Councils in a jam shouldn't have to scrape for funding crumbs

摘要

The Institute for Fiscal Studies' Paul Johnson described the chancellor's announcement last week as a 'tale of two Budgets', dishing out a feast of short-term generosity, with a long-term fast to come. While it may be jam today for furloughed workers and high street businesses, devolution and funding for local government comes in crumbs. Gone are the days when the Budget and Autumn Statement were awash with devolution deals, doling out powers to metro mayors. George Osborne's powerhouse approach has been replaced with Rishi Sunak's level-headed levelling up. Shifting civil servants out of Whitehall to a new campus in Darlington may be a first step in popping the Westminster bubble, but it is people, not powers - it is, at best, decentralisation without the devolution. There is cash too, in the Levelling Up Fund. It comes in the form of bid funding - with anointed authorities allowed to hold out a begging bowl to ask for more, albeit after asking permission from their local MP.