Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment her Department has made of the estimate of the funding gap for English councils in the financial year 2027/28 in UNISON's publication entitled Bridging the Gap, published on 14 September 2026.

The Department will continue to work closely with local government and other government departments to understand specific pressures facing local government ahead of the Budget and other fiscal events.

The Government is committed to returning the local government sector to a sustainable position. We are delivering fairer funding, targeting money where it is needed most through the first multi-year Settlement in a decade. By the end of the multi-year Local Government Finance Settlement, the government will have made available a 24.3% increase in Core Spending Power for local authorities in England, worth £16.6 billion, since coming into power in 2024-25.

The government is investing in service areas with escalating costs. We have made over £4.6 billion of additional funding available to adult social care in 2028-29 compared to 2025-26, and invested investing £2.4 billion in children’s social care prevention and de-escalation.