The Productivity Commission is currently investigating whether existing funding and financing arrangements are suitable for enabling local authorities to meet current and future cost pressures. The Commission is seeking to understand the influence of prices on local government expenditure, exploring the prices faced by local government, the drivers of price growth, and the overall contribution of prices to total local government expenditure growth over the last ten years. The final report is due in November 2019.

Sapere was engaged to support the Commission by examining the inflationary pressures affecting councils, and to construct a price index that measures changes in prices faced by local councils.