Councils risk surrendering the benefits of local economic growth to the Treasury, rather than sharing them with residents and firms, under government plans to establish baseline figures for business rates retention, Smith Square has warned.
A Local Government Association (LGA) briefing, issued in response to eight technical papers released by the Department for Communities and Local Government on 19 August, brands as ‘disappointing' government proposals to keep both inflationary increases in business rate yields until 2014/15 and an element of forecast growth above inflation.
