By Andy Ford, Partner, PwC There’s no getting away from it. By 2018, local government will look very different from today, with some predicting as much as a 50% cut in council budgets since the last spending review. With the next round of spending cuts looming, local government has a...
Our research over the last two years on good growth has shown that the UK public believes there is a wider scorecard of factors beyond GDP which can be used to measure economic wellbeing, whether at national, regional and/or city levels (see this previous post). But what’s the view of...
By Andy Ford, Partner, PwC Local government doesn’t seem to get much good news these days - a challenging financial settlement, diminishing support from central government, further spending cuts ahead, and even blame for the horsemeat scandal. We’ve been working with the New Local Government Network (NLGN) to try and...
By Andy Ford, Local Government Partner There is a definite feeling of ‘back to the future’ about the release of the local authority financial settlement so close to Christmas. The confidence of a few years back – when we thought we had entered an era of commitment to longer term...
By Andy Ford, Local Government Partner The news that local authorities will bear the lion's share of the further 2% reduction in departmental budgets in 2014/15 will not come as a surprise to the sector, but that won't make it any more palatable. Our surveys of how local councils have...
By Andy Ford, Local Government Partner How will current pressures on councils determine how future local services are delivered? This was on the agenda of a roundtable PwC and Progress hosted at the Labour Party Conference in Manchester, earlier this week. The fringe session explored a wide range of issues...
By Andy Ford, Local Government Partner What do the ongoing pressures on local government mean for how tomorrow's services will be delivered? This was on the agenda of a roundtable meeting we convened on Tuesday with think tank Reform. It’s the first in a series of Under Pressure roundtables examining...
By Andy Ford, Local Government Partner There is growing realisation within local government that austerity will continue for some years. Our recent survey of local leadership shows that councils have been remarkably successful so far in finding savings in a way that has largely protected front-line services and many are...
By Andy Ford, Local Government Partner As the age of austerity continues, PwC surveyed local authority leadership at the end of the last financial year to examine how councils have coped with central government funding cuts. The good news is that we found those that responded were confident they would...
By Andy Ford, Local Government Partner While avowed localists will always focus on the unique and idiosyncratic ward and council results, this year’s set of elections are being interpreted as an interim judgement upon the Westminster Government. But what was the message from the electorate? The sudden recent fall in...
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