HC Deb 02 December 2002 vol 395 cc640-1W
Mr. Jenkins

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many submissions have been received in the consultation period on the reform of the SSA. [82951]

Mr. Raynsford

The Government received around 55,000 letters from the public relating to the Formula Grant Review, the great majority of these are the result of various campaigns that have been organised. One such campaign was organised by the F40 Group of local authorities, of which Staffordshire is a constituent authority, on education funding and produced approximately 53,000 responses in total.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister do not record the details of the senders of campaign letters as a matter of course. For this reason, and since very many from the F40 campaign are multiple copies of the same letter by the same people to different Ministers, it is not possible to provide a more precise answer, except at disproportionate cost.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is currently taking decisions on the new system to replace SSAs, carefully considering the full range of evidence, pressures and points that have been put to us. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister will announce its proposals for the new system to Parliament at the time of the next provisional local government finance settlement, which it expects will be around the beginning of December 2002.