Are council finances sustainable?

Posted byCambridge Town OwlPosted inUncategorized

MPs on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee in Parliament took evidence this week from a range of experts.

Image – House of Commons Library briefing on Business Rates (since updated)

You can watch the debate back here. It is part of the Select Committee’s inquiry into the financial sustainability (or lack of) local government in England.

For those of you who want to dig deeper, you can browse through the Layfield Commission’s conclusions (which got a mention) – the last time when local government finance was subject to an in-depth investigation, and that was half a century ago.

“The result?”

As Prof Tony Travers stated, HM Treasury is unwilling to let go of power and control, the net result being that the culture within The Treasury is that it sees local government as a delivery agent providing public services on behalf of central government, rather than being the independent voice, spirit, and collective representation of local communities across the country. Furthermore, prior to the hearing, Ministers confirmed they were not going to shift on that position either. The mindset of senior decision-makers within the Labour Party is that the problem is not over-centralisation, but that the centre has not been providing enough resources for local government. Hence the bigger spending years in the 2000s and all of the ‘Rotten Boroughs’ headlines in Private Eye magazine!

Lots of publications for the MPs to read through

One of them – or a series, are in the thread by the Reform Think Tank and comments by Charlotte Pickles (nothing to do with TeamNigel) who was one of the expert witnesses giving evidence. I moaned about the huge number of publications to read through a couple of months ago.

“A fundamental rethink is needed to reform local government finance and the English Devolution White Paper simply does not go far enough”

Charlotte Pickles to Commons HCLG Committee, 11 Feb 2025

You can read about some of the alternatives proposed by Ms Pickles’ organisation in their report Back from the brink – Radical ideas for sustainable local finances – in particular on pages 6-7, one of which is replacing business rates with a land value tax. (The bullet-point version from The LVT Campaign is in this memo to Parliament from July 2004, over 20 years ago).

Options that have had publications produced on them – mainly from the 1990s, range from the Poll Tax to Local Income Tax

Talking of councils’ finances, it’s budget meeting time

See the papers for:

You can watch the debate from Cambridge City Council here

You can watch the debate from Cambridgeshire County Council here – the length of that video stream going into its seventh hour. Which is ***heavy***.

“Are such stupendously long council meetings sustainable?”

One former senior civil servant told a much younger me that 2 hours max for any meeting – a maximum, not a target, was what her limit was. Afterwards people fall asleep. While much longer meetings are do-able, it requires intense and proper preparation including getting a good nights sleep and ideally ensuring you have an easy journey to the venue. But it’s not something you can do well on a routine basis – not without cost to your health and wellbeing.

There is a wider systems design-structures-and-processes issue and not just for local government. Is there a better way of ensuring improved scrutiny and policy-making without having to resort to extra-long meetings that feel like even local and regional news outlets have stopped covering in detail?

If you are interested in the longer term future of Cambridge, and on what happens at the local democracy meetings where decisions are made, feel free to: