LGIU Response: Spending Review 2025

Jonathan Carr-West, Chief Executive, Local Government Information Unit (LGIU), said:

“This was a ‘missions’ driven Spending Review – with eye-catching sums for projects aimed at delivering growth, clean energy and a 3% rise in spending on the NHS. Angela Rayner has clearly persuaded the Chancellor to put the affordable homes agenda front and centre of today’s statement, with that promise of £39bn.

It was a Spending Review full of hard choices for the government in the face of tough financial circumstances, a position all of us in local government are used to. These decisions will have major implications for local government and local communities across the country for years to come.

The Chancellor’s Spending Review also reinforced this government’s commitment to devolving power to regions across England, commits the government to major investments in housing and infrastructure, and pledges new funds to support regional and local growth across England and the devolved nations. This should be welcomed.

While today was never going to answer every unanswered question that local government has, it does outline when we might expect at least a few answers. Reorganisation, changes to the allocation of funding settlements, devolution, SEND reform, and, eventually, social care funding reform, all of these were promised in the Spending Review. They are all crucial to putting local government back on a sustainable footing – but they have all been promised before.

Optimal delivery of every single one of the government’s missions needs robust and financially stable local government. And once again, the government’s plans for how that will be achieved are left dangling just out of reach.”

ENDS