I’m a Councillor, Get me out of here: England’s System of Local Government Finance

Author: Tony Travers and Loreno Esposito   |   04/06/2004

‘I’m a local councillor, get me out of here!’ is the second part of a major study into the reform of local government finance in England supported by Localis. Our aim is to provide a non-technical and accessible analysis of the current system and to suggest some key principles that should guide any reform of it.
The local government finance system is one of the things that we never seem to be able to get right. For most of the last century it has been trapped in an eternal cycle of political crisis, expert review and botched reform. As the Government’s Balance of Funding Review draws to a conclusion, we hope that all political parties at Westminster will find the courage to break out of this cycle of failure. The next phase of our study will examine the merits of the local government finance systems operating in other countries. We will conclude the study with detailed recommendations for reform of local government finance in England.