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“A pivotal year”: the National Audit Office looks ahead at local government in 2019
Writing on the National Audit Office blog, Abdool Kara foresees 2019 as “a pivotal year” for local government in Britain:
Numerous difficult and open-ended questions need rapid resolution, at a time when government focus and capacity is directed elsewhere.
Well, quite. Drawing on recent NAO reports, Kara identifies and explores a number of challenges facing the sector, including:
- uncertain finances
- social care systems under strain
- ongoing integration of health and social care
- commercialisation
And of course, there’s the B-word:
Civil contingencies can only ever be dealt with at a local level. With only weeks left until our deadline for leaving the EU, much remains to be done to prepare for the potential emergency calls on local government and the Local Resilience Forums in which they play a key role.
EU structural funds, including national match funding, are currently worth £2.4 billion a year to the UK. So the UK’s exit from the EU also brings uncertainty about the size, distribution, and expectations of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, which is planned to replace these EU funds.