Methodology notes:
Patriotic Millionaires UK has contacted a total of 416 councils with freedom of information (FOI) requests to: list all council-run public services (from a list, including ‘other’) which have closed since 2020 to date (22 August 2025) as a result of budget cuts/reductions in council spending AND, to provide details where a service has ceased to be operated by the council but has remained open due to a community/charity transfer.
275 council responses were possible to log out of 416 (66%).
No response was logged in cases of no response and when email requests bounced; when the request was refused for exceeding cost or work hour thresholds; and for when responses clarified that FOI requests must be submitted by means other than emails. Five councils responded that they did not hold the information at all (without clarifying whether they held responsibility for the services) and were also included in the non-response category. Other councils who said they held only partial information were logged as responding.
The estimated total number of local public service closures (n=702) and transfers to community or charity management (n=300) was calculated by taking the average number of closures (n=1.69) and transfers (n=0.72) reported by the councils that responded (n=275) and multiplying this by the total number of councils in the UK (n=416). The same method was applied to each individual category of service or facility where this is applicable.
Closure and transfer figures do not include:
Cases reported of significant reduction in funding or hours provided but not full closure of service or facility
PM’s figures do include reported cases of closures for public services or facilities that had previously been transferred by councils to be managed by communities or charities. The vast majority of councils did not provide such information meaning the true closure figures could be significantly higher.
Other reasons the true number of public services and facility closures and transfers is likely much higher than PM’s estimates include:
Many councils only explicitly responded to question 1 (public services closed) and not question 2 (public services transferred to a community/charity). In other cases councils referred to council meeting minutes as an alternative source to access this information but to do so was beyond the capacity of this research. Responses revealed significant variance in the way that service and asset transfers are reported on and significant under-reporting or simply non-reporting in many of the responses is suspected. This is even more relevant given that council responses in many cases indicated or suggested a huge number of assets and services had already been transferred to third parties prior to 2020 as a result of previous budget cuts.
Some councils listed extensive information under the ‘other’ category in the FOI request for closures, while the majority of responses appeared to only give figures (and in cases details) against the given list of named services and ignore this category.
As noted, closures of services previously transferred to third parties (communities/charities) do not seem to be universally or uniformly captured and reported on by councils.
Many councils reported facility closures were not due to budget cuts but to poor standard of buildings, end of life or poor health and safety. In these cases closure was not specifically blamed on budget cuts but could clearly be attributed to insufficient budget in the first place to maintain buildings at the standard required or even replace them. These cases were not logged but clearly also relate to the sufficiency of local council budgets.
While a 66% response rate (with a strong mix of different types of councils including county, borough and district) provides an excellent sample size to confidently estimate the total number of closures and transfers based on average responses, it is assumed that the complex and in cases diverse division of responsibility for services and facilities across councils covering the same geographical area means that some variance could be expected.
Q and A
Q. Why have you included services and facilities that have been transferred to communities and charities if these services have remained open.
A. The focus of the FOI request was to establish both closures and transfers of public services to communities and charities as a result of budget cuts. The norm in cases of transfers is for public funding to be either ended or significantly reduced, with responsibility for raising sufficient funds to sustain the service now largely resting with the community or charity, even if in cases councils continue to subsidize the service in some reduced form. Whatever way you look at it this is a full or partial withdrawal of local government support for a service.
In some cases councils have said that a public facility has ceased because end of life or for other reasons. This is not clear whether this is because of lack of investment in maintenance but for the most part these cases have been excluded from the figures. Example – paddling pools in Runnymede.
Need to take into consideration that division of responsibility - with some councils referring elements or all services listed to county councils or city councils etc. This will create some variance in average [so average might not apply to some councils because they don’t hold as much responsibility for services]???
Many of the responses indicated or suggested a huge number of assets and services already transferred to community/private third parties prior to 2020, with many also closing including libraries, leisure centres etc
Budget cuts versus insufficient budget. Our FOI very specifically requested information on closures or transfers as a result of reductions in spending or budget cuts. This doesn’t therefore account for closures as a consequence of insufficient budget in the first place to protect public services requiring additional investment to maintain. For example, in Ealing a swimming pool had to be closed because of problems with the building with the costs of repair or replacement presumably too costly, but not because the budget had been reduced.