§ Mr. HargreavesTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, if he plans to make any changes to the provisional capping criteria which he announced on 1 February.
§ Mr. CurryFollowing representations, I have concluded that the six metropolitan fire and civil defence authorities outside London face unique circumstances: as single service authorities with relatively small budgets, operating within detailed requirements governing minimum service provision, their flexibility is exceptionally constrained. I therefore propose to revise the provisional capping criteria that will apply to them.
My original proposals would have limited single service fire and civil defence authorities that are budgeting above their standard spending assessment to an increase in budget compared to 1994–95 of a 0.5 per cent. I now propose to revise the provisional capping criteria that apply to the metropolitan fire and civil defence authorities. The effect of my intended criteria is:
- i any increase in budget of more than 2 per cent. over 1994–95 would be considered excessive if it gives rise to a budget requirement above the authority's SSA;
- ii. any increase of more than 1.25 per cent. would be considered excessive if it gives rise to a budget requirement over 5 per cent. above SSA;
- iii. any increase of more than 0.5 per cent. would be considered excessive if it gives rise to a budget requirement over 10 per cent. above SSA.
The capping criteria are necessarily provisional. We cannot take decisions on capping until authorities have set their budgets for 1995–96.