HC Deb 28 February 1994 vol 238 cc552-3W
Mr. Robert Ainsworth

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) what agreement he reached with the Association of District Authorities on using nature of tenure as an indicator in the personal social services and the all-other services standard spending assessment;

(2) what agreement he has reached with the Association of Metropolitan Authorities on using nature of housing tenure as an indicator in the personal social services and the all-other services standard spending assessment;

(3) what discussions he has had with the Association of County Councils on using nature of tenure as an indicator in the personal social services and the all-other services standard spending assessment; and what measure of agreement was reached.

Mr. Baldry

As part of the review of standard spending assessments for 1994–95 we discussed the inclusion of indicators of housing tenure in SSAs with representatives of each of the local authority associations. The main forum for these discussions was the SSA sub-group.

The decision to include indicators of the nature of housing tenure in SSAs was based on a statistical analysis which was discussed with representatives of each of the local authority associations in the SSA sub-group.

The report of the SSA sub-group for 1994–95 was considered by the Consultative Council for Local Government Finance on 12 October. This report contained a number of options for changes to SSA methodology requested by these local authority associations which included indicators of the nature of housing tenure. During consultation on the provisional revenue support grant settlement for 1994–95 none of the local authority associations listed made representations on the proposal to use nature of housing tenure as an SSA indicator.

Mr. Robert Ainsworth

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received from local authority associations prior to his announcing the provisional revenue support grant settlement as to the use of nature of tenure as a proxy for disadvantage for the purpose of standard spending assessment distribution.

Mr. Baldry

Prior to the announcement of the provisional revenue support grant settlement for 1994–95, as part of the review of standard spending assessments, we discussed a wide range of possible changes in SSA methodology with representatives of each of the local authority associations. The use of indicators of the nature of housing tenure was considered as part of these discussions, which took place in the official level SSA sub-group.

The report of the SSA sub-group for 1994–95 summarises the papers presented to the sub-group and the points made by representatives of the local authority associations in the discussion which took place. I have placed a copy of this report in the Library.

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