Toughening it out

摘要

Last week, the Audit Commission published Tough times, which considers how councils are coping with significant reductions in their income. This is not the first Audit Commission report to consider the impact of the financial climate on councils. In 2008, Crunch time reported that 77% of councils had seen a real-terms cut in grant funding, and an increase in demand for services. But, at the time, inflation and fuel prices were going down, and most councils were confident they could cope with the pressures they faced as a result of the economic downturn. Three years on, and the world looks quite different. The economy is just as challenging - if not worse -and there is little comfort to be found in the inflation data. Fuel prices are at an all-time high.