The Government has agreed to ensure the provisional and final local government finance settlements are published on set dates each year.
The decision will give local authorities more certainty to plan their budgets and will provide them with more time to scrutinise the settlement.
The minister for local government Rishi Sunak announced the move yesterday in response to an independent review into the department’s oversight of the business rates system.
The review, led by former director general at HM Treasury Andrew Hudson, argued that the processes for managing the local government finance system should be strengthened in anticipation of the Fair Funding Review, the 2019 Spending Review and the changes to business rates and their retention by local authorities.
It also recommended that future provisional settlements be on or around the 5 December and the final settlement no later than the 31 January.
‘I thank Andrew Hudson for carrying out this thorough review. We accept his recommendations, and have already taken steps to ensure their implementation,’ said Mr Sunak.
‘We recognise taking a more planned approach towards the provisional local government finance settlement in future will be fundamental to ensuring local authorities are given more certainty, and the time and space to consider their financial positions for the coming year.
‘With this in mind we will aim to publish the provisional and final settlements on or around the same dates every year from this December.’
Mr Hudson’s review found the business rates system – amid cuts in resources - had grown ‘much more complex’ over the last five years, with the number of calculations in the settlement more than doubling from 44 in 2017/18 to 100 in 2018/19.
