§ Mrs. ShephardTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions for what reason different criteria are used to determine rural sparsity factors for standard spending assessments and the support for rural public transport. [48861]
§ Ms Glenda JacksonTo reflect the different purposes of the two schemes. The sparsity factor used for standard spending assessments was one of the options considered for the distribution of rural bus subsidy grant but was rejected for this purpose in favour of a method which reflected more directly the total population in each local authority living in a rural area.