The bodies representing district and county councils have warned that services will be cut next year after the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement was published yesterday.

The Government has announced £69bn for English councils next year, which it said represented a 3.5% real terms increase in core spending power.

But the settlement would mean ‘much larger’ increases in funding for councils serving more deprived and more urban areas than for those serving more affluent and more rural parts of England, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

The think-tank said the settlement represented a real-terms spending cut for most (132) shire district councils, although their funding will ultimately increase next year because of the extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging.

The District Councils’ Network’s finance spokesperson, Jeremy Newmark, warned that ‘for many communities some services will be cut’.

The County Councils Network (CCN) also said its member councils would have to cut services, adding that the provisional settlement would put them in a worse position than before the Autumn Budget.

It said the Government’s deprivation-based formula for allocating the £600m ‘recovery grant’ meant more than half of the cash would go to 34 metropolitan boroughs, while just three county and rural councils would benefit.

Finance spokesperson Barry Lewis said yesterday: ‘The CCN wants to see the evidence that backs up ministerial decisions to target funding so specifically.

‘With our previous analysis showing county authorities have a larger funding gap than metropolitan boroughs next year, our councils deserve a fairer share of the resources announced today.’

Stephen Houghton, chair of the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities (SIGOMA), said: ‘This is a fair settlement for councils that will provide welcome relief to the most deprived areas after a decade of disproportionate cuts and increases in demand.’