The local government response to austerity in a small devolved country: the case of Wales

Emma Taylor-Collins and James Downe

Local Government Studies, 2022, vol. 48, issue 5, 929-950

Abstract: The 2008 Global Financial Crisis and subsequent austerity drive across Europe and North America has been particularly felt at a local government level. Wales presents a valuable case study through which to explore the impact of austerity on local government: it is a small country with a devolved government that is philosophically opposed to austerity, yet where cuts to local government have been drastic. Drawing on interviews with Welsh councils and key stakeholders, this paper explores three approaches councils have taken to managing austerity – efficiency, investment, and retrenchment – and finds that councils were already at a financial ‘tipping point’ before the pandemic. This paper concludes by considering the lessons that could be applied to the new challenge of recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03003930.2021.1996357 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:flgsxx:v:48:y:2022:i:5:p:929-950

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/flgs20

DOI: 10.1080/03003930.2021.1996357

Access Statistics for this article

Local Government Studies is currently edited by Helen Hancock

More articles in Local Government Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().