§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list those local authorities with responsibility for education where the increase in revenue support grant adjusted for changes in nursery vouchers funding and increased NNDR is less than the amount that has been passported through the capping regime to raise standards in schools. [22284]
§ Ms ArmstrongThe Deputy Prime Minister, in his statement to the House outlining the Government's proposals for the 1998–99 RSG Settlement, set out the proposed levels of Total Standard Spending and Aggregate External Support. In his statement he made it clear that the proposals reflected the previous Government's plans to increase the level of Council Tax by 7 per cent. This effect on council tax was inherent in the public expenditure totals set by the last Government 5W and implied a reduction in the level of central Government support for local authority expenditure. Although the Government have sought to limit the pressures on local council tax payers by a number of means, including the full funding of the extra £835 million for education, the shift from central Government support to the council tax means that for most authorities increases in Standard Spending Assessments will exceed the increase in central Government support.
Consequently, for most education authorities the difference between the provisional 1998–99 SSA element for education and the adjusted equivalent amount for 1997–98 (ie the amount taken into account in determining whether the permitted increase in budget should be above the standard percentage for the class) exceeds the difference between the sum of the provisional 1998–99 RSG and NNDR entitlements and the sum of the 1997–98 entitlements, adjusted for changes in responsibility and function.
The authorities with an increase in education SSA higher than the increase in external support are:
- Barnet
- Barnsley
- Bath and North East Somerset
- Bedfordshire
- Bexley
- Bolton
- Bournemouth
- Bracknell Forest
- Bradford
- Brent
- Brighton and Hove
- Bristol
- Bromley
- Buckinghamshire
- Bury
- Calderdale
- Cambridgeshire
- Camden
- Cheshire
- City of London
- Cornwall
- Croydon
- Cumbria
- Darlington
- Derby
- Derbyshire
- Devon
- Doncaster
- Dorset
- Dudley
- Durham
- East Riding of Yorkshire
- East Sussex
- Enfield
- Essex
- Gateshead
- Gloucestershire
- Greenwich
6 - Hackney
- Halton
- Hammersmith and Fulham
- Hampshire
- Harrow
- Havering
- Herefordshire
- Hertfordshire
- Hillingdon
- Hounslow
- Isle of Wight Council
- Isles of Scilly
- Islington
- Kensington and Chelsea
- Kent
- Kingston upon Hull
- Kingston upon Thames
- Kirklees
- Lambeth
- Lancashire
- Leeds
- Leicester
- Leicestershire
- Lewisham
- Lincolnshire
- Manchester
- Medway Towns
- Middlesbrough
- Milton Keynes
- Newbury
- Newcastle upon Tyne
- Norfolk
- North East Lincolnshire
- North Lincolnshire
- North Somerset
- North Tyneside
- North Yorkshire
- Northamptonshire
- Northumberland
- Nottingham
- Nottinghamshire
- Oldham
- Oxfordshire
- Peterborough
- Plymouth
- Poole
- Reading
- Redcar and Cleveland
- Richmond upon Thames
- Rutland
- Salford
- Shropshire
- Solihull
- Somerset
- South Gloucestershire
- South Tyneside
- Southampton
- Southwark
7 - Staffordshire
- Stockton on Tees
- Stoke on Trent
- Suffolk
- Sunderland
- Surrey
- Sutton
- The Wrekin
- Torbay
- Trafford
- Wakefield
- Walsall
- Wandsworth
- Warrington
- Warwickshire
- West Sussex
- Westminster
- Wiltshire
- Windsor and Maidenhead
- Wirral
- Wokingham
- Worcestershire
- York.