The Bishop of St Albans received the following written answer on 15th May 2024:
The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government:
- what assessment they have made of the adequacy of core funding for delivering rural services; and what plans they have to create equitable funding between rural and urban councils.
- what consideration they have given to extending the Rural Services Delivery Grant to all rural councils in future years.
- whether they plan to fully implement the changes to the Needs Assessment component of the funding formula made in 2013; and subsequently whether they will increase funding to rural councils to reflect inflation in the years since these changes were made.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con, DLUHC): The final Local Government Finance Settlement for 2024-25 makes available up to £64.7 billion, an increase in Core Spending Power of up to £4.5 billion or 7.5% in cash terms on 2023-24. This above-inflation increase demonstrates how the Government stands behind councils up and down the country. Furthermore, we recognise the importance and difficulties of councils serving dispersed populations. That is why we have increased the value of the Rural Services Delivery Grant by over 15%, from £95 million to £110 million in 2024-25. This is the highest increase since 2018-19, and the second successive year of above-inflation increases.
We last calculated the Settlement Funding Assessment in 2013/14. The Government is committed to reforming the local government funding landscape in the next Parliament to deliver simpler, fairer and longer settlements.
The Rural Services Delivery Grant is allocated to local authorities ranking in the top-quartile of sparsely populated areas in England, using the Government’s ‘Super Sparsity’ measure. The methodology is unchanged from 2023-24 and any funding decisions beyond the 2024-25 financial year are a matter for the next Spending Review.
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