§ Mr. GillTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what assessment he has made of the ability of Shropshire County Council to meet its statutory obligations in the next financial year within his proposed financial settlement. [24431]
§ Ms ArmstrongThe Secretary of State has proposed for consultation that Shropshire's Standard Spending Assessment (SSA) in 1998–99 should be £170.325 million. SSAs are the Government's view of the level of net revenue expenditure that it would be appropriate for each local authority to incur, given overall national resources, to provide a level of service which is consistent across all local authorities. SSAs are calculated by formulae which use objective measures of spending need. We take account of statutory obligations when setting the level of SSA.