Local Government in England: An Existential Crisis?

English local government is currently facing an existential crisis over its future purpose and capacity which is analysed in terms of three underlying crises. (1) A fiscal crisis created by over a decade of financial austerity imposed by successive Conservative-led and Conservative governments since 2011, the consequences of which have been intensified by rising inflation and consequent higher service costs. (2) A governing crisis reflecting the gradual re-engineering of local authorities from their original, post-war high discretion role in welfare state service delivery towards a role closer to that as agents of the centre. (3) A policy role crisis as local authorities have lost entire services and major parts of other services through governance changes, and their capacity to sustain, let alone enact, a policy role has been seriously eroded. Moreover, the Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs) recently created in the main city sub-regions are further complicating the role of local government. The MCAs have ill-defined and limited powers mainly focussed on economic development are imposed on top of the existing LAs.