PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Local Government Finance: Coronavirus (18 May 2020)

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of whether the per capita methodology that is used to allocate emergency funding to local authorities accurately reflects the costs incurred by local authorities in responding to the covid-19 outbreak.

Asked by:
Karin Smyth (Labour)

MHCLG continues to work closely with local authorities to manage the impacts of Covid-19 on our society.

The Government has made £3.2 billion available to councils in England through unringfenced grant so they can address pressures they are facing in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The first wave of £1.6 billion of funding, announced on 19 March, was primarily allocated through the Adult Social Care Relative Needs Formula, in recognition that the greatest immediate pressures would fall on local authorities with social care responsibilities. The second wave of £1.6 billion of funding, the allocations for which were announced on 28 April, 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.

It is important that these two waves of funding are seen together and that false comparisons between the two are avoided. Across both waves, more than 90 per cent of the funding will go to social care authorities.

Answered by:
Sir Simon Clarke (Conservative)
26 May 2020