Mr. Michael J. FosterTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many responses to the local government finance Green Paper raised the issue of perverse incentives surrounding the fire service standard spending assessment. [148909]
§ Ms Beverley HughesA full analysis of the responses to the local government finance Green Paper is currently being finalised. It will be published on the DETR website by the beginning of March.
Mr. Michael J. FosterTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when his Department will respond to the recent Green Paper on local government finance. [148890]
§ Ms Beverley HughesWe will announce our decisions on the reform of the local government finance system in a White Paper later this year.
Mr. Michael J. FosterTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1) what financial recognition is given to deprivation in the current Standard Spending Assessment formula, as applied to all local authorities in the west midlands region; [148888]
(2) how deprivation is calculated in the methodolgy used in the Standard Spending Assessment formula. [148913]
§ Ms Beverley HughesThe Standard Spending Assessment (SSA) methodology is sub-divided into seven blocks. These are Education, Personal Social Services, Fire, Police, Highway Maintenance, Environmental, Protective and Cultural Services (EPCS), and Capital Finance. The first six of these allocate the majority of the SSA on the basis of a 'client group'. For Education the client group is the number of pupils in a given age group; for EPCS it is the relevant population in each authority.
647WIn addition to the client group allocation, each of the six blocks includes a factor that reflects the higher cost of service provision in London and the South East. This is known as the Area Cost Adjustment.
Lastly, each of the blocks includes factors that provide additional funding to those authorities that are assessed as having a higher need to spend. These additional factors can be loosely termed as 'deprivation' indicators. For example, the Education block includes indicators that show for each authority the proportion of children of lone parents, the proportion of children of Income Support/ income based Jobseeker's Allowance claimants, and an ethnicity indicator. The Education SSA methodology also makes an allowance for population sparsity to reflect higher costs in rural areas.
Full details of all the indicators used in SSAs can be found in "The Local Government Finance Report (England) 2001–021, a copy of which can be found in the Libraries of the House.