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.

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