Local Government: Climate Change

(asked on 17th February 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to take steps to ringfence funding for local authorities to help manage climate-related incidents in summer 2023.


Answered by
Trudy Harrison Portrait
Trudy Harrison
This question was answered on 28th February 2023

The Local Government Finance Settlement for 2023/24 makes available up to £59.7 billion for local government in England, an increase in Core Spending Power of up to £5.1 billion or 9.4% in cash terms on 2022/23.

The majority of the funding is un-ringfenced in recognition of local authorities being best placed to understand local priorities.

To assess the amount of funding required for local government ahead of fiscal events, we estimate the additional resource required to fund the expenditure needs of local authorities. Government uses a range of forecasts and indices to estimate demographic and unit cost pressures facing local government. We ensure the assumptions underlying our modelling are robust by holding in-depth financial conversations with local authorities and regular conversations with treasurer societies.

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