The cost of the cuts: the impact on local government and poorer communities

Cuts to local authority budgets are having a profound effect on the services people receive. The poorest communities and residents are being hardest hit and those least able to cope with service withdrawal are bearing the brunt.

This report:

• provides the most up-to-date national picture of the scale, nature and distribution of the cuts to council budgets currently available;
• uses four case study councils to assess the impact of cuts. It provides new evidence of how the cuts have affected people and services by drawing on interviews with staff and service users, analysis of council reports and budget data, focus groups with frontline staff and service users and job shadowing with frontline council staff, and;
• explores how the strategies adopted by the case study councils have evolved or been adapted as the austerity drive has continued.