To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government further to the publication by her Department of Sustainable Communities Act 2007: A Guide, whether cross-regional expenditure by (a) Government Offices for the Regions and (b) regional development agencies will be classed as public expenditure that cannot be mapped to local authority areas. (191651)

Section 6 of the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 requires the Secretary of State to make arrangements for the production of local spending reports. A local spending report produces information about public expenditure in relation to a particular geographical area. While the basis behind local spending reports is to identify where public money is spent, it will not be possible or cost effective to map all public expenditure. For example, some public funding supports services which are not geographically specific or are used by people from a number of local authority areas.

Work on implementation is currently at an early stage and we aim to consult on proposals in the summer.