I said never mind the black hole. I meant ignore it.
Consider these lost billions: Councils are getting about half the central funding they were getting in 2010 (a cut of £20bn a year).
"The fall in councils' spending power is largely because of reductions in central government grants. These grants were cut by 40% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2019/20, from £46.5bn to £28.0bn (2023/24 prices). This downward trend was reversed in 2020/21 and 2021/22 as central government made more grant funding available to local government in response to the pressures of the pandemic. Though even including Covid grants, the fall in grant income was still 21% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2021/22; without, the fall was 31%.
"While grants from central government were cut, rates of council tax, set by individual councils, were allowed to increase. Local authorities raised 30% more council tax, in real terms, in 2021/22 compared to 2009/10.
"The Localism Act 2011 – which came into effect in 2012/13 – included a clause that prevented local authorities from raising council tax rates by more than 2% annually without holding a referendum. Theresa May’s government increased this to 3% for 2018/19 and 2019/20. Most recently, the government allowed local authorities to raise this again, to 5%, for authorities with social care responsibilities – with 2% from the social care precept and the remaining 3% for discretionary spending."
From
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/local-government-funding-england
Someone was complaining about Trafford council tax increasing by 7+ % - after the Truss budget sent inflation into double figures.
See also:
Key findings
1. Taking the period 2010–11 to 2024–25 as a whole, councils’ overall core funding is set to be 9% lower in real terms and 18% lower in real terms per person this year than at the start of the 2010s. The reduction is set to be larger for councils serving deprived areas (e.g. 26% per person for the most deprived tenth) than for the less deprived areas (e.g. 11% for the least deprived tenth). This reflects the fact that the funding increases seen since 2019–20 have offset only part of the overall cuts seen in the 2010s, which fell hardest on poorer areas. Average council tax bills are around 2% higher in real terms than in 2010–11, and little changed since 2019–20, with high inflation offsetting high nominal increases over the last few years. This compares with a real-terms increase of over 60% between 1997–98 and 2010–11.
2. During the 2010s, councils’ overall core funding per person fell by 26% in real terms, on average, with higher council tax revenues only partially offsetting a 46% fall in funding from central government. But these cuts affected areas differently: in the most deprived tenth of councils, funding per person fell by 35%, compared with 15% in the least deprived areas. Councils in the North and London were also relatively harder hit. Councils responded by prioritising statutory services: while spending per person on children’s social care rose by 11% in real terms, per-person spending on culture and leisure, housing, planning and development, and transport fell by over 40%. Councils also offset some of these pressures by raising more from sales, fees and charges on service users.
From
https://ifs.org.uk/publications/how-have-english-councils-funding-and-spending-changed-2010-2024
And I remember the sinking feeling when I first saw the Graph of Doom:
