APSE's response to the King's Speech - 17 July 2024

APSE welcomes the investment-based plans in the King's Speech including housing, clean energy and expanding the scope of devolution. However, the other side of the summer will mean the Chancellor’s spending plans, and a comprehensive spending review, must genuinely include a strategy for growth in public services. Austerity not only constrained public spending but led to higher levels of debt and stymied growth.

Responding to the plans, APSE Chief Executive, Mo Baines, said, “An ambitious agenda for growth must recognise the entrepreneurial ability of the local state. That means a fiscal policy which views investment in public services as investment in growth.

“Whilst there is some positivity for public services in the King's Speech, it is only the opening gambit in a much longer battle which must succeed in making the case for public service investment in both capital and revenue terms.”

Notes

• The Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) is a not-for-profit local government body working with over 300 councils throughout the UK. Promoting excellence in public services, APSE is the foremost specialist in local authority frontline services and operates one of the UK’s largest research programmes in local government policy and frontline service delivery matters.
• For further press enquiries, or to arrange an interview, please contact APSE Communications Officer George Barton at [email protected]