§ Mr. SandersTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister what criteria were used by the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund to select the five resorts chosen for the award of £30 million over three years; and for what reason the selection was limited to five authorities. [124763]
§ Yvette CooperThe Indices of Deprivation 2000 (ID2000) have been used to determine Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF) eligibility and the basis of distribution of the grant between eligible authorities. The Department decided that those authorities that appear within the top 50 most deprived districts on any of the six district level measures in the ID2000 should be eligible for the NR F. On this basis 81 authorities are eligible. It was also decided that there should be transitional arrangements for those authorities that were within the 50 most deprived areas on any of the four measures under the old Index of Local Deprivation, but are not in the list of 81 authorities that qualify using the ID2000. Therefore, a further seven local authority areas are eligible for the Fund. The 88 local authorities that are eligible for NRF and the amounts allocated to each authority in 2003/04 are listed in Annex A of the Special Grant Report 111 (SGR 111).
The sum to be allocated to each authority is based on a standard amount per head of population in those wards in the authority that are in the most deprived 10 per cent. of all wards nationally, with a minimum allocation in 2003–04 of £400,000 for any eligible authority. This relates an authority's grant funding to the severity of deprivation within its area, measured by the number of their residents living in particularly deprived areas.