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

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to ensure full transparency of local authority funding allocations so that councils can see why their funding allocations are what they are, as they seek to set new funding baselines as part of the local authority Fair Funding Review.

The Government is conducting a review of the relative needs and resources of local authorities in England, with a view to setting fresh baseline funding levels in 2020-21. In line with the principles set out in the consultation paper published in December 2017, we are committed to implementing an approach that is as simple and transparent as possible, while recognising this should not be at the expense of accuracy and fairness. We are working closely with local government representatives to consider the factors which drive local authorities’ spending and the resources available to them to fund local services, and how we should account for these in a way that draws a more transparent and understandable link between local circumstances and resource allocations.