Exceptional financial support for local authorities
Details of support granted to local authorities that have requested Exceptional Financial Support.
Since 2020, the government has agreed to provide a number of local authorities with support via the Exceptional Financial Support framework, following requests from these councils for assistance to manage financial pressures that they considered unmanageable.
Support provided via this framework is usually provided in the form of a capitalisation direction. Capitalisation directions permit a local authority to meet revenue costs through capital resources. All support provided through the Exceptional Financial Support framework has been in the form of capitalisation directions unless stated otherwise.
In all cases, the government has set a clear expectation that the authorities continue to manage and mitigate their financial pressures, as well as respond effectively to the individual challenges they are facing and provide regular updates to the government on progress.
The support is provided on an exceptional basis, and on the condition that each local authority is subject to an external assurance review.
A full summary of the support agreed with authorities to date is provided in the links below, broken down by year decisions have been taken. Where relevant these links also include copies of the published assurance reviews. Where amounts were agreed for retrospective years, they are listed under the year that the decision was taken.