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Town halls such as Manchester have been disproportionately hit by central government hits, new research from Sheffield university has found
Town halls such as Manchester have been disproportionately hit by central government hits, new research from Sheffield university has found. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/Guardian. Photograph: CHRISTOPHER THOMOND/Guardian./Christopher Thomond
Town halls such as Manchester have been disproportionately hit by central government hits, new research from Sheffield university has found. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/Guardian. Photograph: CHRISTOPHER THOMOND/Guardian./Christopher Thomond

Northern, poor areas hit hardest by council cuts

This article is more than 9 years old

Councils in the north-west of England have had to make cuts amounting to £160 a head more than their counterparts in the south-east, new research from Sheffield university has found. Lyndsay Warner reports

Councils in the north of England have had to make cuts amounting to £160 a head more than their counterparts in the south-east, new research has shown.

Local authorities controlled by Labour in the north were hardest hit by central government cuts over the past four years, while Conservative town halls escaped the lightest, a study by the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI) has found.

Researchers calculated that councils in the north west were forced to make cuts of £234.76 per person, when the average for England as a whole was significantly lower: £130.06 per person. Councils in the south-east have experienced the lowest cut of just £74.08 for each resident.

Yorkshire and Humberside councils are suffering similarly with £197.24 less spent on average per person. The north-east follows with a reduction of £189.16 per person.

The SPERI report found that councils in the top 10% most deprived areas have had a funding reduction of £228.23 per person whereas the most affluent 10% have seen only a £44.91 reduction on average, per person.

The analysis looked at the political composition of local authorities and considered how the recent local elections held in England might have been affected by the disproportionate budget cuts.

The councils lost by the Conservative Party in May tended to have experienced a much higher cut than typical Tory councils, suggesting that William Hague may struggle to convince voters that his party deserves more support in his native north. (Rumour has it the now ex-foreign secretary will spend his final year as an MP trying to win back votes in the north of England).

Craig Berry, SPERI research fellow and co-author of the report, said: "The extent to which the 2014 local elections were influenced by pattern is not clear, although it is apparent that the Conservatives’ losses were concentrated in areas that have not been shielded from the cuts to the same extent as Conservative councils in general.

"Analysis of the data concludes that the necessity of deficit reduction on the scale undertaken by the coalition is debatable; yet it is certainly the case the austerity agenda could have taken an alternative form – such as additional tax rises targeted on more affluent sections of society – in order to mitigate its impact on the most deprived groups.

He added: "The concentration of Ukip’s recent success in Labour areas has been well-documented. What is now becoming clearer, however, is that it is succeeding in atypical Labour areas which have experienced relatively low spending cuts.”

He said that there is a clear pattern to the cuts experienced by local authorities in England.

"It is impossible to say the coalition has focused spending cuts on Northern or Labour-controlled councils. Rather, they have failed to protect deprivation-related local spending, meaning that the councils which previously had higher budgets due to higher levels of deprivation have seen the largest cuts."

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