Across the country, local authorities of all political persuasions are increasing their expenditure on external providers of goods and services.

This growth is the finding of Oxygen Finance's recently published local authority Third Party Spend Almanac, in which it is reported that third-party spending increased by £4.6bn in 2021 to almost £70bn, a 7% growth and almost double the increase of £2.6bn in 2020. While much of the increase relates to public health and social care, these two services do not account for all of them.  Additionally, while these figures account for expenditure on goods as well as services, any growth in the latter should be both a surprise and cause for concern.