Living Without the Formula Grant?
Author: Localis |
Can Councils Live Without the Formula Grant?
The balance of funding between central and local government is, arguably, the greatest challenge this government faces in achieving genuine decentralisation.
Central control of local finances undermines councils, creates needlessly complicated lines of accountability and produces an unnecessary and wasteful standardisation in the provision of public services.
Localis, working with Ernst and Young, will be exploring this issue in more detail. In this pamphlet we describe the problems with the current system and touch upon some of the potential solutions, particularly looking at the use of business rates, to ask the question: Can councils live without the formula grant?
But this pamphlet is merely the start of the discussion. We will be conducting extensive research into the questions raised by this pamphlet, and publishing a definitive report in early 2011.