Local Government Finance
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to paragraph 4.2.2 of the English Devolution White Paper, published on 16 December 2024, what formula her Department will use to distribute funding to strategic authorities.
Answered by Jim McMahon
Paragraph 4.2.2 relates to the recovery grant and wider plans to reform funding to local authorities, not Strategic Authorities.
Strategic Authorities receive their funding from a variety of sources and different government departments, reflecting their different responsibilities. Allocation methodologies for these funds vary depending on the aims of the funding.
To enable greater flexibility and local control, the most mature Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities (MCAs) are eligible to receive much of their devolved funding through a single Integrated Settlement. The integrated settlements represent a change to the process in which funding from central government is allocated to MCAs, rather than a change to the quantum that the MCAs receive.
The formulae are applied to relevant departmental budgets to provide Authorities with a share of funds in scope and seek to deliver the principle that MCAs are not worse off than had the Integrated Settlements not been in place.
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