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A decade of cuts has reduced local authorities’ ability to deal with key long-term issues, from child protection to an ageing societyAngela Rayner: Tories’ council fund is cynical pre-election sticking plasterBarnet council’s ‘Graph of Doom’ now looks prophetic‘Stuck without it’: Woking elderly residents face losing key transportOnce vanishingly rare, the prospect English local authorities might go bust now offers no surprise: four councils have in effect gone bankrupt in the past year; others have declared a state of “financial emergency”; a further one in five believe it is “fairly or very likely” they will become insolvent in the next 18 months.Local government is no stranger to budget cuts – austerity has shrunk town hall spending by approximately 40% over the past 12 years. But there are fears inflationary costs and a decade of funding cuts has hollowed out the capacity of authorities to deal with four long-term existential pressures, from child protection to an ageing society. Continue reading...