SIGOMA chair: ‘Recovery grant needs to be mainlined’
Posted on July 16, 2026
Speaking to the LGC, SIGOMA Chair, Mayor Chris Cooke, called for the recovery grant to be locked into councils’ revenue funding. He also called for more detail on SEND reform, including how the remaining 10% of high needs deficits will be addressed and highlighted the role of multi-year funding in supporting longer-term prevention.
"Chris Cooke tells LGC why Sigoma is pushing for a 10-year funding settlement and why he unexpectedly became a politician.
In an “ideal” world councils would get a ten-year funding settlement from government, the new chair of Sigoma has told LGC.
Chris Cooke (Lab) became the permanent chair of the Special Interest Group for Municipal Authorities last week after a short spell as acting chair when Sir Stephen Houghton resigned after the latest set of local elections.
Middlesborough Council, where he is the directly elected mayor, was “one of the places that has been overtly affected by austerity and other policy decisions that have crippled our communities,” he says.
This is why being an active member of the group has been “vital”.
“As one of the places that was hit incredibly hard by some of the measures, I felt it was important that actually we are one of the voices that then steps up to make sure we form part of the conversation,” he tells LGC.
Securing a three-year funding settlement and fair funding reforms from the government was a lobbying win for Sigoma but Mayor Cooke says there is more work needed to improve local government’s finances.
The first priority is “stabilising what we already have” and “hopefully make sure we lock that in”.
This includes the recovery grant – initially described by government as a “one off” funding pot – which Mayor Cooke wants to “lock” in.
The recovery grant is targeted at 160 councils with high levels of deprivation and little ability to raise revenue from council tax.
When it was introduced in 2025-26, the recovery grant was described as a “one-off” and initially intended as a stop-gap to begin redistributing funding to higher needs areas ahead of the roll out of new formulae under fair funding 2.0. However it was retained for the current three-year settlement and is worth £600m a year.
“We need to make sure that government don’t see that grant as optional,” he says. “It needs to be mainlined into the revenue stream.”
Sigoma is also calling for longer-term funding settlements.
Councils are currently in the first year of a three-year arrangement after years of single year deals, but Mayor Cooke says in an “ideal” world we would work towards 10 years.
He points to some of the funding streams for combined authorities moving towards ten-year arrangements as evidence it is not an unrealistic ambition.
However, such a long deal would need to be flexible enough to enable “reflection” and changes if the economic environment changes.
Another policy area where he wants more from government is special educational needs and disabilities reform.
The Department for Education has proposed to write off 90% of high needs deficits, but Mayor Cooke wants “more detail on the 10% that is not being talked about”.
Ensuring we avoid a repeat of this situation is also a concern so that “there isn’t a statutory override that is allowed to run in the same way.”
For him this means that in future “where extra responsibilities or extra duties are given, there is a proper funding stream, and that there’s a recognition of the extra work”.
‘We need respect’
With Andy Burnham expected to become prime minister Mayor Cooke is optimistic.
“He [Burnham] understands the acute pressures on local authorities, but also he understands combined authorities,” he says.
Is the prospect of a raft of new ministers a challenge?
Mayor Cooke says not, and hopes the change of Labour leader will bring a “settled position”.
“This moment of flux that we’re in is quite disruptive,” he says.
Whoever is prime minister and communities secretary will need to understand the role local government has as the link between combined authorities and communities.
Mayor Cooke says: “That level of flex is incredibly important. That needs more recognition and more respect.”
He adds: “We need to make sure that is talked about more often as part of the devolution, the way that operates.”
‘I never expected to be in politics’
Mayor Cooke says his experience of growing up in care gives him a different perspective on local government.
“I have a deep understanding and deep respect the work the social workers do,” he says. “Essentially without them, I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am today.”
This “exposure” means “my understanding of local government is probably slightly different” to that of others.
He is still aware of the need to hold services to account, “but it comes from understanding a level of respect for the staff that work there”.
However, he did not grow up with an ambition to run his council.
“I never expected to get into politics. I never planned for any of this, I had a degree in IT,” he says.
It was when he was working in a school that the realities of different funding levels between authorities became apparent and sparked his interest in politics.
“I could see the disparity between what our school was getting and what other schools were getting,” he says. “And then the disparity became much more clear when you start thinking about how some councils are funded.”
Prevention agenda
Having multi-year funding enables councils to take “brave” decisions about investing in longer-term programmes that help to prevent demand in areas such as social care.
Mayor Cooke says he is committed to making the case for investing in services that prevent high demand elsewhere.
“One of the things I often tell council is, you will not see any savings out of what I’m going to do for the next 10 years, and sometimes that can be quite frustrating,” he says.
An example is increased support for youth clubs which “ultimately lead to less pressure on those high-end crisis services that are so costly”.
However he “cannot guarantee any result from that for a good amount of time”.
“But we need to start that work now because if we don’t start it now, it’s never going to have an impact,” he says."
You can read the full article in the LGC here.