The Budget

The Budget or the Autumn Statement, delivered this week, confirmed many of the widely anticipated headlines, with significant updates relevant to local government. Here’s an overview of the key measures and how Local Partnerships is here to support your initiatives. 

Key announcements for local government from the budget

From a local government perspective, the expected announcements about the Affordable Homes programme, a schools rebuilding programme and funding to help with crisis in homelessness and special educational needs, were accompanied by a range of other noteworthy statements such as: 

• continuation of funding support for projects within the core levelling up programme 

• intention for simpler local authority structures that can generate efficiency savings 

• development of a social impact investment vehicle that will seek to bring socially motivated investors, the voluntary sector and government to tackle complex social problems 

Clean energy and infrastructure initiatives 

The budget commits to substantial investment in clean energy and infrastructure, aiming to establish the UK as a “clean energy super power.”

Key initiatives include: 

• £30bn for net zero and clean energy projects, focusing on expanding wind, solar, and nuclear power developments 

• GB Energy will receive £100bn of investment over the next five years, enabling local authorities and their communities to develop local energy infrastructure and contribute towards the 8GW generation target by 2030 

• £3.4bn for Warm Homes Grants, targeted at retrofitting 350,000 homes 

• £2bn for EV charging infrastructure 

• £300m for further education, to help colleges develop essential green skills for local delivery 

• public sector decarbonisation: £2.1m is allocated for school maintenance, along with £1.4bn to replace 500 school buildings in need of repairs 

Financial context 

The backdrop remains an extremely difficult financial picture with the Office of Budget Responsibility noting that council “spending has fallen from 7.4% to 5% of GDP between 2010-11 and 2023- 24 and is forecast to continue falling to 4.8% of GDP by 2029-30”.   

The result of Phase 2 of the Spending Review in late Spring next year and the multi-year settlement promised for 2026/27 onwards are going to be significant for the sector.  However, it is clear that considerable delivery challenges await, whether that be in relation to the investment required in the fabric and infrastructure of our places, securing the further operating efficiencies that are being budgeted for or making new forms of partnership that are being sought work effectively. 

How can we help? 

On all these aspects, we have experience, skills and free resources that can help and we encourage you to get in touch and find out more about, for example: 

Housing and homelessness case studies

Housing delivery vehicles toolkit

Capital programme delivery

Social investment

Local authority partnerships and collaborations

Local Authority Housing Retrofit Handbook

Can we help?

Do you have a project you would like help with, or could we answer a question about our services? Don’t hesitate to get in touch, email us using the form on this page or go to our contact us page – we’d be delighted to hear from you.