Some local authorities are little more than procurers of outsourced services.
This was written by the Institute of Fiscal Studies in November 2019:
Key facts and figures
1. Cuts to funding from central government have led to a 17% fall in councils’ spending on local public services since 2009–10 – equal to 23% or nearly £300 per person. Almost this entire cut took place in the first half the 2010s. Indeed, spending is budgeted to have risen modestly since its nadir in 2017–18 as business rates revenues, council tax rises and ring-fenced funding for social care have offset continued cuts to general-purpose grants from central government.
2. Local government has become increasingly reliant on local taxes for revenues. Council tax paid by local residents makes up almost half of revenues – up from just over a third in 2009–10 – and retained business rates account for 30%, up from nothing. After most councils froze their council tax during the first half of the 2010s, over the last four years council tax revenues have grown nearly 15% per person in real terms. This reflects an 8% real terms increase in tax rates since 2015–16 and at least a 4% real terms reduction in how much councils spend on helping low income households pay their council tax bills.
3. Councils’ spending is increasingly focused on social care services – now 57% of all service budgets. This reflects the fact that councils have cut what they spend themselves on housing, transport, planning, and cultural and leisure services by 40% or more per person in order to limit cuts to social care services – although income from fees and charges means overall spending on
these services has not fallen quite so much. As a result, spending per person on acute children’s social care services is budgeted to be 2% higher than in 2009–10, and will probably be even higher given councils have overspent relative to budgets by 8% on average over the last four years.
4. A 4% boost to funding next year would still leave spending per person at least 20% lower than in 2009–10. And in the longer term, billions of pounds of additional funding from government grants or new devolved taxes will likely be needed to meet the rising costs of service provision – even if council tax increases at double the rate of inflation each year.
5. Councils in more deprived areas have done less well from the NHB than those in more affluent areas, in part because bigger payments are made for new properties in higher council tax bands. In contrast, they have retained at least as much business rates revenue growth, on average. In areas with two-tier local government, districts have retained the bulk of NHB payments and business rates growth and many rely on this for a large share of their overall funding. In contrast, counties have seen less funding than they would have if equivalent funding had been allocated according to spending needs assessments.
www.ifs.org.uk/publications/14563
(Sorry! I couldn't find the equivalent for Scotland, Wales or NI, but I'm sure the info is there somewhere.)
Of most relevance to the COVID-19 situation is that public health was transferred as part of the 2011/12 reforms from the NHS to local authorities. That move was widely welcomed, but cuts to local authorities have meant they can't fund it, so the amount spent is now miniscule. That's why central government have to bring in the likes of Serco and other private companies to operate the test and trace operation. As it will be operated mainly by minimum wage workers from call centres, I honestly can't see it being that effective.
Independent Sage is calling for a local system which tests, traces and contacts people PLUS offers real support to people who need to self-isolate. At the moment, the idea is to offer advice (ie go and read the relevant web page), whereas people self-isolating have much greater needs, including help with shopping, financial help, transport to and from hospital, accommodation if living in over-crowded conditions, etc.
