Written question asked by Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 13 March 2001, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 19 March 2001. It was answered by Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Labour) on Monday, 19 March 2001 on behalf of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.

Dept of the Environment Transport and the Regions

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, what steps he is taking to introduce simpler local government grant system which is based predominantly on population.

Answer: Mr. Nigel Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what steps he is taking to introduce simpler local government grant system which is based predominantly on population. [154142] Mr. Gray: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what steps he is taking to simplify the local government grant system and to base it predominantly on population. [153847] Ms Beverley Hughes: Last September's local government finance green paper consulted on options for making the current grant distribution system for all local authorities fairer. A White paper will be published later this year setting out our decisions on the way forward. The existing formulae for distributing revenue grant are based predominantly on local authority population figures including relevant client groups (such as schoolchildren or elderly people). Were we to decide to continue to distribute grant by formula, this would continue to be the case. As with the present system, such a formula could be modified to take other factors into account such as levels of deprivation and the higher costs of recruiting and retaining local authority staff--but in a more transparent and comprehensible way than the present system.

Secondary information