Rural Fair Funding

Amid reduced public spending, fair resource allocation across regions is crucial. Despite a population larger than Greater London, rural areas receive significantly less funding for essential services, even though delivering these services in rural locales is costlier.

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30 Mar 2020

Possible impact of changes to the calculation of sparsity/rurality cost in the Fair Funding Review

At the Rural Services Network we recently sent to all of our local authority SPARSE-Rural members (for whom we carry out work and representations on the Local Government Funding Formula)...

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23 Mar 2020

Rural Public Health funding

Local authorities (upper tier and unitary) are responsible for improving the health of their local population and reducing health inequalities In 2020/21 the total public health grant to local authorities...

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24 Feb 2020

Rural Areas still missing out

The Rural Services Network has long campaigned for fair funding for rural areas.  Along with our member local authorities, we aim to influence government policy to fully recognise and address...

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17 Feb 2020

Urban schools get more funding than rural counterparts

In figures released by the Government on February 11 2020, schools in areas classified as Predominantly Urban received £332 more per pupil on average than those in Predominantly Rural areas...

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10 Feb 2020

North Yorkshire council tax 3x what many wealthy Londoners pay

MinsterFM reported that council tax-payers in North Yorkshire are facing bills of up to three times as much as residents of some of London’s most expensive boroughs In a North...

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27 Jan 2020

Increased council tax in rural areas

Rural communities continue to suffer as the gap in council tax between urban and rural areas continues to grow.  On average those living in rural communities pay £105 more than...

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16 Dec 2019

Local government looking ahead to increased devolution

The MJ reports that local government officials are expecting a ‘devolution revolution’ after Thursday’s election result During this tenure in office, the Prime Minister has backed further mayoral models and...

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11 Nov 2019

Next PM should spend more to meet needs

inews has reported that ‘Whoever becomes Prime Minister next month will have to increase spending on public services by even more than has been pledged by either Labour or the Conservatives,’...

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12 Aug 2019

New UK Government and a one-year spending review

Whilst media headlines have naturally focussed on the new prime minister’s plans for Brexit, the formation of a new government also has implications for local government funding It has now...

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01 Apr 2019

Council leader argues for fairer rural funding

Derbyshire County Council leader Barry Lewis has argued for a fairer funding settlement for rural areas in the Local Government Chronicle this week. He cites analysis by the Rural Services...

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