At some level we are all feeling the burdens of the increases that the cost of living is causing and the BoE has stated that this could be a continued problem. Therefore, because of market and economic instability it makes us start to question what else could be triggering these interests rates to be considerably higher?

As some may have noticed many businesses went into liquidation during the Covid era and some are still facing the repercussions of the aftermath, yet most of the larger corporations survived this time. Individually though, numerous people lost their livelihoods and some people have not been able to recover fully from this unexpected economic shock. 

So when taking into consideration how vast the downturn of money streams can effect one and another, it begs the questions as to what else could be causing these issues to be prolonged? 

That is when it becomes essential to know where and how monies are being spent. One of the ways is to do this is to review the Government and correlate that with any new advancements that may be taking place. For instance one of their newer concepts is Devolution which essentially means that they are devolving the positions of power from White Hall down to Councils across the UK, so far, 55 councils have signed up to this concept. One council in the UK proudly announced that they sought £24m investment to enable devolution in their local area.

Other aspects include NHSX which is a more digitalised version of the NHS whereby the Gov spend allowed for a £21bn investment over a 3 year period. Smart Cities enhancement had an initial investment of £5bn assigned to it with a further investment of £50m to kick-start the 5G roll-out. Of course, these are only a few key spendings and  this does not equate to where the rest of the £1 trillion pounds of tax money is spent. Another fundamental aspect is the increased surveillance and on average per camera costs £7k and at present its currently a ratio of one camera per 11 people. These days cameras are appearing more frequently on; motorways, in towns, cities and some villages. The UK is now the 2nd most heavily surveillance country in the world aside from China. 

So how does that impact you?

The reality is that Councils get allocated specific amounts of money from the Government per year and this year across the UK the overall spend is £64.7bn which has increased by £4.5bn from the previous year 2023/24.These pools of money that are provided to the Councils are then handed out to our critical services which we are frequently seeing cut-backs on. This can not only impact the NHS and Schooling but also other required services can be impacted alike. 

Needless to say, if cut-backs prevail it causes further job losses and again impacts peoples lives who may benefit or are in critical need of these services. However, if Council taxes are increasing it means that questions need to be asked to Local Authorities as to where and how money is being spent. 

This is where each individual has the right to be aware of how money is spent and for them to get the opportunity to raise these poignant questions to Councils.