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Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton

Articles by Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton

Budget 2023: The austerity elephant

By Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton | 17 March 2023

Forced cutbacks and savings from councils over the next few years risk outweighing the new regene...

The success of Labour's 5 Missions will depend on councils being properly funded

By Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton | 01 March 2023

As the Labour Party begins to release more information on how its 5 Missions are to be achieved, ...

Making the case for leisure centres

By Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton | 25 January 2023

Joining the dots between funding cuts and the impact on life expectancy has not been hard, says C...

Councils deserve better from the Government

By Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton | 22 December 2022

The provisional financial settlement fails to offer any real Christmas cheer for local authoritie...

How Gove can resurrect 'levelling up'

By Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton | 31 October 2022

Chair of the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities (SIGOMA) Cllr Stephen Houghton has t...

More grant funding, not devolved tax powers, will support levelling up

By Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton | 31 August 2022

Sir Stephen Houghton says fiscal devolution is not a ‘levelling up’ silver bullet – and a new ref...

Deprivation should be the cornerstone of council funding

By Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton | 21 July 2022

The Fair Funding Review presents a huge opportunity to get ‘levelling up’ back on track, says Cll...

Rampant inflation will impact poorest most

By Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton | 30 June 2022

Chair of the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities, Sir Stephen Houghton, says unless e...

Government must back up claim that UKSPF provides real terms match

By Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton | 04 May 2022

If the Government is sure the UK Shared Prosperity Fund provides a real terms match for every LEP...

How 'levelling up' got left out of the Spring Statement

By Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton | 29 March 2022

The chancellor mentioned the ‘levelling up’ agenda just once in his Spring Statement. Without ser...