Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what changes he has made since allocating the first tranche of emergency covid-19 funding to local authorities that will determine how the second tranche of that funding is allocated.

Following the Government’s announcement on 18 March of an initial wave of £1.6 billion of funding to respond to COVID-19 impacts on local councils, we continued to keep funding pressures under review, using both data collection and ongoing conversations with councils to refine our assessment.

On 28 April, the Secretary of State announced allocations of an additional £1.6 billion to individual local authorities.

Whereas the first funding allocation was primarily allocated to local authorities through the Adult Social Care Relative Needs Formula, in recognition that the greatest immediate pressures would fall on local authorities with social care responsibilities, this second wave of funding was allocated on a per capita basis. This reflects our latest understanding of the distribution of additional covid-related pressures, which are likely to be distributed in a way that is different from pre-existing needs. The 65:35 spilt in this per capita allocation between counties and districts in two-tier shire areas provides more funding to district councils than the first wave of funding, whilst providing significant support to social care authorities.

It is important that these two waves of funding are seen together and that false comparisons between the two are avoided. Across both waves, almost 70 per cent of district councils will receive £1 million or more in support, whilst more than 90 per cent of the funding will go to social care authorities.