HC Deb 01 June 1998 vol 313 c29W
Mr. Paul Marsden

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will change the formulae for local government financial settlements for 1999–2000 to incorporate a sparsity factor for rural county councils. [43384]

Mr. Raynsford

The existing standard spending assessment (SSA) formulae include a sparsity factor in the Education, Police and 'All Other Services' blocks for all relevant local authorities.

As part of our regular discussions of the SSA formulae with local government, we understand that the County Councils Network will present a paper proposing changes to the Personal Social Services block of the SSAs to include an indicator of sparsity of population. We shall consider with local government the arguments put forward.