Select Committee · Public Accounts Committee

Local Government Financial Sustainability

Status: Closed Opened: 15 Jan 2025 Closed: 21 Aug 2025 10 recommendations 21 conclusions 1 report

Local government is under extreme financial pressure. The National Audit Office found in 2021 that English local authorities had lost around a quarter of their spending power over the preceding decade, with government-funded spending power over 50% lower. While a £4.5bn funding increase was provided to local authorities in 2024-25 by Government as compared to …

Reports

1 report

Title	HC No.	Published	Items	Response
31st Report - Local Government Financial Sustainability	HC 647	18 Jun 2025	31	Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

1 item

6 Recommendation 31st Report - Local Government Financia… Rejected

Set out detailed timetable of local government finance reforms, implementation plans, and transitional arrangements.

There is significant uncertainty around how the proposed local government finance reforms and reorganisation will be implemented. Long standing plans for funding and service reforms have been delayed several times. The government has now announced a huge reform agenda for local government, including an overhaul of local audit, local finance …

Government response. The government rejected the recommendation to review the impact of switching to council tax funding, arguing that council tax is a locally determined and flexible funding stream, and existing mechanisms like the Fair Funding Review 2.0 already address proposals for …

HM Treasury

Oral evidence sessions

1 session

Date	Witnesses
3 Apr 2025	Conrad Smewing · HM Treasury, Councillor Peter Marland · Milton Keynes City Council, Councillor Peter Marland · Local Government Association, Iain Murray · Chartered Insititute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), Nico Heslop · Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Professor Tony Travers · The LSE School of Public Policy, Sarah Healey · Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Will Garton · Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Will Garton · Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government	View ↗

Correspondence

5 letters

Date	Direction	Title
27 Apr 2026	To cttee	Letter from The Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and…
8 Jan 2026	To cttee	Letter from the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry for Housing, Communities & …
4 Sep 2025	To cttee	Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the HM Treasury relating to the response…
7 Jul 2025	To cttee	Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and…
24 Apr 2025	To cttee	Letter from the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Housing, Communities and Loc…