FINANCE

Is this really handing local leaders power over their finances?

There was no sense of irony in the finance settlement when the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government noted it was ‘handing local leaders more power and control of their funding’, as it did exactly the opposite for the failing few, says Heather Jameson

(c) Singkham/Shutterstock.com

Local government finance settlements of the past few years have been somewhat anticlimactic. They have arrived later and later each year, sneaking ever closer to Christmas, and have felt increasingly less of a gift and more like the nightmare before Christmas.

Aside from one memorable year of revolt in which MPs threatened to vote down the settlement, the final announcement has tended to be more rubber stamp than red pen, with little in the way of corrections or climbdowns.

Heather Jameson

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