vernment funding between 2010–11 and 2019–20 • Funding pressures and challenges fall disproportionality harder on poorer areas. In 2024–25, local authorities in the most deprived decile of the country will see their ‘core spending power’ fall by 24.4% on average in real terms, compared with 3.1% in the least deprived decile of local authorities. Temporary, one-off government funding in the period 2022–24, such as the pandemic recovery funds and an additional £600m in the Social Care Grant in early 2024, have provided sticking plasters but by no means addressed reductions in funding of the preceding decade. Spend increased by more than funding between 2022 and 2024 and the ongoing use of one-year funding settlements since 2019 has hampered financial planning and sustainability. National government funding settlements have become increasingly linked to spending power in recent years (Brien and Sandford, 2024). An analysis conducted for the IFS set out how funding systems for local public services do not reflect differences in local need and, rather than being fit for purpose to address inequalities, exacerbate them (Ogden et al., 2023). Further analysis of the combination of local levels of deprivation, local authority 9 reserves and local economic output demonstrates the disparities between local authorities these pressures are creating on local authorities’ resilience across the country (Grant Thornton UK LLP, 2024). North–South disparities are well evidenced. In the South, a higher proportion of reserves as a percentage of net revenue expenditure provides greater resilience and flexibility, while for a range of historic and structural reasons, deprivation levels are much higher in the North. One in five people in the North live within one of the 10% most deprived areas