The threshold has been set at 0.2 per cent. of a local authority's calculated annual revenue budget. This is because the Government, throughout the lifetime of the Bellwin scheme, has thought it reasonable to expect authorities to cover costs themselves up to a certain level. Every local authority is required to maintain reserves, one of whose main purposes is to meet unexpected costs. Successive Governments have retained the threshold and it has never been waived, even during the 1987 storms, the 2000 floods, the foot-and-mouth crisis or the 2007 summer floods.
The following table shows the threshold applied for each local authority that received Bellwin funding within the last three years:
Local authority Scheme Threshold (£) Babergh District Council Babergh Storm January 2007 18,879 Shepway District Council Folkestone Earthquake April 2007 36,395 Barnsley Met Borough Council Summer floods 2007 579,755 Bassetlaw District Council Summer floods 2007 31,864 Bridgenorth District Council Summer floods 2007 11,966 Cheltenham Borough Council Summer floods 2007 31,321 Chesterfield Borough Council Summer floods 2007 27,833 City of Lincoln Council Summer floods 2007 31,337 Cotswold District Council Summer floods 2007 20,119 Derbyshire Dales District Council Summer floods 2007 19,232 Doncaster Met Borough Council Summer floods 2007 745,486 East Lindsey District Council Summer floods 2007 41,216 East Riding of Yorkshire Council Summer floods 2007 758,249 Gloucester City Council Summer floods 2007 33,470 Gloucestershire County Council Summer floods 2007 1,209,229 Gloucestershire Police Authority Summer floods 2007 191,318 Hereford and Worcester Fire And Rescue Authority Summer floods 2007 56,572 Herefordshire Council Summer floods 2007 408,526 Humberside Fire and Rescue Services Summer floods 2007 88,443 Kingston Upon Hull City Council Summer floods 2007 691,077 Lichfield District Council Summer floods 2007 21,293 Malvern Hills District Council Summer floods 2007 17,055 Newark And Sherwood District Council Summer floods 2007 31,398 North East Derbyshire District Council Summer floods 2007 25,322 North Lincolnshire Council Summer floods 2007 396,760 Oxford City Council Summer floods 2007 54,099 Rotherham Met Borough Council Summer floods 2007 701,482 Scarborough Borough Council Summer floods 2007 39,709 Sheffield City Council Summer floods 2007 1,393,290 Shropshire County Council Summer floods 2007 599,949 South Shropshire District Council Summer floods 2007 13,700 South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority Summer floods 2007 109,744 Stratford on Avon District Council Summer floods 2007 25,692 Stroud District Council Summer floods 2007 28,257 Tewkesbury Borough Council Summer floods 2007 15,642 Vale of White Horse District Council Summer floods 2007 23,261 Warwick District Council Summer floods 2007 33,890 West Berkshire Council Summer floods 2007 368,367 West Lindsey District Council Summer floods 2007 26,026 West Oxfordshire District Council Summer floods 2007 17,976 Worcester City Council Summer floods 2007 25,291 Wychavon District Council Summer floods 2007 23,841 Wyre Forest District Council Summer floods 2007 28,144 Great Yarmouth Borough Council Norfolk Storms November 2007 28,704 North Norfolk District Council Norfolk storms November 2007 27,484 Barnsley Met Borough Council January floods 2008 1n/a Newark and Sherwood District Council January floods 2008 1n/a North Lincolnshire Council January floods 2008 1n/a Oxford City Council January floods 2008 1n/a Vale of White Horse District Council January floods 2008 1n/a West Oxfordshire District Council January floods 2008 1n/a Castle Morpeth Borough Council September floods 2008 14,122 Herefordshire Council September floods 2008 432,525 Shropshire County Council September floods 2008 631,994 1 The threshold applies to annual spending and not to spending on each incident. So authorities who report more than one incident in the same financial year take spending on all reported incidents into account in calculating whether they have exceeded the threshold. In the table above, all the authorities affected by the January 2008 floods had already incurred the annual threshold as part of their claims for the 2007 summer floods which was in the same financial year, so it was not applied for this subsequent scheme.