The DCN has submitted a representation ahead of the Budget 2020, setting out our key asks and priorities for our members. Districts will continue to deliver and improve the quality local public services that residents can see and access in their communities every day, to do this we need:
- A reversal in the decline in spending power for districts with an overall uplift in each year of the spending review between 2021 and 2024.
- Districts set free to attract and use income in ways that are locally responsive and accountable, including allowing them to set discounts and increases for council tax and business rates, to raise other levies, and to set local planning fees.
- To replace the complexity of different national programmes with simpler allocations to councils, with long-term certainty and freedom for them locally to best meet needs.