Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what estimate his Department has made of the cost to local authorities of tackling backlogs in locally-delivered services.
Local authorities, who know their areas’ needs best, are best placed to determine how to deliver services locally.
Councils have been essential to the national response to COVID-19. Since the start of the pandemic, we have committed over £13 billion to local authorities to tackle the impact of COVID-19 on their services, over £6 billion of which is un-ringfenced in recognition that they are best placed to decide how to meet the major COVID-19 pressures in their local areas, as well as providing compensation for lost income.
The provisional Local Government Finance Settlement, published on 17th December 2021, makes available an additional £3.5 billion to councils, including funding for adult social care reform. This is an increase in local authority funding for 2022-23 of over 4% in real terms, which will ensure councils across the country have the resources they need to deliver key services. In total, we expect Core Spending Power to rise from £50.4 billion in 2021-22 to up to £53.9 billion in 2022-23.