LGiU response to the provisional 2021/22 Local Government Finance Settlement
Jonathan Carr-West, Chief Executive, LGiU said:
“Sadly, today’s finance settlement comes as no great surprise. Too late in the day for councils to make strategic decisions about spending. Too little money for them to safely balance the books.
Once again, the political risk is passed on to local government with a “spending boost” that is insufficient to meet their needs and which relies on councils boosting council tax to the max, drawing down the wrath of their hard pushed residents while allowing the government to shelter behind the fiction that they are not raising taxes.
The Secretary of State says that no council is obliged to raise council tax. That’s true in, to borrow a phrase, a narrow and limited way. But in the real world any council that hopes to make ends meet next year will have no choice but to do exactly that.”
