This year looks set to be another busy and challenging one for local government.
We continue to push the Government to provide more new funding for all councils – as we have done in previous years – in the final Local Government Finance Settlement, due out in the next month.
While only some of the much needed new money for councils was included in the provisional settlement, this is the only way to help plug the growing funding gaps facing our local services.
The settlement does allow councils to increase their core council tax by an additional 1% in the next financial year, without a local referendum. This is a flexibility that will give some councils the option to offset some of the financial pressures they face in the next year.
