As we begin our voyage into 2021, we used Insights Spend’s public sector spend analysis tool to take a look at the emerging 2020/21 local authority spend picture across the five major markets of Buildings, Health & Social Care, Highways, ICT & Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Waste & Environment.
The 2019/20 financial year saw local authority spend in each of the five markets increase or stay the same, both in general terms and in terms of spend with the private sector. However, Insights Spend shows that this trend is not set to continue for 2020/21, with the data below showing that over half of the markets have seen council spend decrease both as a whole and with the private sector:
Buildings
Council spend on buildings-related services, such as construction, property maintenance and FM, increased by 5.79% during 2019/20. However, by the end of September 2020, total spend in this market was 8.41% lower than at the same time in 2019/20, whilst spend with the private sector had fallen by 11.92%
Health & Social Care
2019/20 saw council spend on health and social care services increase by 4.55%. By the end of September 2020, total spend in this market was 5.68% higher than it was at the same time the previous year, with private sector spend increasing by 10.75%.
Highways & Transport
Council spend on highways and transport services stayed almost exactly the same in 2019/20 as in the previous financial year. However, by the end of September 2020, total market spend had increased by 12.13% since the same time in the previous year, whilst spend with the private sector was up by 8.41%.
ICT & Business Process Outsourcing
Council spend on ICT & business process outsourcing (BPO) services increased by 4.52% during 2019/20. However by the end of September 2020, total market spend had fallen by 3.03% when compared with the same time the previous year, with private sector spend falling by 3.2%.
It should be noted that this overall market decrease is largely driven by a fall in spend in the Back Office Admin Services category – other reports we’ve recently published have highlighted how the Covid-19 pandemic has led to significant growth across several ICT-related categories.
Waste & Environment
2019/20 saw council spend on waste and environment services increase by 6.39%. However, by the end of September 2020 total market spend and spend with the private sector had fallen by 3.53% and 5.55% respectively when compared to the same time the previous year.
Insights Spend adds up and categorises the invoice data disclosed by well over 1000 public sector organisations and offers the most accurate and up-to-date source of public sector spend data.
