The Government announced the Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement on 17th December 2020

This sets out the funding that Local Authorities will receive for the period 2021-2022. 

The Rural Services Network is concerned that once again, rural councils (and the communities they serve) are not receiving a fair share of resources being made available by the Government to support local authority services.

Rural residents will find themselves in comparison with their urban counterparts:

• Overcharged – through paying more in council tax
• Short-changed – through the flawed, urban biased funding formula/distributional methodology

- More information on the impact on rural authorities is available at this briefing note

According to the provisional settlement:

• Rural Residents will pay on average over £96 more per head in council tax than urban residents
• Receive £107 (61%) less per head from Settlement Funding Assessment than urban residents

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/provisional-local-government-finance-settlement-2021-to-2022-consultation

The Government consultation runs until 16th January 2021 and is available at this link above.

The Rural Services Network is preparing a draft response to the consultation and will circulate it to the Local Authorities in Sparse membership this week but would urge all rural local authorities to respond to the consultation so that their views can be considered and heard in MHCLG.

In particular we would urge you to respond to Section 6 on the Rural Services Delivery Grant, and answer yes to question 7 on this particular grant.

Question 7: Do you agree with the Government’s proposals for Rural Services Delivery Grant in 2021-22?