The Department for Communities and Local Government has set three national targets for local authorities. Details are set out as follows:
By 2007-08, each local authority to achieve total efficiency gains equivalent to 7.5 per cent. of their baseline expenditure in 2004-05;
By 2010, all social housing to meet minimum standards of decency. Details available at http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1152190
By 2010, 70 per cent. of vulnerable households in the private sector to live in a decent home.
In addition, a further three targets have been set for fire and rescue authorities:
By 2010, reduce the number of accidental fire-related deaths in the home by 20 per cent.;
By 2010, achieve a 10 per cent. reduction in deliberate fires;
By 2010, no local fire and rescue authority to have a fatality rate, from accidental fires in the home, of more than 1.25 times the national average.
Annual targets are also set for specified local authorities requiring them to process planning applications within a prescribed period of time.
Targets are additionally set through Local Area Agreements (LAAs). These are three-year agreements, based on local community strategies, which set out the priorities for a local area.
There are also a number of floor targets, setting minimum standards that every area should meet, which have been set by central Government as part of each Spending Review since 2000. These floor targets now cover six thematic areas: crime, education, housing, employment, health and liveability, and are designed to help reduce the gap between the most deprived neighbourhoods and the rest. Details of these floor targets, showing changes made to the targets and where targets have been rolled over or removed at each Spending Review, are available via the HMT website at the following addresses, and are made available in the Library of the House:
Changes from 2000-02 SR:
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk./Spending_Review/spend_sr02/psa/spend_sr02psatargets.cfm
Changes from 2002-04 SR:
http://performance.treasury.gov.uk/recontopublishsr02to04.pdf
The local government White Paper, “Strong and Prosperous Communities”, published on 26 October, set out proposals for a new performance framework for local authorities and their partners. As part of the new framework, the number of targets for each area will be limited to around 35, plus the 18 statutory early years and performance targets from the Department for Education and Skills, agreed through the LAA.
Targets will reflect the agreed set of national outcomes and will be set against the approximately 200 national indicators that will be determined through next year’s Comprehensive Spending Review.
Local authorities are responsible for taking their own procurement decisions subject to the requirements of Best Value legislation and to the EU/UK regulatory framework. However, generally speaking, parties to a contract may agree inclusion within contracts of mechanisms by which sums of money may be paid as compensation for a late or failed delivery. The sum must be a genuine pre-estimate of loss to be upheld by the courts.
Westminster city council received the following allocations through the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund since its inception in 2001-02:
£ 2001-02 748,000 2002-03 1,123,000 2003-04 1,497,000 2004-05 1,497,000 2005-06 1,497.000 2006-07 3,055,379
A further £3,562,712 will be received in 2007-08, making a total allocation of £12,980,091 over seven years.
[holding answer 7 December 2006]: The market value of the assets held by the Local Government Pension Scheme fund authorities in England as at 31 March 2006 and the number of active, deferred and pensioner members of those funds is shown in the following table. The data are derived from annual returns submitted to the Department by LGPS administering authorities in England.
Local authority Number of active members Number of pensioners: retired employees or dependants Number of former members entitled to deferred benefits Market value at end of year (£000) Bath and North East Somerset UA 34,618 17,743 18,165 2,043,304 Bedfordshire 15,721 9,660 9,315 980,356 Berkshire 16,859 9,363 10,355 1,376,608 Buckinghamshire 16,884 9,599 9,613 1,077,856 Cambridgeshire 21,515 10,071 16,410 1,270,646 Cheshire 31,807 17,622 13,960 2,171,422 Cornwall 15,917 7,093 7,370 919,515 Cumbria 17,563 10,017 6,566 1,093,374 Derbyshire 34,847 18,066 12,037 1,920,422 Devon 35,023 19,212 15,229 1,985,968 Dorset 22,720 11,112 8,924 1,257,329 Durham 18,704 13,625 7,225 1,333,700 East Riding of Yorkshire UA 35,163 17,588 15,655 1,839,699 East Sussex 21,907 12,164 12,273 1,595,781 Essex 40,297 23,830 20,650 2,795,041 Gloucestershire 17,901 8,622 8,593 876,872 Hampshire 47,939 24,470 25,289 2,713,627 Hereford and Worcester 18,793 10,597 8,278 1,149,634 Hertfordshire 25,599 17,125 15,532 1,962,323 Isle of Wight UA 4,783 2,480 2,374 238,939 Kent 39,399 24,840 21,905 2,375,106 Lancashire 52,292 31,290 26,458 3,477,527 Leicestershire 30,395 14,668 16,405 1,984,639 Lincolnshire 20,187 8,477 12,805 1,062,399 Middlesbrough UA 26,457 14,817 10,119 1,830,067 Norfolk 23,998 13,111 11,441 1,712,619 North Yorkshire 27,987 11,159 10,903 1,150,528 Northamptonshire 18,147 9,263 8,290 1,046,480 Northumberland 9,583 5,747 4,600 612,345 Nottinghamshire 40,729 20,233 18,427 2,250,837 Oxfordshire 19,771 7,881 8,399 958,085 Shropshire 14,102 6,398 6,303 852,118 Somerset 18,463 8,818 9,025 982,601 Staffordshire 38,405 18,311 17,948 2,061,958 Suffolk 16,584 8,938 6,762 1,182,526 Surrey 22,762 15,015 16,620 1,617,747 Warwickshire 13,388 6,706 5,335 945,000 West Sussex 22,446 11,585 10,830 1,446,091 Wiltshire 19,186 8,409 10,489 1,048,377 Merseyside Pension Fund 49,721 37,579 21,066 4,040,929 Tameside 102,707 71,970 58,165 8,943,861 Tyne and Wear Superannuation Fund 48,986 29,563 18,887 3,419,433 West Midlands Pension Fund 104,414 57,328 57,434 6,900,987 West Yorkshire Superannuation Fund 92,487 53,287 51,237 6.616,032 Camden 5,914 5,176 5,790 744,851 City of London 3,559 3,061 2,447 446,644 Greenwich 6,091 4,886 3,076 696,911 Hackney 4,363 5,811 4,963 615,882 Hammersmith and Fulham 4,700 3,694 3,410 431,250 Islington 5,417 4,718 4,361 662,210 Kensington and Chelsea 3,206 2,036 2,515 378,515 Lambeth 4,471 5,958 5,304 677,408 Lewisham 6,400 5,353 5,859 675,298 Southwark 6,526 5,667 4,640 692,394 Tower Hamlets 5,567 3,517 3,788 648,826 Wandsworth 4,820 4,021 4,862 659,195 Westminster 4,027 4,608 4,592 643,711 Barking and Dagenham 5,241 3,973 2,999 497,858 Barnet 6,755 5,525 4,556 497,782 Bexley 4,588 3,309 2,672 391,078 Brent 5,495 4,870 4,639 456,753 Bromley 4,116 3,898 2,526 336,267 Croydon 6,607 5,188 3,537 501,214 Ealing 6,628 5,670 4,400 516,595 Enfield 5,378 3,374 2,421 500,779 Haringey 7,176 5,427 4,426 573,458 Harrow 5,615 3,537 3,692 410,393 Havering 5,613 4,391 2,580 340,946 Hillingdon 6,120 4,364 3,437 543,622 Hounslow 6,014 4,283 4,423 408,276 Kingston upon Thames 3,976 2,580 2,397 291,986 Merton 3,347 2,640 2,075 283,881 Newham 6,889 5,612 3,808 552,033 Redbridge 4,797 3,556 2,453 317,876 Richmond upon Thames 3,264 2,625 2,516 311,300 Sutton 3,755 2,412 2,051 277,173 Waltham Forest 6,544 5,228 4,067 443,526 London Pensions Fund Authority 21,037 32,235 20,853 3,474,013 South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority 661 1,024 555 153,205 South Yorkshire Pensions Fund Authority 53,473 30,125 23,413 3,423,481 West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority 1,284 2,952 1,108 369,955
The Best Value Performance Indicator 12 provides information on sickness absence records for each local authority. Figures from 2000-01 are available at www.bvpi.gov.uk.
Figures for 2005-06 have recently been collated and will be added shortly. Sickness absence data was not collected by the Department prior to 2000. Councils are not required to report the split between long-term and short-term sick leave.
The information requested is not available in the format requested and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Historically the Department has not collated this information at ward level, as all funds were allocated by individual projects/programmes rather than by ward.
The central Government grant received by Tamworth borough council expressed in terms of 2005-06 prices in each of the past six years is shown in the following table.
2005-06 prices (£000) 2000-01 5,392 2001-02 5,528 2002-03 5,537 2003-04 6,426 2004-05 5,730 2005-06 6,523 Source: Communities and Local Government Revenue Outturn (RO) returns and HM Treasury GDP deflators
The real terms figures have been calculated using the latest GDP deflators.
Government grant is defined here as the sum of specific grants inside aggregate external finance (i.e. revenue grants paid for councils' core services), formula grant (revenue support grant, redistributed business rates and police grant) and Greater London Authority (GLA) grant.
Comparisons across years may not be valid due to changing local authority responsibilities. The information provided excludes capital funding and funding for local authorities' housing management responsibilities. The information also excludes those grant programmes, such as European funding, where authorities are simply one of the recipients of funding paid towards an area.
(2) how she plans to reflect the impact of A8 migration on the allocation of funds to local authorities in England.
[holding answer 29 November 2006]: The 2007-08 Local Government Finance Settlement is the second year of a two-year settlement period. Provisional allocations for 2007-08 were therefore first published in December 2005. Multi-year settlements have been welcomed by local government.
For the Local Government Finance settlements, we have to use the best data that are available at the time, and that treat all local authorities on a consistent basis.
Therefore, for the measure of the resident population in the 2007-08 settlement, we have used the 2003-based sub-national population projection for 2007 as the key measure of population, and the mid-2004 estimate of population within other indicators used in the top-up formulae. These were the best data available at the time.
As multi-year settlements bring stability and predictability to local authority funding, we do not intend to change the settlement from that previously announced, other than in exceptional circumstances.
The next round of multi-year settlements, for 2008-09 to 2010-11, will be made in late 2007. The best data on population that will be available at that point will be the 2004-based sub-national population projections and the mid-2006 estimate of population.
The information requested is not available for all local authorities in England. The England estimates of local authority expenditure on (a) electricity and (b) gas and other energy costs are tabled as follows.
Energy costs Electricity Gas and other1 2001-02 304,002 151,698 2002-03 302,066 201,290 2003-04 342,258 187,822 2004-05 361,070 222,481 2005-06 432,081 305,133 1 Figures collected for 2001-02 were for gas only while from 2002-03 onwards figures include gas and other energy costs. As 2002-03 was the first year of the new definition, the figure for that year may be less reliable. Source: Communities and Local Government Revenue Outturn (RO) suite of forms—Subjective Analysis Return (SAR).