Councils Increasingly Look To HRAs For Capital Spend

Councils are increasingly funding capital spending through their Housing Revenue Accounts (HRAs) or major repairs reserves as government funding has decreased, a National Audit Office (NAO) report has found. Since 2010/11, funding from the HRA or major repairs reserves to support capital spending has increased by 58%. In 2010/11 £1.4bn came from HRAs, compared to £2.2bn in 2014/15. The NAO’s report looks at how councils’ capital funding and spending has changed since 2010, when the government started to reduce funding for local government. It found there are increasing pressures from capital spending and if authorities “cannot reduce their capital costs… it will place further pressure on their revenue spending”. Download the report from the NAO website.