Central government taxes local government so that even deprived communities find that they lose a huge fraction of funding to Whitehall.
One of the myths about the welfare state is that it helps to redress regional injustices. The reality is that, not only does central government fail to shift more resources into deprived communities, it actually taxes those communities - by spending a large fraction of that money in Whitehall instead. The figure below shows that, for example, Barnsley loses £0.9 billion from its per capita share of government spending.
The publisher is The Centre for Welfare Reform.
Graphic on Central taxes Local © Simon Duffy 2012.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this paper may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher except for the quotation of brief passages in reviews.
local government, social justice, Graphic
