To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellors Department what specific or direct grants have been made by her Department to local authorities for 2003–04 (a) in England and (b) broken down by local authority, identifying whether the grant is (i) ring fenced, (ii) a specific formula grant, (iii) within aggregate external finance and (iv) outside aggregate external finance. [114916]

My Department provides separate grants for revenue and capital (buildings and IT) to local authorities to meet 80 per cent. of Magistrates courts costs. The remainder is met by the local authorities.Revenue grant is ringfenced within aggregate external finance. The capital grants are ringfenced but outside aggregate external finance.The total 2003–04 grants (at the 80 per cent. level) to be made available for Magistrates courts in England are:

	£ million
Revenue	309.9
Building	114.6
IT	16.0
Total grant	330.5
1 Being at 80 per cent. this excludes Supplementary Credit Approval

A breakdown of total payments to be made during 2003–04 cannot be provided as grants may be subject to change, and are paid on a quarterly basis throughout the year. Magistrates courts are organised into 42 Committees and a lead paying authority acts on behalf of the various authorities covered by each Committee. Grant payments are made to this lead authority as detailed in the following table.This shows current total 2003–04 revenue grant allocation figures. A precise breakdown of capital figures is not yet available because the process of allocating them is underway.

£
Lead Authority	Revenue paid to date	Buildings paid to date
Somerset	1,944,579	30,400
Bedfordshire	730,598	20,160
Buckinghamshire	2,515,231	725,112
Cambridgeshire	951,673	48,605
Cheshire	1,147,774	62,456
Cleveland	985,173	155,248
Cornwall	1,646,697	15,239
Cumbria	937,753	0
Derbyshire	1,163,212	0
Dorset	787,287	11,488
Durham	944,316	36,132
East Sussex	1,799,000	132,307
Essex	1,775,640	12,403
Gloucestershire	833,951	17,759
Hampshire	2,123,428	43,018
Hereford and Worcester	1,700,251	9,200
Hertfordshire	1,176,060	22,749
Humberside	1,501,038	64,662
Kent	1,712,538	63,082
Lancashire	1,928,561	167,203
Leicestershire	1,117,306	6,359
Lincolnshire	794,483	15,557
Norfolk	950,369	85,626
North Yorkshire	948,350	126,228
Northamptonshire	803,381	73,387
Newcastle Upon Tyne	2,267,362	89,120
Nottinghamshire	1,831,597	16,845
Staffordshire	1,286,249	12,656
Suffolk	724,739	5,569

£
Lead Authority	Revenue paid to date	Buildings paid to date
Surrey	999,474	72,136
Warwickshire	530,674	0
Wiltshire	928,019	18,599
Bolton	4,173,629	126,786
Sefton	2,371,514	35,898
Barnsley	1,810,818	56,616
Birmingham	4,082,975	197,378
Leeds	3,064,008	102,800
GLMCA	15,000,000	80,000
Total	56,989,707	2,678,782
Note:
All figures are in 80 per cent. grant terms
No IT capital grant payments have yet been made this year