Mapping Liverpool City Region’s public finances

Debates as to how best to reduce public spending while boosting economic growth dominated the last Parliament and are likely to continue over the next five years. These debates have, in part, led the Government to pursue the devolution of significant powers relating to economic development and public service provision to city regions across the country.

However, while the recognition that allowing places to tailor policies to their specific needs is to be welcomed, we still understand relatively little about how the economic performance of UK cities relates to the amount of tax they generate, or the amount of public money that is spent within them.

The purpose of this report is to provide more detail of the geography of tax and spend across the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (which brings together Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St. Helens and Wirral) building on the national tax and public expenditure data from Centre for Cities’ recent Mapping Britain’s Public Finances report. Given that around half of all workers in Britain live in one local authority but work in another, the analysis seeks to identify and understand the different roles that the local authorities across the combined authority are playing, including those that are most economically productive, and those which are home to the biggest concentrations of employment.