In 2022–23, more than £245 billion was spent on delivering five key public services across England: the NHS, schools, local government, the police and public health. This funding was used to deliver services to people in specific places. The scale of this spending and the important contribution these public services can make to individuals’ life chances make it vital that funding for public services is allocated in an effective and fair manner.
Systems for allocating funding between different local areas must trade off several objectives. One important aim is to account for variation in the needs of different populations and places across the country. Local areas differ in their geographical and socio-economic characteristics, which may affect both the demand for and the cost of providing public services. For the same level of public services to be delivered across the country, helping to narrow geographical inequalities, different places will need different amounts of funding.
In this report, we estimate the total funding available for five services in each local authority area in England in 2022–23. Indeed, we find per capita funding does vary significantly between areas. Typically, areas that receive more per capita funding for one service also receive above-average funding for other services. More-deprived and more densely populated (typically more urban) places receive more funding per capita on average across all the services we examine.
