Bangers and cash: partisan bias in local government grant allocations across Great Britain

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ABSTRACT This article examines partisan bias in local government grants across Great Britain, testing whether grant-awarding governments allocate more resources to local authorities controlled by their own party. The results suggest substantial pork-barrelling in grant allocations: the UK government allocates more in grant funding to English local authorities after they become politically aligned. A weaker partisan bias is also found in Wales. In Scotland, there is no evidence of such bias, a result which may be explained by a lesser reliance on more easily targetable specific grants, different electoral systems or the intergovernmental frameworks characterising local government grants in Scotland.