COVID-19 and councils' finances: understanding risks and impacts and improving policy

理事会处于冠状病毒危机的前线，负责社会关怀和预防无家可归等关键服务，并面临因封锁而导致的收入下降。政府已经为他们提供了数十亿美元的额外资金，但可能需要更多。一个关键的挑战是确保这一点得到适当的分配。如果没有这种针对性，要么必须提供超过整个部门所需的服务，要么风险最大、复原力最差的理事会可能会耗尽资金或无法维持服务。议会还需要了解其居民如何受到危机的不同影响。为了帮助解决这些问题，我们将分析：1。一套事前指标的人口和金融风险面临不同的英语议会及其潜在的金融弹性，并公布汇编的数据：2.居民收入和支出的实际变化、理事会税收支付和问题以及英国各地的福利要求，这将为关键风险如何具体化提供证据;3.在危机过程中，不同英格兰议会的支出和收入如何变化，以及这种变化与上述事前和实时指标的对应程度;我们正在与中央和地方政府进行频繁的讨论，这里提出的新研究将直接投入其中，并为更广泛的公众和政治辩论提供信息，使我们能够帮助政策制定者确保理事会拥有资金和灵活性，以便重要服务能够继续运作并满足新的需求

Councils are on the front line of the coronavirus crisis, being responsible for key services like social care and homelessness prevention and facing revenues falling due to lockdown. Government has provided them with billions of additional funding, but more may be required. A key challenge is ensuring this is allocated appropriately. Without such targeting, either more than is needed across the sector has to be provided or the most exposed and least resilient councils could run out of money or be unable to maintain services. Councils also need to understand how their residents are being differentially affected by the crisis. To help address these issues, we will analyse:1. A suite of ex-ante indicators of the population and financial risks facing different English councils and their potential financial resilience, and publish the compiled data:2. Actual changes in residents' incomes and spending, council tax payments and problems, and benefit claims by local area across the UK, which will provide evidence on how key risks are crystallising;3. How different English councils' spending and revenues are changing during the course of the crisis, and the extent to which this corresponds to the aforementioned ex-ante and real-time indicators;We are having frequent discussions with central and local government, and the new research proposed here would directly feed into this - and inform wider public and political debate -, allowing us to help policymakers ensure councils have the funding and flexibility so that vital services can continue to operate and meet new demands