Spring Forecast: What does it mean for local government?

Much is changing in local government and there is undoubtedly an exciting opportunity to support a change programme that could transform the delivery of affordable housing and publicly funded services for communities across England.

As Angela Raynor stated at the launch of the English Devolution White Paper, if “we’re going to build an economy that works for everyone, we need nothing less than a completely new way of governing”. But the challenges of the immense financial and regulatory pressures in the sector will not be resolved overnight.

The Spring forecast has shed no further light on who will be paying for the promised ‘devolution revolution’. All eyes will be on the spending review in June to find out more about the severity of the planned cuts and their inevitable negative impact on public services.

• The additional funding announced by the Chancellor at the Autumn Budget and the £69 billion local government finance settlement for 2025/26 agreed earlier this year will provide over £5 billion of new funding for local services. However, this is nowhere near enough. Councils will be hoping that more can be done to alleviate their financial pressures.
• The Government has said that 2026-27 will be ‘the first multi-year settlement in a decade’, bringing greater certainty for local authorities over the funding they can expect. Whilst this is positive and must go ahead, there must also be a commitment from the government to increase the amount of funding available overall.

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