In August 2023, the 成人快手 Shared Data Unit revealed that a black hole in local authority budgets continues to grow, prompting fears some will not be able to provide basic services.
The project involved surveying 190 upper-tier authorities in the UK to find out the extent of the financial difficulties facing town halls.
It revealed council chiefs expect to be £5.2bn short of balancing the books by April 2026 even after making £2.5bn of planned cuts.
The average council now faces a £33m predicted deficit by 2025-26 - a rise of 60% from £20m two years ago.
Background and briefing
A full .
Get the data
- Shared spreadsheet: (also as a )
- ONS population figures: . This excludes Westmorland and Furness and Cumberland, both created in April 2023. Their population figures were obtained from their websites ( and
- Council tax figures for England (excluding precepts) correspond to data published by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government: . It excludes some local authorities, so these figures were collected from each council website.
- 成人快手 calculations estimated the council tax figures for Scotland using data provided by local authorities. Likewise, Wales figures were obtained from data released by the local councils and the Welsh government. Domestic rate percentage increases for Northern Ireland were collected from each local authority website.
- Details on Somerset Council's commercial investments (), via a
Visualisation
Interactive table with lookup: Predicted savings and deficits at upper-tier local authorities (UK, 2023-24 budget)
Interviews and quotes
- Neil Crouch, who had their respite eligibility removed due to council cuts
- Layla Barclay, who led the campaign to keep Gateshead Leisure Centre open
- Mike Short, Head of Local Government of Unison
- Cllr Shaun Davies, Chair of the Local Government Association
- Dame Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC)
- Cllr Georgia Gould, Chair of London Councils
- Cllr Tim Oliver, Chair of the County Councils Network
- A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
- A spokesperson for the Welsh government
- A spokesperson for the Scottish government
- Spokespeople for the upper-tier local authorities of Essex, Shropshire, Newry, Mourne and Down, Nottingham, Thurrock, Shetland Islands, Kingston upon Thames, Barnsley, Bradford, Leicester and Kensington and Chelsea
成人快手 and partner usage
This investigation featured across 成人快手 platforms on the 21st of August 2023, including the 成人快手 News website, and , as well as 成人快手 Wales and around 20 other 成人快手 radio outlets.
The Shared Data Unit makes data journalism available to news organisations across the media industry, as part of a partnership between the 成人快手 and the News Media Association. The partnership generated over 60 stories, including:
- Belfast Live:
- Birmingham Live:
- Manchester Evening News:
- My London:
- The Scotsman:
- The Yorkshire Post:
- Wales Online: /
The story also featured in the and in both print and digital editions of .
Related repo
In July 2021, the 成人快手 Shared Data Unit reported UK councils faced a £3bn black hole in their budgets as they emerged from the coronavirus pandemic ().
Behind the story
Alex 成人快手r, 成人快手 Shared Data Unit
The Shared Data Unit has been investigating council finances for the past three years and while its latest investigation was being researched – which showed the average council now faced a £33m ($42m) predicted deficit by 2025-26, a rise of 60% from two years ago (/news/uk-66428191) - I had been locked in a battle to see correspondence by the Cabinet Office, which took more than two years to conclude.
In May 2021, I had asked to see any information and correspondence held about me by the Cabinet Office, to see if and how it had become involved in responding to requests I had made under Freedom of Information laws to other government departments for the 成人快手 Shared Data Unit and our regional news partner outlets.
The Cabinet Office initially sent me a partial response listing descriptions of what it held about me. I thought that unusual as I had not contacted the Cabinet Office directly at all over the time period I had requested correspondence, but it refused to disclose copies of all the documents themselves as I had first asked. I appealed, was refused again, and then made a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in November 2021.
In June this year, the ICO ruled in my favour and ordered the Cabinet Office to disclose the documents it had withheld within 35 calendar days.
What I discovered was the Cabinet Office had become involved in declining our request to interview a minister live about the findings of our first large-scale investigation (/news/uk-53069772) into the financial health of local authorities at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic.
The internal discussion recommended the then-Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, since renamed The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, to decline my request because the “investigation…could lead to tough questioning from the presenter.
“A further risk is that the minister could get drawn into commentating on different councils' situations, which could get complex, and we don't have anything more to say until we provide more detail on future government support for councils, as we currently have no new announcements on this to push back on.”
When asked about the internal correspondence I’d unearthed, a Government spokesperson sent us a statement: “Departmental press offices receive a wide number of requests to interview Ministers each week, and it is not possible to accept every request.
“Ministers and senior civil servants at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities have regularly and rigorously answered questions in Parliament, through committees and in the media on the topics of local government finance and sustainability.”
Over the two years I was arguing whether this correspondence should be disclosed, the following councils declared effective bankruptcy: Woking Borough Council in Surrey, Slough Borough Council, Thurrock Council in Essex, and Croydon Council issued its third Section 114 notice in two years, while councils in Guildford, Hastings and Southampton among others have warned they may also have to do the same.
Commenting on the SDU’s latest investigation, the Local Government Association (LGA) highlighted it had repeatedly called on the government to change the way local authorities were funded, and for councils to be enabled to plan more effectively by hearing how much funding they would receive over a number of years rather than discover what they would be given one year at a time, as per the current system.
Some would argue now it is time councils and their residents had better, longer-term answers from government to these tough questions about how their services will be funded.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) did not comment on the time taken to investigate my complaint specifically but did highlight its efforts to reduce its backlog of cases.( https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2023/03/director-s-update-celebrating-success-and-challenging-ourselves-for-the-future/)
When the ICO appeared before the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in June, it said among the public authorities with the biggest related backlog of cases the “most prominent …in our casebook is the Cabinet Office. They have a high volume. Their cases are typically more complex. They often involve a range of other Departments…”( https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/13251/pdf/)