Autumn statement 2023: reactions from the sector

Local Government Lawyer looks at the reaction of the sector to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement 2023.

See also: Autumn Statement 2023: key measures.

Cllr Shaun Davies, chair of the Local Government Association

“The evidence of the financial strain on councils has been growing and it is hugely disappointing that today's Autumn Statement has failed to provide funding needed to protect the services the people in our communities rely on every day.

“We are pleased government has acted on our call to unfreeze Local Housing Allowance rates, which is a positive step in helping to support the most vulnerable in our society afford rising rents. It is also good that the Government has committed to ensuring councils will be able to set planning fees to cover the full cost of processing some major applications which will mean local taxpayers no longer have to foot the bill.

“Supporting businesses, and easing the cost of living for households is important, but not if our public services continue to be chronically underfunded and unable to be there to support people when they need them. Adult social care remains in a precarious position, record numbers of households are in temporary accommodation and there are now more than 80,000 looked after children in England. The lack of additional funding in today’s announcement risks councils' ability to meet this spiralling demand, provide critical care and support a healthy population with access to housing, training and jobs.

“Councils have worked hard to find efficiencies and reduce costs, but the easy savings have long since gone. It is wrong that our residents now face further cuts to services as well as the prospect of council tax rises next year, with councils having the difficult choice about raising bills to bring in desperately needed funding.

“Devolution gives local leaders greater freedom to take decisions closest to the people they represent. Where they are supported by all councils it is good to see new devolution deals announced today, including to those parts of the country outside cities. This needs to signal a genuine ‘local first’ approach to policy making across Whitehall, to ensure as many communities as possible benefit from devolution, including the removal of burdensome negotiations and top-down imposition of new structures.

“National economic growth can ultimately only be achieved if every local economy is firing on all cylinders. Only with the right powers and adequate long-term funding which allows councils to plan properly, can we play a lead role in unlocking the labour market, building new affordable homes, creating jobs, plugging skills gaps and delivering on other key government priorities.”

Cllr Tim Oliver, County Councils Network Chairman and Leader of Surrey County Council

“The Levelling Up White Paper heralded a new dawn for devolution in England, putting county authorities in the driving seat of securing greater powers and flexibilities for non-metropolitan areas.

“Further progress on securing mayoral deals in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull and East Riding are welcome developments, with the Chancellor also confirming that county areas willing to adopt this model will benefit from new ‘level 4’ powers and funding.

“However, many counties are unsuitable for a directly elected mayor or leader, preventing devolution of further powers over skills, economic development and transport. Today’s announcement finally opens the door for whole new wave of councils to secure the tools they need support local growth. In particular, the devolution of adult education budgets will allow us to help tackle declining participation, and develop a skilled workforce to drive the growth this country needs.

“CCN will now work closely with government, our member councils and local partners to secure as many new deals as possible before the next general election. While we recognise the more limited range of non-mayoral powers and funding, we hope to secure ambitious agreements that can lay the foundations for these county deals to be built on over time.”

Cllr Sam Chapman-Allen, Chairman of the District Councils Network

“Councils stand alongside the Government in seeking to support business and we are committed to reducing the time it takes to process planning applications that can boost jobs and help grow our local and national economies.

“The DCN has long campaigned for greater freedom for councils to set planning fees locally so that we can fund a quicker, more responsive service. Today’s announcement that we will be able to charge premium fees for major applications is an important step forward. Coming on top of recent confirmation that big increases to fees for all planning applications will be implemented in December, DCN is pleased that the Government is listening to our concerns.

“We look forward to working with the Government on working on the detail of the plan to increase the supply of planning officers, which has been the major barrier to accelerating the pace of the system.”

Cllr Claire Holland, acting chair of London Councils

“Boroughs will continue to face massive budget pressures. Many are struggling to balance their budgets and the Autumn Statement leaves them teetering on the edge.

“London’s homelessness emergency is a key concern. After years of campaigning for an increase in Local Housing Allowance, we welcome the decision to end the freeze. Boosting LHA is essential for helping low-income Londoners pay their rent and avoid homelessness. This is good news for London renters and for boroughs’ hard-pressed homelessness services.

“But with one in 50 Londoners currently homeless and living in temporary accommodation arranged by their local borough, the housing crisis remains a critical risk to town hall budgets. Enormous and growing pressures can also be seen across other vital services, especially adult and children’s social care.

“We will keep pushing for more funding support in the face of these on-going challenges, as well as the long-term reforms to local government finance that are crucial for sustaining London’s local services in the years to come.”

Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton, Chair of the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities (SIGOMA)

“There were several elements to welcome in today’s statement, including the increase in Local Housing Allowance. However, with a 1% rise in spending on public services set for the coming years, unprotected departments like local government will face another round of damaging austerity, following the decade of cuts since 2010. It was disappointing to hear nothing of adult social care and children’s services, crucial services provided by councils that are currently under immense pressure. Without additional funding for local government, more councils will be pushed to the brink of financial viability.”

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester

"The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement contained some good news for Greater Manchester, and we welcome that as far as it goes, but there are also gaps which give us cause for concern going into a difficult winter.

“One of our biggest calls has been the urgent need to unfreeze Local Housing Allowance and I am pleased that the Chancellor has listened. However, his uplift won’t come into effect until April 2024 which means we are still facing a difficult winter with a rising rough sleeping and homelessness crisis. There is a clear case for more homelessness funding now for our 10 councils, given the extra costs they will face this winter from both this ongoing freeze and from Home Office evictions. It is essential if the Government is to have any hope of achieving its manifesto commitment of ending rough sleeping in this Parliament. We are also concerned about plans to reintroduce the freeze in 2025 and would ask the Government to reconsider this.

“We very much welcome the confirmation from the Chancellor that Greater Manchester will get an Investment Zone backed by £160 million of Government funding, boosting the growth of our thriving advanced manufacturing and materials sector. It will help us bring forward our plans for Atom Valley and deliver industries of the future and jobs to match in the north-east of Greater Manchester.

“This Autumn Statement also brings a significant deepening of devolution in Greater Manchester with the publication of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Treasury on how our new Single Settlement will work. This moves our city-region towards a Welsh-style or Scottish-style funding arrangement with Whitehall and is a big vote of confidence in Greater Manchester. It will give us much greater control of our budget at the next Spending Review and help us get better outcomes for our residents and businesses.”

Jonathan Carr-West, Chief Executive, Local Government Information Unit (LGIU)

“Across local government, confidence in the Government’s ability to fix the sector’s financial crisis is at rock bottom. Our recent State of Local Government Finance survey found that only 14% of senior council officials are confident in the sustainability of council finances, and under 5% are happy with the progress that’s been made on delivering a sustainable funding system.

“The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement will have done little to boost that confidence. Indeed, local authorities will be left wondering what it will take to have their concerns recognised and addressed by the government.

“Councils have been pulling every lever available to them to balance their books: raising council tax, cutting services, and spending their finite reserves, and still we are seeing an ever-increasing number of councils unable to make ends meet in the face of central government spending cuts and increasing demand for council services, particularly adult and children’s social care.

“In the last few months, we have seen Birmingham declare a section 114 notice, effectively bankruptcy for councils, and more and more well-run and effective councils are saying that they could be next.

“Instead of grasping the nettle on the bold changes needed to bring stability and consistency to the sector, we have today seen yet more tinkering around the edges, with tweaks to business rates and planning. Devolution deals in four areas, Hull & East Yorkshire, Greater Lincolnshire as well as expanded but non-mayoral deals with Cornwall and Lancashire, are indeed welcome for those areas. But this still does not add up to a coherent pattern of governance, while the overlap with investment zones and freeports arguably creates more confusion and complexity.

“We are still a long way short of the strategic leadership needed for a sector that is essential to delivering economic growth, wellbeing, services and community cohesion.

“One of the themes emerging from our recent research with our members to mark our 40th anniversary is the need for a formal mechanism to enable productive dialogue between local and central government. The need for such a forum is fully evident here as today’s Autumn Statement presents a ‘more of the same’ approach to local government, deaf to the needs of local service users and freezing out the desperate calls for reform from elected council leaders.

“Each year citizens are paying more and getting less from their councils, and without significant structural changes to the way funding is allocated it is difficult to imagine these dire straits ending for councils and the communities they serve.”

Jonathan Werran, chief executive of thinktank Localis

“The Autumn Statement is one in which the chancellor has put on his listening ears to take heed of the local government’s plea for short-term assistance, and the lifting of Local Housing Allowance to the 30th percentile of local market rents will provide some welcome immediate relief to those local authorities that risked being sunk financially by burgeoning costs of homelessness and temporary accommodation.

“While it is to be hoped that the provisional local government finance settlement delivers a pre-Christmas package above current inflationary pressures, today’s statement was never going to fix an unsustainable and broken local government finance system.

“For that we will have to wait for another day, and possibly the next Spending Review, for root-and-branch reform, a fair settlement on the burden of social care responsibility and expenditure, a shift in central-local relations, some measure of revenue uplift and degree of fiscal freedom that will secure the medium safety of our local state as the prime anchor of place.

“But as a secondary fiscal event, the Autumn Statement is not, notwithstanding a pleasing flurry of county devolution deals, going to shift the dial for driving the marked and swift uptick in regional productivity and local economic growth upon which the foundations of prosperity and improved public services can be built.

“Housing growth represents the most direct route out of economic stagnation. And while the news that council planning departments can reclaim more money for fast-tracking major infrastructure schemes is to be welcomed, from a localist perspective it remains perplexing that councils’ overstretched and under-resourced planning departments should continually subsidise development at the expense of funding other vital local public services upon which residents depend.”

Victoria Hills, Chief Executive of the Royal Town Planning Institute

“The Chancellor of the Exchequer has emphasised the importance of planning in his Autumn Statement for growth, placing investment into the planning system at the heart of today’s announcements.

“By giving planning the time and significance it deserves, it is a recognition that, when appropriately resourced, planning is an enabler, not a blocker to unlocking the economic, environmental, and societal gains of the country.

“Investments such as Local Authority Housing fund and planning backlog funding are welcome. We eagerly await further information on this funding. A full cost recovery of planning applications for businesses will be a step toward providing Local Planning Authorities with the essential resources they need to help both communities and businesses thrive. We estimate that 15% of planning applications that Local Planning Authorities process come from businesses.

“Nutrient and Water Neutrality is holding up an estimated 100,000 homes and putting the future of small and medium-sized developers at risk for a problem that is due to both agricultural pollution and existing sewage. We have been advocating for the Government to address this issue for a long time and we are pleased to see that they have recognised the problem and invested in resolving it.

“The Institute and our members will begin considering consultations on new uses of Permitted Development Rights for duplex conversions and heat pumps, which can serve a delivery purpose but may reduce the quality of homes. We will also consider the NPPF's impact on electric vehicles.”

Kate Henderson, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation

“The Chancellor’s decision to unfreeze Local Housing Allowance is one we’ve long been calling for, and will mean that people at the sharp end of the housing crisis will be helped to keep up with increasing rents. This action, along with the decision to uplift benefits payments in line with inflation, will give millions of people struggling with living costs some much needed relief. However, we’re concerned that tougher rules and potential benefit reductions for people who are unable to find a job will result in increased hardship.

“We also welcome the additional £3bn for the Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme which can be accessed to finance works to improve the quality of existing homes as well as for new much needed affordable housing.

“It is hugely disappointing that the government has not used this Autumn statement to release the full £3.8bn Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. This will impact on housing associations’ ability to make homes energy efficient at scale and pace, saving residents money and helping to alleviate fuel poverty, creating thousands of jobs and decarbonising our homes. We urge the Government to bring this funding forward soon as possible and before the Spring Budget.

“Increased investment in planning capacity is the right thing to do. However, the money should be ringfenced and have greater flexibility so it succeeds in removing barriers to the delivery of thousands of homes stuck in the planning system.

“While the Autumn Statement has brought some positive news, we need government to commit to a long-term plan to fix the housing crisis in order to make a real difference to the millions of people in housing need.”

Hannah Langford, partner at Devonshires

“A faster planning process is of course welcome. But with increasing construction costs, a skills shortage in the industry and the other regulatory constraints making social housing developments less viable, our clients are unlikely to see the benefits of the Chancellor’s measures. Given the scale of the housing crisis at the moment, especially within social housing, a target of 2,400 new homes is unlikely to have a significant impact.”

Jonathan Bower, partner in Womble Bond Dickinson's planning team

“Today's announcements on the changes to the planning application fees, which will follow increased application fees coming in next month, to provide for charging the full costs of major business planning applications with full reimbursement if not delivered will only go so far to addressing the backlog. 

"The challenge is many local planning authorities (LPAs) are under resourced and as we have seen from planning performance agreements, not all of them have delivered what's required; so it remains to be seen whether the carrot and stick approach will work here. 

"It will be interesting to see how government intend to legislate this change, including the detail of the applications it will relate to and whether this will be an opt in by applicants, LPAs, or both."