§ Lord Howie of Troonasked Her Majesty's Government:
What amounts for each year since 1997 have been claimed by each health authority under the Bellwin scheme. [HL2915]
§ Lord Rooker:Bellwin grant is paid under the authority of section 155(4) of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. Health authorities do not qualify since they are not included in the list of eligible authorities.
§ Lord Howie of Troonasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the present arrangement in the Bellwin scheme where a claim can be made after a percentage of budget is to be changed; and what change is to be made; and [HL2917]
What changes to the Bellwin scheme, as recently announced by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, are proposed to the way in which sums can be claimed under the scheme. [HL2916]
§ Lord Rooker:Before qualifying for Bellwin grant in any year an authority must have spent 0.2 per cent of its budget on activities that would be eligible for grant: 0.2 per cent of budget is referred to as "the Bellwin threshold". There is no proposal to change this provision of the scheme. However in the past, because of delays in the process of notifying authority budgets to the department the threshold was calculated using a proxy arrangement whereby the previous year's budget was uprated by the average increase in standard spending assessment for the following year. Since the standard spending assessment is no longer part of the local government finance arrangements we have waited until we had details of authorities' budgets and then calculated the threshold on the basis of 0.2 per cent of the actual budget. In accordance with normal arrangements officials consulted all authorities before promulgating the thresholds for 2003–04.