Mapping Britain’s public finances
Where is tax raised, and where is it spent?
Where is tax raised, and where is it spent?
The desire to reduce public spending while still boosting economic growth was the conundrum that dominated the last Parliament, and is likely to remain an issue for the duration of the current one.
The ever louder drum beat for devolution has mirrored debates around austerity. The devolution debate to date has been centred around the handing down of spending powers, rather than tax-raising powers. Much has been said over what spending powers local government should be given control over, although little has been agreed. Much less has been said about fiscal devolution.
Little consensus has been reached on either element because there is very little understanding about where in the country tax is raised and where public money is spent. The purpose of this paper is to plug this knowledge gap. It presents for the first time an evidence base on the geography of tax and spend across the country to better inform debates around austerity, devolution, public sector efficiency and investment for growth.
Click through the slides below for an introduction to the data and its implications:
Factsheets summarising tax and spend for individual political geographies are below:
Aberdeen – Cardiff – Cheshire and Warrington LEP – Coast to Capital LEP – Derby proposed combined authority – Dorset LEP – Dundee – Edinburgh – Enterprise M3 LEP – Glasgow – Gloucestershire LEP – Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough LEP – Greater London Authority – Greater Manchester Combined Authority – Hampshire proposed combined authority – Heart of the South West LEP – Humber proposed combined authority – Lancashire LEP – Leicester proposed combined authority – Liverpool City Region Combined Authority – New Anglia LEP – North East Combined Authority – Nottingham – Oxfordshire LEP – Sheffield City Region Combined Authority – South East LEP – South East Midlands LEP – Stoke on Trent and Staffordshire LEP – Swansea – Swindon and Wiltshire LEP – Tees Valley proposed combined authority – Thames Valley Berkshire LEP – The Marches LEP – West Midlands proposed combined authority – West of England LEP – West Yorkshire Combined Authority – York and North Yorkshire LEP
