Culmination of Law

Culmination of Law

Financing local units in the British model of decentralization with a look at Iran

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Amir Asgari Dehabadi 1
Mohammad Jalali 2
Erfan Shams 3
1 Doctoral student of Public Law, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
2 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iraniversity
3 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
10.22034/thdad.2024.563570.2281
Abstract
One of the model countries in the field of decentralization is the United Kingdom, which is considered to be the creator of the common law approach to decentralization. Therefore, in this research, one of the important aspects of the decentralization system in Britain, which is referred to as devolution; That is, the financing of local units has been investigated. The most important issue in the field of financial decentralization in the UK is the "Barnett Formula" and the tax powers devolved to local governments. Investigations show that Barnett's formula is a unique budget allocation method in the developed world, and no government except the UK has used such a method to allocate funds to local governments, and the common method is the needs assessment method based on allocating cost levels to each unit. Locally based on assessment and evaluation of needs and not based on cost changes elsewhere (state, government, region...) Inefficient dispute resolution mechanism and non-allocation of fair and equitable levels of resources to local governments are among the most important challenges of the local unit financing system in the UK. In Iran, the decentralization system is also struggling with challenges such as unclear and ineffective mechanisms in providing provincial budgets and lack of financial independence of local councils. Therefore, at the end of this research, suggestions have been made to plan the new revenue-expenditure system of the province in order to deal with the mentioned challenges.
Keywords
Decentralization
local units
fiscal decentralization
devolution
fiscal autonomy

Subjects

Resources
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Culmination of Law
Volume 10, Issue 2
Autumn 2024
Pages 221-254