Local Authority Finance

Local Authority Finance underpins all of the work of Local Authorities and effective management of these scarce resources is very important to all Councillors, Officers and Rural Communities.

We provide a range of services to help support Local Authority Finance Officers and Councillors.

Analysis of Local Authority Accounts

We carry out RO and RA analysis and provide comparisons for Councils so that they can see their spend or budgeted spend against other similar rural authorities.  

 RA Analysis 

 RO Analysis 

Fairer Funding Campaign

A large part of our work includes campaigning for fairer funding for rural local authorities.

The Final Local Government Finance Settlement for 2024-25 means that:

- Urban local authorities will receive some 36% (£141.71) MORE in Government Funded Spending Power per head compared to rural authorities.

- Rural residents will pay, on average, 20% (£112.33) MORE per head in Council Tax than their urban counterparts due to receiving less government grant

Rural residents pay more, receive fewer services and, on average, earn less than those in urban areas and that is inequitable

It costs more to deliver services in rural areas.

The way that the Local Government Finance Settlement has been calculated has resulted in rural areas being significantly underfunded when compared to urban areas for a number of years.

We want fairer funding for rural areas.

We appreciate that we are in a time of austerity and cuts are being made to local government funding, however we are campaigning for a fairer distribution of the funds, so that historical imbalances where rural areas are penalised, do not continue.

Analysis of Local Government Finance Settlement

Each year we provide an analysis of the Local Government Finance Settlement. This supports the work that we do with the Fairer Funding Campaign and also provides useful information for individual authorities as to their position.

Finance Briefing

We provide a range of information and briefings about key proposals from the Government in relation to local authority finance, consultation information and Calls for Evidence from both us and the Government for information.