This Thursday marks 11 weeks since people across the UK last broke out into applause for key workers. It would be easy to dismiss this weekly display of appreciation as a largely symbolic gesture; but it did inspire mutual recognition of a key tenet of this pandemic: though the crisis affects us all, the burden Read more
At last year’s Autumn Budget, the UK Chancellor, Philip Hammond, asserted with confidence that “austerity is finally coming to an end”. His claim is unlikely to resonate within the halls of local government in Wales. Despite nearly a decade of sustained budget cuts, the outlook for local government finance suggests that tough choices and trade-offs are here to stay. Read more
As local authorities across Wales prepare to publish their budgets for 2019-20, expect to see a significant rise in Council Tax, with councils increasingly relying on locally-sourced revenue to partially offset cuts to their funding and to meet increasing demand pressures. Read more
