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Since 2020, the government has agreed to provide a small number of local authorities with support via the Exceptional Financial Support framework, following requests from these councils for assistance to manage financial pressures that they considered unmanageable.

The support is provided on an exceptional basis, and on the condition that each local authority is subject to an external assurance review on their financial position (apart from Nottingham City Council and Croydon Council which were both subject to non-statutory external reviews during 2020).

The first of these external assurance reviews were published in 2021. The reviews provided a detailed assessment of each authority’s financial position and financial management, with clear recommendations on where the authority needs to take action to improve.

The capitalisation directions published above relate to support for the financial years 2020-21 and 2021-22. A small number of authorities have also requested support in relation to unmanageable pressures in 2022-23 and 2023-24. In these cases, the government has agreed support in principle subject to continued progress on their improvement and updates on their financial position during these years. The final amount of support may therefore be subject to change and the government will publish a final outcome in due course.

A full summary of the support agreed with authorities to date is provided below. As indicated below, a small number of authorities who originally requested additional financial support for 2021-22 withdrew their requests where their financial position and pressures changed. In all cases, the government has set a clear expectation that the authorities respond effectively to the challenges and recommendations highlighted in the external assurance reviews, and provide regular updates to the government on progress.

Local authority	Support agreed for 2020-21	Support agreed for 2021-22	In-principle support agreed for 2022-23	In-principle support agreed for 2023-24
Slough	£127.8m (support agreed in-principle including prior year requests: 18/19 - £61.7m; 19/20 - £40.2m; 20/21 - £25.9m)	£95.3m (support agreed in-principle)	£84.1m	£31.6m
Croydon	£70.0m	£50.0m	£25.0m Additional £161.6m (support covers years 19/20 to 22/23)	£63.0m
Thurrock	-	-	£452.5m	£180.2m
Lambeth	£125m (original capitalisation of £100m in 17/18 was extended by £25m)	-	£50.0m	-
Cumberland	-	-	-	£40.0m
Westmorland & Furness	-	-	-	£26.0m
Copeland	-	£1.5m	£1.5m	-
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole	-	-	£20.0m	-
Eastbourne	£6.8m	£4.4m	-	-
Wirral	£9.0m	£6.4m	-	-
Nottingham	£20.0m	Council withdrew its request for support	-	-
Peterborough	£4.8m (capitalisation not utilised)	Council withdrew its request for support	-	-
Luton	£35.0m	Council withdrew its request for support	-	-
Bexley	£3.9m (capitalisation not utilised)	Council withdrew its request for support	-	-
Redcar & Cleveland	£3.7m (in the form of grant)	-	-	-

Published 10 February 2021
Last updated 2 March 2023 + show all updates

IRRV Alert - week ending 3rd March 2023

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Exceptional financial support for local authorities (2 March 2023)

Exceptional financial support for local authorities

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