Many responded to the inquiry into local government funding and the 2019 Spending Review. Although the work by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Local Government Association on business rates retention and fair funding has been helpful, we can get caught up in discussions about who gets what share of the funding.

The key question is: how is funding the needs of local government assessed? In addition to the cost of more than 1,300 legislative requirements placed on local authorities, let’s not forget the other things we do which are vital to our residents. During austerity, many non-statutory, proactive and preventative services were cut to continue funding statutory services and areas under increasing pressure.