§ Mr. McQuarrieasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if it is his intention to calculate future guidelines to local authorities on the 1984–85 budget proposed by each local authority, or whether the guideline will be determined by the guideline figure in financial terns which he set each council for the year 1984–85.
§ Mr. AncramThe local authority current expenditure guidelines for 1985–86 will be calculated, as for the three preceeding years, on the basis of the client group assessments of expenditure need. It is likely that, as in previous years, an adjustment will be made to these assessments to arrive at the guideline but no decision has yet been made on the form of any such adjustment.
§ Mr. McQuarrieasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he took account of the cost of holding district council elections when setting the guidelines for local government spending in 1984–85.
§ Mr. AncramThe local authority current expenditure guidelines for 1984–85 are based on the client group 321W assessments of relative expenditure need by which the total expenditure provision for services is shared among authorities. The total of expenditure provision takes account of all the functions which have to be carried out by authorities but specific extra provision is not made available in election years.
§ Mr. McQuarrieasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will ensure that in determining local authorities' guidelines in future years he will not penalise authorities which kept their spending to the lower limits as against other authorities which had higher spending.
§ Mr. AncramThe expenditure targets set by the current expenditure guidelines for low spending authorities do not involve expenditure reductions of the scale required from high spending authorities.