§ Mr. Nigel EvansTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the revenue support grant paid over annually to metropolitan councils to support public transport projects in passenger transport authorities areas since 1989.
§ Mr. BaldryRevenue support grant is paid to local authorities to help meet general revenue expenditure. It is based on an assessment of each authority's overall need to spend in order to provide a standard level of service known as the standard spending assessment or SSA. It is distributed so that, if all authorities were to spend at the level of their SSA, they could set broadly the same level of council tax, for properties in a given valuation band.
The grant is not intended to be used in any prescribed way, it is not, therefore, possible to identify a particular portion of the total grant as being related to any particular type of service.