report whether cuts result from removing (limited) business rate retention - has been big help for LBTH & Southwark as well as WCC & LBC - or they are cutting grant on top. The point of the former was to incentivise growth and it worked!
aug 7, 2025, 9:00 am • 1 0 • view
It is hard to tell but seems as though changes to the formula for funding children’s services is the main driver. Not clear what they expect inner London councils to do under the circumstances.
aug 7, 2025, 9:22 am • 5 0 • view
With a dash of "headlines that London is losing out are good in the minds of Labour strategists"
aug 7, 2025, 8:42 am • 7 1 • view
Not that London doesn't need the money, but if there isn't going to be an overall increase in local government block grants then soon many provincial towns and cities will be experiencing the humiliation in Birmingham of a fire sale of public assets.
aug 7, 2025, 9:38 am • 3 0 • view
I.e. the options seem to be: 1. Complete collapse of local Government outside of the South East (this was the trajectory under the last Government and what happens by default) 2. Increase in local government income (yes please, by central block grant not regressive council tax) 3. Redistribution.
aug 7, 2025, 9:50 am • 3 0 • view
If this Government is going for 3, that isn't a long-term solution and is very unfair on Londoners, but 1 on the basis that Leicester doesn't have a financial sector so when the council can't do the impossible of matching income with necessary spend the city should go bust is disastrous.
aug 7, 2025, 9:55 am • 1 0 • view
hence bsky.app/profile/cjay...
aug 7, 2025, 9:56 am • 8 0 • view
And indeed:
aug 7, 2025, 9:57 am • 8 0 • view
I think the new funding formula is as a baseline much better designed but it needs to be paired with 'local government needs more money' and also 'you actually can raise extra funds and not just through council tax'.
aug 7, 2025, 9:58 am • 15 0 • view
Yes, it's the shrinking block grants together with growth of necessary spend that's caused the crisis in councils although some obviously could have been managed better. Too much local raising of tax seems even riskier for national cohesion.
aug 7, 2025, 10:05 am • 1 0 • view
Councils just need to be more entrepreneurial. Invest. Maybe buy some lovely property like a local shopping centre, which will *definitely* increase in value.
aug 7, 2025, 1:22 pm • 7 0 • view
Increasingly I’m just over HMT/Whitehall hand-wringing over capacity in Local Gov. It’s real but they’re entirely uninterested in fixing it as it supports their control freakery. MCA/MSA’s a clear case in point, they didn’t/don’t even bother to second staff to start up
aug 7, 2025, 10:34 am • 2 0 • view
Downstream of this is the impact on the weird ‘outer London’ boroughs that are now basically inner London- have huge housing costs, a lack of assets and increased costs from asylum seekers
aug 7, 2025, 8:47 am • 0 0 • view
It is telling to be cynical that neither Keir, Rachel or Pat McFadden have any experience in local government- but MM was at the LGA for years and surely they at least know that so many problems they face are ‘give the LAs more money and they can fix it’
aug 7, 2025, 8:49 am • 1 0 • view
You can close those bloody sham shops in London, make a big dent in rough sleeping and begging, do a bit more around flytipping and ASB and tackle child poverty if you just sorted it out- but today’s news imo shows why HCLG ministers maybe need a shuffle
aug 7, 2025, 8:50 am • 1 0 • view
I don't think the problem's in MCHLG tbh
aug 7, 2025, 8:59 am • 2 0 • view
Oh no I just have a long running bugbear about the ministerial briefs in this; as a department they clearly get it and the issue is Treasury/the PM
aug 7, 2025, 9:01 am • 1 0 • view
I do think planning reform and house building is tilting the departments focus away slightly from these sort of issues but I guess it’s because the big stamp saying ‘approved’ is free
aug 7, 2025, 9:03 am • 0 0 • view
or MHCLG even
aug 7, 2025, 8:59 am • 1 0 • view