The Depths of The Cuts: The Uneven Geography of Local Government Austerity

Mia Gray and Anna Barford ()

Working Papers from Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge

Abstract: Austerity, the sustained and widespread cuts to government budgets, has characterised Britain’s public policy since 2010. The local state has undergone substantial restructuring, driven by major budget reductions from central government. Hitherto, few studies of austerity in the UK have considered the interplay of national and local policies. We contribute a fine-grained spatial analysis of local authority budgets, highlighting their socioeconomically- and geographically-uneven impacts. We identify substantial variations between authorities in terms of funding, local tax-base, fiscal resources, assets, political control, service-need and demographics. We argue that austerity has actively reshaped the relationship between central and local government in Britain, shrinking the capacity of the local state, increasing inequality between local governments, and exacerbating territorial injustice.

Keywords: Urban Austerity; State Rescaling; Great Recession; Territorial Injustice; Local Government Restructuring; Fiscal Disciplining (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H1 H12 H7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pke and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (68)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The depths of the cuts: the uneven geography of local government austerity (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp510

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