Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if his Department will provide support to help local authorities achieve sufficient efficiency savings to enable them to freeze council tax in 2015-16.

In September 2014 my Department awarded £8.6 million to 32 authorities through the Transformation Challenge Award. In November 2014, a further £89.4 million was awarded to 73 authorities to deliver large scale transformation projects. These awards are projected to help authorities make financial savings of £1 billion over the next 10 years. Also in November 2014 the Department awarded £16 million to help local authorities tackle non-benefit fraud which includes council tax fraud.

My hon. Friend will have seen the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement on 18 December where we committed to providing additional funding equivalent to a 1% council tax increase, to help councils freeze. This is the fifth successive year of freeze funding provided by the Government. This brings the total package to £5 billion.