The most deprived councils continue to see the biggest cuts in government funding, with traditionally Labour-voting areas in the north of England and inner city London losing out the most, according to an analysis of the 2015-16 town hall funding settlement.

The study by Newcastle-upon-Tyne city council claims that leafy shire areas in the Tory-voting south-east are again more protected against the cuts than their northern and urban counterparts, debunking ministerial claims that they had delivered a settlement that is “fair to all parts of the country”.

Newcastle also argues that the government has dramatically understated the official headline “spending power” reductions. Ministers announced in December that the 2015-16 average municipal funding cut for England amounts to just 1.8%, with no council facing a loss of more than 6.4%.

Newcastle, however, calculates the average England-wide spending power reduction at 2.1%.

Within this figure, London councils will see an average cut of 4.3% (equivalent to £137 per household) while north east councils will see an average 3.4% cut (-£78 per household). At the same time, according to Newcastle, councils in affluent areas of the south east will see an average 0.5% increase in spending power (+£9 per household).

According to Nick Forbes, the leader of Newcastle-upon-Tyne city council, this data proves that:

The Government’s claim to be fair to councils in all parts of the country is complete bunkum.

The variations in individual councils are striking. Some 23 councils will see spending power reductions of over 5%, with Labour-run London borough of Hackney the biggest loser at 6.46%. But 17 home counties authorities will see an increase of over 2% in their spending power: all are Tory-run, with Reigate and Banstead seeing the biggest increase, at 2.92% (see scrollable table below).

This is not the first time Newcastle has challenged the government’s presentation of council spending cuts figures - and it has been a vocal critic of Coalition cuts. But if anything, its critique is cautious. It largely accepts the government’s spending power calculation; the main difference is that it incorporates into its sums funding earmarked for the Greater London Authority, whose 6.9% budget cut was excluded from the official figures.

The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (Cipfa) says the government’s spending power presentation is “disingenuous” and massively underplays the “true size and scope of the cuts,” which it says amount to an average of 6%, more than three times the official government figure.

Cipfa, which represents public sector accountants, argues that to calculate a fair and accurate cuts figure it is essential to count only the resources which local government has discretionary control over, and to ignore what it calls government “double-counting”. It explains:

[The true figure should include] funding that councils have available to meet their priorities and fund existing staff and commitments and which is not already ring-fenced for other use. This includes Revenue Support Grant, retained business rates, council tax and a number of special grants that authorities are free to spend as they wish. In contrast [the government’s] measure also includes Public Health Grant (which can only be spent on public health matters) and the Better Care Fund (which is largely NHS money or budgets that local authorities have pooled with the NHS, and can only be spent on priorities agreed with local NHS managers).

Cipfa’s calculations show that at a regional level, London councils will see an average cut of 8%, while the north-east will see a reduction of 7.8%. Councils in the south-east will see an average reduction of 3.4%. Individual council spending cuts, as Cipfa’s table below shows, range from a 10.9% cut for Labour-controlled Knowsley on Merseyside, to a 3.2% increase for Tory Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire (see scrollable table below).

According to Rob Whiteman, Cipfa’s chief executive:

While closer co-operation between local authorities and the NHS is fundamental to better outcomes in social care, to portray money already spent through pooled budgets as extra funding is seriously distorting, not least because the same money appears to be counted as NHS funding as well. The figures presented by the Government also appear to hide the true impact of cuts upon some local authorities. Once you peer behind the opaque measurement of funding used today, you see that the disparity of impact across the country and between different types of authority is significant and needs to be considered carefully by policy makers.

Ministers would point out that in cash terms the likes of Knowsley still have a greater spending power per head than the likes of Tewkesbury. But critics argue that this discrepancy is justified because of the higher costs of public services in poorer areas (for example, more children taken into care, more reliance on public transport). Moreover, this per-head funding gap has narrowed during this parliament.

The cumulative impact of five years of cuts is analysed in a heat map produced by Newcastle, which it says demonstrates that an “unfair burden” is falling on the poorest areas of England.

According to Forbes:

The heat maps we produce uncannily resemble the political map of the country showing that the Government is presiding over a wholesale shift of resources predominantly from the north to the south of England.

Cipfa has called for an independent body to be set up to reform the allocation of local authority funding to ensure it is done in a “fair, evidence based and transparent way.” This is precisely what Newcastle called for two years ago. The communities secretary Eric Pickles was once in favour of creating such a body when he was in opposition seven years ago, but he has been strangely quiet on the subject since.