Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans he has in place to tackle unfair service charges in the leasehold property sector.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
We believe very strongly that service charges should be transparent, communicated effectively and that there should be a clear route to challenge or redress if things go wrong. That is why on 1 April, we published the response to our recent call for evidence on ‘Protecting consumers in the letting and managing agent market’. Here proposals include establishing a working group to consider how fees such as service charges should be presented to consumers and to explore the best means to challenge fees which are unjustified. As part of this work, consideration will also be given to standards around service charges and how to include them in a statutory code of practice.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 01 May 2018 to Question 138441, on Local Government Finance, what the timetable is for the review into the relative needs and resources of local authorities in England to be completed.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
The Government is conducting a review of relative needs and resources which will establish new baseline funding levels for local authorities in England. We are working towards implementation in 2020/21, while keeping this date under review as our work progresses. This offers the best opportunity to achieve a thorough, evidence-based review, developed in collaboration with local government.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 1 May 2018 to Question 138440, on Local Government Finance, what processes his Department has in place to provide assurance on the sustainability of individual local authorities.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
We have processes in place to provide assurance around the sustainability of individual local authorities as set out in the Accounting Officer system statement: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dclg-accounting-officer-system-statement
Assurance advice is provided to the Accounting Officer every 6 months that sets out how the accountability framework is performing. This advice is informed by an on going programme of work, to assess sustainability risks, both at a sector and individual authority level.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 1 May 2018 to Question 138439 on local government finance, and with reference to Questions 245 to 259 of the evidence given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Treasury Committee on 25 April 2015, how his Department defines the term at risk with reference to local authority funding.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
We consider a wide range of information around individual local authorities in order to form judgements about the scale of challenge they may face.
Local authorities that we judge in the near future that may not be able to continue to deliver a consistent quality of service across a range of priorities due to financial pressures or any other reason are considered to be at risk.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 01 May 2018 to Question 138441, on Local Government Finance, what drivers of local authorities’ costs have been identified by his Department and local government representatives.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
The Government is conducting a review of the relative needs and resources of local authorities in England, with a view to setting fresh baseline funding levels in 2020-21. We are working closely with local government representatives to consider the contributory factors of local authorities’ costs, the relative resources available to them to fund local services, and how we should account for these in a way that draws a more transparent and understandable link between local circumstances and resource allocations.
In December 2017 we published a consultation on relative needs which proposed cost contributory factors that could potentially be included in a future funding formula. The consultation was an important opportunity for all local authorities to tell us about the factors which contribute to costs for the services they deliver on a day to day basis and there was broad agreement from many respondents around the cost contributory factors identified. Many of the responses received also suggested additional cost contributory factors which will now be subject to further consideration as we progress this review. The Government’s aim is to publish a formal response to the consultation later this year.
The December 2017 consultation is available online: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/fair-funding-review-a-review-of-relative-needs-and-resources
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the oral evidence given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Treasury Committee on 25 April 2018, on the work of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will break down the £23 billion in reserves held by local authorities and identify the proportion of those reserves that are unearmarked or not ring-fenced.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
Of the £23.1 billion in revenue reserves held by English local authorities as of 31 March 2017, non-ringfenced reserves make up £21.0 billion and have increased by 47 per cent since 31 March 2011.
Of this, unallocated reserves amount to around £4.2 billion. It is for individual local authorities to decide on the level of unearmaked reserves that they should hold, based on their known financial commitments and risk appetite.
Reserves data is published in Table 7 as part of MHCLG’s Local Authority Revenue Expenditure and Financing:2016-17 Final Outturn, England data publication.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to Questions 245 to 259 of his evidence to the Treasury Committee on 25 April 2018 on The Work of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what drivers of cost he has identified among local authorities in England.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
The Government is conducting a review of the relative needs and resources of local authorities in England, with a view to setting fresh baseline funding levels in 2020-21. In line with the principles that were set out in the consultation paper published in December 2017, we are committed to implementing an approach that is as simple and transparent as possible, while recognising this should not be at the expense of accuracy and fairness.
We are working closely with local government representatives to consider the drivers of local authorities’ costs, the relative resources available to them to fund local services, and how we should account for these in a way that draws a more transparent and understandable link between local circumstances and resource allocations.
The December 2017 consultation was an important opportunity for all local authorities to tell us about the factors which drive costs for the services they deliver on a day to day basis. We received over 300 responses to the consultation, which are now being carefully considered as we progress this review.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to Questions 245 to 259 of his evidence to the Treasury Committee on 25 April 2018 on local authorities, how he defines the term at risk to categorise that level of financial sustainability of local authorities in England; what terms other than at risk he uses to categorise the levels of financial sustainability of local authorities in England; and how many local authorities in England have been defined as (a) at risk and (b) any other level he uses to categorise levels of financial sustainability.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
MHCLG has processes in place to provide assurance about the sustainability of individual local authorities. We consider a range of information about individual authorities in order to form judgements about the potential challenges they may face.
While important, finance is often not the determining factor in an authority’s ability to deliver effective services, as noted for example in Max Caller’s independent inspection of Northamptonshire. The assessment made at a sector and individual level is nuanced, and therefore MHCLG does not place authorities into fixed categories.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the (a) short-term and (b) long-term financial sustainability of local authorities' provision of public services.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
MHCLG has processes in place to provide assurance about the sustainability of individual local authorities. We consider a range of information about individual authorities in order to form judgements about the potential challenges they may face.
As part of the 2018 local government finance settlement, this Government has also shown its commitment to supporting services by giving local authorities:
the ability to increase their core Council Tax requirement by an additional one per cent without a local referendum; and
a further £150 million at final settlement for Adult Social Care in 2018-19 to support local care markets.
In addition, the Government will undertake the next Spending Review in early 2019, so that budgets can be set out in advance for 2020 onwards.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to Questions 245 to 259 of his evidence to the Treasury Committee on 25 April 2018 on local authority funding, whether he has conducted a risk assessment of the (a) short-term and (b) long-term financial ability of local authorities to meet the need for local services.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
MHCLG has processes in place to provide assurance about the sustainability of individual local authorities. We consider a range of information about individual authorities in order to form judgements about the potential challenges they may face.
As part of the 2018 local government finance settlement, this Government has also shown its commitment to supporting services by giving local authorities:
the ability to increase their core Council Tax requirement by an additional one per cent without a local referendum; and
a further £150 million at final settlement for Adult Social Care in 2018-19 to support local care markets.
In addition, the Government will undertake the next Spending Review in early 2019, so that budgets can be set out in advance for 2020 onwards.