LGA calls for government to provide additional £10bn to councils

Article summary

The Local Government Association (LGA) has called for the government to use its Spending Review to put an end to its 'fragmented and reactive' way of funding local councils and tackling demand pressures. The LGA has set out how the government can provide £10bn in additional funding to councils to protect and improve their services. The call for additional funding follows an announcement that councils in England have seen core funding from government reduced by £15bn in the last ten years. The LGA notes that there has an increase in the number of short-term small grants that councils receive annually from government, but the LGA believes that the '"fragmented" short-term government grants poor value for money'. Instead, the LGA is asking that the government reserves targeted funding for 'transformational purposes', and provides councils with 'long-term certainty' by issuing funding through multi-year settlements tied to the life of a parliament.