§ Mr. Christopher Priceasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish the grant-related expenditure assessments for local government in England in 1983–84, broken down by service.
§ Mr. Giles ShawYes. They will be published in a few week's time.
§ Mr. Christopher Priceasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to be in a position to publish the outturn expenditure of each local authority in England in 1981–82 (a) in current expenditure at November 1980 prices, (b) in current expenditure at outturn prices and (c) in total expenditure at outturn prices.
§ Mr. Giles ShawThe availability of this information depends on local authorities returning the 1981–82 outturn forms. I hope to be in a position to publish provisional outturn information for most authorities in the spring. Final—audited—outturn information for all authorities should be available in the summer.
§ Mr. Christopher Priceasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he expects to be able to reduce the length of time which presently exists between the end of a financial year and the final publication of local authority outturn expenditure figures, in order to reduce instability in authorities' block grant receipts.
§ Mr. Giles ShawThe timing of a rate support grant supplementary report using outturn data as the basis for block grant payments will depend on how quickly local authorities can return their audited outturn figures. Conclusive calculations will be made as soon as practicable after my right hon. Friend has sufficient information for the purpose.
§ Mr. Christopher Priceasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish the block grant which 285W a local authority would have received if spending at the level of its grant-related expenditure assessment (a) in 1982–83 and (b) in 1983–84 including the effects of holdback, showing the percentage change in grant in each case.
§ Mr. Giles ShawThe annual RSG settlement is based on a large number of separate decisions, and the assumption that authorities will spend at the level of their 1983–84 expenditure target. Applying these separate decisions to another expenditure assumption, which is entirely hypothetical, would produce results which would be misleading and unrealistic.
§ Mr. Christopher Priceasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his Department's best estimate of the total amount of interest receipts to local authorities in 1982–83 generated as a result of capital receipts generated in 1982–83 and earlier years.
§ Mr. Giles ShawThe amount of interest receipts on invested capital receipts during 1982–83 is estimated to be around £250 million.
§ Mr. Christopher Priceasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish his Department's estimate of the outturn level of capital expenditure in 1981–82 by local authorities in England, in each spending block and in total, showing the original planned level in each case.
§ Mr. Giles ShawThe information is as follows:
Local authority net capital expenditure: England 1981–82 £ million cash Estimated outturn Cash limit* DOE/LAI Education 380 366 Health and Personal Social Services 67 92 Transport 563 631 Housing† 789 1,299 Other services‡ 598 651 Total net capital expenditure in England 2,398 3,040 * DOE/LAI cash limit excluding provision for housing association grant. Cash limit applied to total LAI not to the individual services. † Gross housing expenditure by local authorities was £1,915 million compared with an original allocation of £1,795 million. ‡ From Cmnd. 8789 but excluding capital expenditure on police, courts and probation services.