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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the answer of 8 September 2026, to Question 20159, on Council tax: City of Westminster and Wandsworth, and of 9 September 2026, to Question 20138, on council tax, what is the mathematical formula for the resource adjustment, in relation to the change in council funding as a consequence of a local authority’s Band D rate, excluding police, mayoral and parish precepts, being set below the national notional council tax.

The amount of grant a council receives is unaffected by the level of tax it charges. Instead, the government's approach via the resources adjustment better takes into account of the council tax raising ability of each authority, not the level of council tax set by each council, through the use of a measure of the council tax base. To account for differing council tax raising ability, we multiply each council’s tax base (the number and band of properties) by a notional level of council tax. The technical annex on the resources adjustment published at the final Local Government Finance Settlement 2026-27 sets out how the band D equivalent council tax base is calculated which can be found, here.

More detail on Fair Funding Allocations can be found here.

A council’s actual Band D level in 2025-2026 was the basis for calculating their Core Spending Power for 2026-27 to 2028-29, with the response to UIN 20159 setting out the methodology for the each of the six councils. The actual level of council tax remains a local decision for individual councils, taking into consideration a range of local factors including the impact on taxpayers.