To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much the area based grant for 2008-09 will be for each Tyne and Wear local authority; and how much its various predecessor grants were for those authorities in 2007-08. (187424)

The Government published allocations of the area-based grant (ABG) at individual authority level on a three-year basis alongside the local government finance settlement 2008-09 to 2010-11. Full details of the allocations, as at the time of the settlement, are available on the Communities and Local Government website:

http://www.local.odpm.gov.uk/finance/0809/specgrant.htm

The 2008-09 Allocations for Tyne and Wear authorities for the period 2008-09 are as follows.

Area-based grant is a new non-ring-fenced general grant which comprises some 40 funding streams from seven Government Departments including my own, three of which are new and 37 of which were previously paid as specific grants. Data on the 2007-08 allocations of the 37 predecessor grants are not held in one place at individual local-authority level, and it would incur disproportionate costs to collate the information. A list of the former specific grants moved into ABG is available on our website at

http://www.local.communities.gov.uk/finance/rsg_abg.pdf