Eleven councils will receive nothing from the local tax income guarantee (TIG) aimed at compensating them from the impact of the pandemic on their budgets. For them, the scheme ‘has proved to be no more than a mirage’, says Cllr Richard Brown

There were early warning signs at the start of 2020-21 that local tax income would be severely affected by the impact of restrictions on individuals and businesses. Council tax support claimant numbers started to rise immediately in one of the less celebrated graphs of the year. This, and challenges in maintaining collection rates, has left Section 151 officers and their finance cabinet members like me counting the cost of COVID within their collection funds.

It would be churlish not to recognise that the Government has provided very significant financial support to local government – although there will be different views on whether this has been adequate or whether it takes a sufficiently medium-term perspective.