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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that (a) charities and (b) community interest companies that have contracts with local authorities have an adequate level of unrestricted funding to continue to fulfill their core functions.

Local authorities have been outsourcing and using shared service arrangements for many decades. Almost all councils have some service areas provided externally, with varying contract management arrangements.

Local authorities are accountable to local people, and it is for them to determine how best to deliver effective services for their communities. Decisions over tendering and contracts are for councils to make, following their own due diligence process.

Next year’s settlement for local government responds to the pressures councils are facing by providing access to the largest increase Core Spending Power since 2015, an estimated 4.3 per cent real terms increase of £2.9 billion.