HC Deb 19 January 1989 vol 145 cc287-8W
Mr. Andrew Welsh

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if, in respect of the local authority areas of Tayside region, Angus district, Dundee district and Perth and Kinross district, he will list the details of the figures he used to calculate(a) the estimate of the total revenue expenditure, (b) the amount of revenue support grant, (c) the amount of non-domestic rates, (d) the amount attributable to the poll tax, (e) the amount of revenue balances he expects each to use and (f) the effective number of registerd persons for each.

Mr. Lang

The Secretary of State has not calculated the figures mentioned under(a), (d) and (e). These are matters for the local authorities concerned. Details of calculations of (b), (c) and (f) are given in the "Report on the Revenue Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1988", a copy of which has been placed in the House of Commons Library.

Mr. Andrew Welsh

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) if he will list the full details of how the calculations were arrived at and the assumptions which were made in calculating(a) the poll tax for Tayside region, (b) the water poll tax for Tayside region, (c) the district poll tax for Angus district, (d) the district poll tax for Dundee district and (e) the district poll tax for Perth and Kinross district;

(2) if he will list the full details of how he calculated the total amount of poll tax payable in each district in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Lang

For Scotland as a whole the 9.8 per cent increase means that if local authorities increase their expenditure by no more than 6 per cent., plus allowances for the cost of community charge and school board administration, the amount raised in community charges need be no more than that raised in domestic rates this year. The first stage of the calculation of a community charge for each area was therefore to calculate the personal community charge for each local authority, which would raise the same amount as domestic rates did this year. It was assumed that exemptions and losses in collection for community charges would be at a level corresponding to present reliefs and losses for domestic rates.

The resulting community charge figure for each area was then adjusted to take account of the extent to which the individual authorities' grant increase was larger or smaller than the average for the class of authority.

The community water charge was calculated as the community charge equivalent to this year's domestic and public water rates, increased for inflation.

The approach was applied to all local authority areas in Scotland.