Disparities by deprivation: the geographical impact of unprecedented changes in local authority financing on the voluntary sector in England
Disparities by deprivation: the geographical impact of unprecedented changes in local authority financing on the voluntary sector in England
Over the last decade, the local government finance system in England has experienced ‘genuinely revolutionary change’: overall revenues have declined and councils are now more reliant on locally raised taxes. Importantly, the nature of change has varied geographically: urban councils serving poorer communities have experienced the biggest declines in their service spending. This paper considers the impact of these spatially uneven changes on the voluntary sector. We follow through time charities known to be in receipt of local government funding at the time of peak council budgets in 2009–2010 and describe trends in the income of these charities until 2016–2017. We show that, just as the pattern of change in local government financing has been spatially uneven, so the trend in charities’ income has varied geographically. Indeed the spatially regressive nature of recent change in charities’ income is remarkable: while the median charity in the least deprived decile of the local authority distribution experienced little change in their income, the median charity in the most deprived decile experienced a 20% decline. The results provide the strongest evidence to date that, in countries with a history of partnership between government and the voluntary sector, voluntary organisations in more deprived areas are particularly vulnerable to sizeable reductions in the level of local government spending. Indeed, by illustrating for the first time the sizeable reductions in the income of charities in disadvantaged communities, the results demonstrate an important mechanism through which ‘austerity urbanism’ becomes salient in the lives of individuals in deprived areas.
Charitable organisation, deprivation, local government, public funding, voluntary sector
2050-2067
Clifford, David
9686f96b-3d0c-48d2-a694-00c87b536fde
November 2021
Clifford, David
9686f96b-3d0c-48d2-a694-00c87b536fde
Clifford, David
(2021)
Disparities by deprivation: the geographical impact of unprecedented changes in local authority financing on the voluntary sector in England.
Environment and Planning A, 53 (8), .
(doi:10.1177/0308518X211034869).
Abstract
Over the last decade, the local government finance system in England has experienced ‘genuinely revolutionary change’: overall revenues have declined and councils are now more reliant on locally raised taxes. Importantly, the nature of change has varied geographically: urban councils serving poorer communities have experienced the biggest declines in their service spending. This paper considers the impact of these spatially uneven changes on the voluntary sector. We follow through time charities known to be in receipt of local government funding at the time of peak council budgets in 2009–2010 and describe trends in the income of these charities until 2016–2017. We show that, just as the pattern of change in local government financing has been spatially uneven, so the trend in charities’ income has varied geographically. Indeed the spatially regressive nature of recent change in charities’ income is remarkable: while the median charity in the least deprived decile of the local authority distribution experienced little change in their income, the median charity in the most deprived decile experienced a 20% decline. The results provide the strongest evidence to date that, in countries with a history of partnership between government and the voluntary sector, voluntary organisations in more deprived areas are particularly vulnerable to sizeable reductions in the level of local government spending. Indeed, by illustrating for the first time the sizeable reductions in the income of charities in disadvantaged communities, the results demonstrate an important mechanism through which ‘austerity urbanism’ becomes salient in the lives of individuals in deprived areas.
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Accepted/In Press date: 2 July 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 26 July 2021
Published date: November 2021
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
The author is grateful for the continued support of Prof John Mohan, director of the Third Sector Research Centre, University of Birmingham. Many thanks to the Charity Commission for providing access to data from the Register of Charities and to David Kane for making available the classification of English and Welsh charities according to the ICNPO. The Sample of Charity Accounts data are collected through a collaboration between the Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC) and the National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO). The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research is funded by the award to the author, by the Leverhulme Trust, of the Phillip Leverhulme Prize for Social Policy (?100,000; 2018?2021).
Funding Information:
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research is funded by the award to the author, by the Leverhulme Trust, of the Phillip Leverhulme Prize for Social Policy (£100,000; 2018–2021).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2021.
Keywords:
Charitable organisation, deprivation, local government, public funding, voluntary sector
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 450295
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/450295
ISSN: 0308-518X
PURE UUID: 3b4a49d4-bedd-4238-b74b-7320ce0a7ace
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Date deposited: 21 Jul 2021 16:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:06
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