This article is not concerned with the scale of local authorities' capital expenditure-a large part of which is made on behalf of the central government or to meet the requirements of government policy-but rather with how it is financed. The local authorities meet only a small part of this capital expenditure out of revenue, including special rates for capital purposes. A further small amount is financed by capital grants from the central government. The rest has to be met by borrowing-either from the central government, or from the private capital and money markets, where the local authorities play an important part.
Local authorities and the capital and money markets