Why is my local council going bust?

School Seminar with Professor Andy Pike, Newcastle University.

The financial plight of local councils in England hit the international headlines following a spate of ‘bankruptcies’ including Birmingham, Nottingham, and Woking since 2018. These local councils had effectively run out of money to provide essential local services including libraries, social care, and specialised education. What caused these financial meltdowns? How are national and local governments responding? What are the impacts on people and places?

Explanations divide between blaming austerity cuts and the highly centralised and broken funding system or the local agency of failing leadership, management, and governance. Reproducing the fiscal crisis of the local state, national government policy forced local councils into making savings and generating new income sources with reduced capacity and failed to overhaul a funding system that intensifies their challenges and reduces their margins for error amidst greater risk. It is not local but national government statecraft that is failing properly to resource the vital and democratically accountable role of local councils for people and places.