LGA Governance


Agenda item

Agenda item

Exploring Fiscal Devolution

Minutes:

Stephen Hughes, Interim Executive Director of Finance, introduced a paper exploring fiscal devolution, which summarised the initial modelling of the recommendations of the Independent Commission on Local Government Finance. It illustrated how a self-financing system that provides for some measure of redistribution could operate.

 

Members discussed:

·         Real devolution has to include the power to raise resources as well as to spend

·         However, there are risks of pushing for tax-raising powers at this stage as

·         Sorting out geographic and governance issues is critical to the viability of proposals,

·         There was debate about whether there is a need to assess whether existing spend is right before accepting it as a future baseline

·         The importance of reforming how existing public spending is used

·         The potential to learn from the experiences of cities in Europe

 

Action

 

An invitation has been extended by the Resources Board to have a more detailed conversation about further work members want to see.

Supporting documents: