At just under £8 billion, spending on schools and childcare is the second-largest area of public service spending in Scotland, behind spending on health. While councils rather than the Scottish Government itself determine how much to spend on schools, they do so in the context of a funding and...

At just under £8 billion, spending on schools and childcare is the second-largest area of public service spending in Scotland, behind spending on health. While councils rather than the Scottish Government itself determine how much to spend on schools, they do so in the context of a funding and...

The special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system in England has faced unprecedented pressure over the past decade, and without substantial reform it will likely become unmanageable for local authorities over the coming years. Fundamentally, this is due to the rocketing number of...

A new, up-to-date system for allocating funding between councils is vital, and reforms must align with the broader vision for local government.

This chapter of our second annual Budget Report looks beyond 2024-25 to the medium-term outlook for the Scottish Government's funding, and the implications of the funding picture for the choices and trade-offs faced when allocating funding between areas of the budget. The Scottish Government had...

English councils saw big cuts to their funding during the 2010s, with spending on some services down between 40% and 70% over the decade. And although like virtually all public services, funding for local government was increased during the 2019-24 parliament, councils' finances are still under...

The Scottish Government's Budget for 2024-25 takes place at a time of particular uncertainty about the future funding environment. UK government spending plans both for the coming year and for later years seem likely to be topped up, but when and by how much is unclear. The current UK government...

Like spending on the NHS, and schools, English council funding has increased over the current parliament. But that follows a decade of austerity in the 2010s. And despite funding increases, councils are again under significant financial pressure, with increases in spending outpacing revenues and...

This chapter of our second annual Budget Report looks at Scottish tax policy and revenue, the overall amount of funding available for Scottish public services, and planned spending on different individual services in the coming financial year, 2024-25. In several important respects, the Scottish...

We set out the major challenges facing the adult social care system in England and explore potential future developments for the sector.

The special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system in England has faced unprecedented pressure over the past decade, and without substantial reform it will likely become unmanageable for local authorities over the coming years. Fundamentally, this is due to the rocketing number of...

Small-scale federal democracies depend on the active participation of individuals in local political office. Both anecdotal evidence and empirical studies across Western democracies indicate a growing difficulty in recent decades to recruit candidates for municipal offices. This study examines...

English councils saw big cuts to their funding during the 2010s, with spending on some services down between 40% and 70% over the decade. And although like virtually all public services, funding for local government was increased during the 2019-24 parliament, councils' finances are still under...

We study local tax competition when municipalities can voluntarily cooperate. We compare the intensity of interjurisdictional policy interdependence between competing municipalities within the same “establishment for inter-municipal cooperation” (EIMC) and competing municipalities outside of...

Seit 2022 sind Inflation und Zinsniveau in Deutschland merklich erhöht. Wir arbeiten mittels einer Szenarienrechnung die Auswirkung der höheren Preise und Zinsen auf die Finanzierungssalden der Kommunen in Nordrhein-Westfalen heraus und berücksichtigen dabei systematische Unterschiede...

Like spending on the NHS, and schools, English council funding has increased over the current parliament. But that follows a decade of austerity in the 2010s. And despite funding increases, councils are again under significant financial pressure, with increases in spending outpacing revenues and...

Do young politicians prioritize other types of municipal spending than old politicians? We study this question using hand-collected candidate-level data on municipal elections (1996-2020), along with detailed administrative data on municipal spending in Bavaria. Our identification strategy makes...

We investigate the impact of immigration on public budgets using administrative data from German districts (Kreise). While previous literature suggests that the fiscal benefits of migration depend on government spending responses to immigration, the local-level effects in Germany remain...

E-leadership (i.e., remotely leading employees) has become a new normal in the public sector during the pandemic. However, practices of e-leadership differ due to legal, national and even organisational conditions. A deeper analysis is needed to understand what has happened with leadership...

Youth not in employment, education or training (NEET) is a heterogeneous group in which many run the risk of long-term exclusion from the labor market and from society. Numerous national and international policy initiatives targeting NEETs have therefore been launched, often involving the...

The objective of this work is to analyze the impact of fiscal decentralization on the behavior of Brazilian municipal policymakers. This work uses the first three cutoffs of the transfer rules of the Municipal Participation Fund (FPM) and applies a regression discontinuity designs (RDD) to...

We study the determinants of local governments' reliance on bank loans using granular data from the Federal Reserve. Governments that are larger, riskier, rely on historically stable revenue sources, or have higher spending relative to revenues are more likely to borrow from banks. Declines in...