IfG publishes report on the impact of grant cuts on local services

Article summary

The Institute for Government (IfG) has published a report looking at the impact of grant cuts to local authorities in England. The report looks at how local authority spending has changed, how pressures vary across England, how local authorities responded to those pressures, how the quality and accessibility of neighbourhood services changed and what the variations tell us about spending cuts. Key findings of the report include that the miles covered by bus routes dropped by 14% and a third of libraries closed 2009—2010 and 2019—2020, with the most deprived areas being the most impacted. It also found that the overall percentage of roads needing maintenance did not get worse. The report calls for the government to collect more data from local authorities on the quality and accessibility of services so that local authorities can better learn from each other.