Serving deprived communities in a recession

This report explores how budget cuts affect the capacity of English local government to meet the needs of more deprived households and communities. There is real concern that more deprived groups will suffer the most. This report provides early, systematic evidence of the scale of the cuts and of how local councils are grappling with these issues. The report:

• examines national evidence of the scale and distribution of the cuts across local authorities, highlighting the impact on the most deprived authorities;
• reports evidence from senior local government officials on their strategic responses to budget cuts, such as service remodelling and moves towards more targeted provision;
• uses the latest budget data to assess the pattern of reductions within local authorities, and how these relate to deprived groups;
• considers the changes underway in local government and how it might look in the future.