County councils face a double whammy of rising care costs and dwindling revenues as local government switches to funding through business rates, unless the formula is dramatically changed, finance experts have warned. 

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has today warned there would have been around 122 ‘losers' under a 100% business rate retention scheme between 2013/14 and 2016/17 if the current 50% retention scheme had been merely scaled up, including all county councils.