Next year's financial settlement for English councils has increased the risk of more of them becoming ‘financially unviable', the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers (SOLACE) has warned.

In a blunt statement released shortly after the CLG secretary Eric Pickles set out the funding arrangements for 2013-14 to the Commons' today, SOLACE chair Joanna Killian said the announcement provided ‘no comfort' to cash–strapped councils.