Decisions on local authority funding and on social care funding beyond 2021-22 will be taken at the planned Spending Review later this year.

An estimate of the total payments from local authorities in England to voluntary bodies is made from the Subjective Analysis Return part of the annual Revenue Outturn returns. In order to minimise burden, this is collected once every three years and from a sample of local authorities. The latest estimate is for 2019-20 and can found at line 55 of Part B of the Annex A spreadsheet at: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing-england-2019-to-2020-final-outturn.

The Government allocated over £9 billion directly to councils in 2020-21 for COVID-19-related expenditure and income pressures and at the Spending Review the Chancellor announced that local authorities will receive over £3 billion of additional support for COVID-19 in 2021-22. This includes a further £1.55 billion of grant funding to meet additional service pressures which has now been paid to authorities. This takes the total support committed to councils in England to tackle the impacts of COVID-19 to over £12 billion. ​

We have now carried out 11 rounds of COVID-19 sector monitoring with the outcome of round 12 due to be published shortly. As at round 11, the estimated expenditure pressures in 2020-21 were £7.2 billion. Now the financial year has ended, we aim to publish more detailed monitoring data in due course.

We continue to keep the situation under review through our monthly financial monitoring returns and will respond to the impacts of COVID-19 appropriately as our understanding develops.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Dissolution.

The Government is committed to encouraging local solutions for local problems. This is particularly relevant in dealing with litter and fly-tipping problems, which require a local approach, tailored to the characteristics of the area and the community in which the problems occur. The role of central Government is to enable and support this local action: providing a clear legal framework of rights, responsibilities and powers, setting national standards and, where possible, making sure that the costs of dealing with litter issues are passed to those responsible for causing the problem.

We published the Litter Strategy for England in April 2017, setting out our aim to deliver a substantial reduction in litter and littering within a generation. The Litter Strategy brings together communities, businesses, charities and schools to bring about real change by focusing on three key themes: education and awareness; improving enforcement; and better cleaning and access to bins. A copy of the Litter Strategy can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/litter-strategy-for-england

Depending on local decisions, Core Spending Power in England may rise from £49 billion in 2020-21 to up to £51.3 billion in 2021-22, a 4.6% increase in cash terms. If councils do decide to take up the entirety of the increase on offer, they will see an increase in line with last years. This recognises the resources councils need to meet their pressures and maintain current service levels

The Settlement is unringfenced to ensure local areas can prioritise based on their own understanding of the needs of their local communities.

The Government has allocated over £8 billion directly to councils since the start of the pandemic. And at the Spending Review, the Chancellor announced that local authorities will receive over £3 billion of additional support for COVID-19 in 2021-22. This takes the total support committed to councils in England to tackle the impacts of COVID-19 to over £11 billion.

We recognise that local authorities are best placed to decide how to meet the major COVID-19 service pressures in their area, and we have provided an unprecedented level of un-ringfenced funding - with over £4.6 billion in un-ringfenced funding to councils across four tranches throughout the financial year. This funding may be used for public health communications campaigns.

Additionally, the Government has provided funding to support the ongoing public health and outbreak management costs of tackling coronavirus. This funding, worth over £225 million per month during the National Lockdown, will be provided until the end of March 2021, and can be used to fund local coronavirus response public health activities including public health communications.

From 1 April 2021, a further £400 million of funding will be allocated from the Contain Outbreak Management Fund, to be allocated to all local authorities in England. This is to cover further public health activities in 2021-22.

The £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund will invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, including regenerating town centres and high streets, upgrading local transport, and investing in cultural and heritage assets.

The Fund will be allocated competitively. The prospectus published at Budget provides guidance for local areas on how to submit bids for the first round of funding for projects starting in 2021-22. This includes information on the process for submitting bids, the types of projects eligible for funding, and how bids will be assessed. Further guidance and templates for bid submissions will be published shortly.

The 2021-22 Local Government Finance Settlement provided £1.7 billion in Social Care Grant, which will support local authorities to provide care to vulnerable children, children in care, looked after children, and children with disabilities. Councils are also free to use any un-ringfenced funding, including their annual core settlement allocation, to support local priorities, such as Children's Social Care

This Government is committed to putting funding where there is relative need. Both Social Care Grant and the core settlement are distributed through relative needs formulas, and these formulas take into account local levels of need and deprivation

We are also in the process of updating both the Adult and Children's needs formulas, and will work with councils on how best to use these new formulas in the future.

The Government has allocated over £11 billion directly to councils this year and next to tackle the impacts of COVID-19, the majority of which is unringfenced funding

Councils are primarily accountable to local residents for the delivery and quality of services, and are therefore responsible for their own governance, setting their own budgets and for prudent financial planning and management of their resources. MHCLG does not performance manage councils. They are instead subject to internal scrutiny arrangements and external audit.

We do, however, consider the financial stability and service delivery of individual authorities as part of our oversight of the functioning of the local government system. Our accountability system includes a range of checks and balances on local authorities that provides assurance that there is effective governance and that the funds they receive are spent properly.

There is no specific budget for the consultation, the resources for which are provided by the Department’s administration budget.

The Government has allocated over £8 billion directly to councils since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Chancellor also announced at the 2020 Spending Review that local authorities will receive over £3 billion of additional support in 2021-22. The latest data from our monthly financial monitoring exercise suggests that estimated additional expenditure over the course of the current financial year 2020-21 is £7.3 billon

As part of our support package, councils have access to a compensation scheme for lost income from sales, fees and charges, which has been extended to June 2021, through which the Government will support local councils with 75% of losses beyond the first 5%.

We will continue to closely monitor the situation and work with local government to ensure they are managing as the pandemic progresses and we have a collective understanding of the costs they are facing.

The Government has allocated over £8 billion directly to councils since the start of the pandemic. According to our monthly financial monitoring returns estimated expenditure pressures for the financial year are £7.3 billion. Furthermore, the Chancellor already took action at the Spending Review to provide local authorities with over £3 billion of additional support for COVID-19 in 2021-22, taking total COVID support to over £11 billion.

MHCLG Ministers and officials have regular engagement with counterparts in the Department for Health and Social Care, as well as with other government departments and with local authorities, on all matters relating to local authorities’ finances. We have worked closely with the Department for Health and Social Care on the Test and Trace Support Payment Scheme.

The constituency of Ashfield is benefitting from a range of Government investment. Kirby-in-Ashfield, Sutton-in-Ashfield and Eastwood are continuing to receive funding from the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership’s £257.5 million allocation of the Government’s Local Growth Fund. Sutton-in-Ashfield and Kirkby-in-Ashfield were both invited to develop proposals for up to £25 million each from the Towns Fund and we were delighted to receive a joint Town Investment Plan from the two towns recently.

Ashfield District Council has also been awarded an in-principle offer of over £6.2 million from the Future High Streets Fund to help implement transformative high street plans and bring a much needed boost for the people of Sutton-in-Ashfield.

Investments like this will be built upon by our new £4 billion Levelling Up Fund which will be open to all local areas and allocated competitively. We will prioritise bids to drive growth and regeneration for places in need, those facing particular local challenges, and areas that have potentially benefitted less from Government investment in previous years. We will publish a prospectus for the fund and launch early this year.

MHCLG works with other government departments to ensure local authorities are fully supported to deliver their vital role in the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, we have allocated over £8 billion so far to support local authorities during the pandemic. This includes £7.5 billion allocated directly to councils to address expenditure pressures, and over £500 million of payments from the first round of our sales, fees and charges compensation scheme. This does not include the £3 billion of additional financial support committed to councils for the COVID-19 response in 2021-22.

A full breakdown of the funding we have captured in this assessment is set out below:

Attached is a breakdown of this £8 billion of funding by region and by local authority. This reflects the department’s current best understanding and further payments will be made to local authorities this financial year in due course including: additional funding from further rounds of the sales, fees and charges scheme; and additional funding that will be provided through the Contain Outbreak Management Fund to tackle the spread of the virus – worth over £225 million a month during the national lockdown.

Also attached is a breakdown in relation to England’s ceremonial counties. For this, the following caveats apply:

• Ceremonial counties do not necessarily cover the same area as county councils. The area covered by a ceremonial county will include all local authorities within that historical definition of the county. It will include the county council and shire districts, as well as any additional single-tier councils within the area.

• A small number of standalone fire and rescue authorities cross ceremonial county borders. In these cases, funding is apportioned between the ceremonial counties covered by the fire authority according to population.

Half of all English councils have committed to reducing their direct emissions to zero by 2030, enormously supporting the ambition set by the Prime Minister. Local action can accelerate deployment of new technologies and drive significant cost efficiencies through strategic coordination, including vital new energy and transport infrastructure

As we continue to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic we need to ensure that our recovery plans support our climate change response. By building back greener and better, we can achieve our climate goals, protect our biodiversity and natural capital, and sustain climate-resilient economic development, all in a fair and inclusive way

Councils are uniquely positioned to align local needs, opportunities and resources to deliver strategic interventions at all scales. We will continue to work with councils to enable them to build back greener and better locally, through an effective planning framework and devolution

A significant amount of support has been made available for councils to act on climate change, from heat networks to cycle paths to flood defences. To give a few examples:

• The £1 billion Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme and Skills Fund is part of the Chancellor’s ‘Plan for Jobs 2020’ commitment to support the UK’s economic recovery from Covid-19, supporting up to 30,000 skilled jobs in the low carbon and energy efficiency sectors: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-sector-decarbonisation-scheme-psds
• The Green Homes Grant includes £500 million for local authorities to improve the energy efficiency of low-income households. This will help reduce fuel poverty and support the installation of low carbon heating: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/green-homes-grant-local-authority-delivery-scheme-entering-a-bid
• The £250 million emergency active travel fund is designed to help local authorities create an environment that is safe for both walking and cycling in their regions.  The money will help create pop-up bike lanes, wider pavements, safer junctions, and cycle and bus-only corridors. We want to support all communities across England who want to change the way they use their streets and new guidance has already been published to tell councils how they can give more road space to cyclists and pedestrians: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/2-billion-package-to-create-new-era-for-cycling-and-walking

Finally, MHCLG is supporting clean growth initiatives through existing funding pots, including the Towns Fund and Local Growth Fund, and local institutions are using strategic plans to support the UK’s net zero by 2050 commitment. My officials are working with other Departments including BEIS and DEFRA to ensure that green recovery and clean growth form a key part of our emerging local economic recovery planning.

The Chancellor has announced a review of business rates. The Government is currently considering responses to the review’s call for evidence and has committed to publish a response in Spring 2021. Businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors have benefitted from rates reliefs worth approximately £10 billion in the current financial year.

For 2020-21, we have now committed over £7.2 billion for local authorities to fund their response to the Covid-19 pandemic, even before the extension of the Contain Outbreak Management Fund for those authorities under the highest level of restriction – potentially worth over £200 million a month – which was announced as part of the Covid-19 Winter Plan. This is part of an unprecedented package of support for local authorities to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, including measures worth an estimated c. £3 billion of additional support next year. This takes the total support committed to councils in England to tackle the impacts of Covid-19 to over £10 billion.

Councils in the Arundel and and South Downs constituency have been allocated over £96 million in funding from Government, including over £53 million in unringfenced funding, and over £13 million from the Contain Outbreak Management Fund.

Looking ahead to next year, Spending Review 2020 provides councils with the funding and stability to support vital social care services and tackle Covid-19. Local authorities will be able to access an additional £2.2 billion in resources to support Adult and Children’s Social Care and maintain universal services. In addition, we are providing over £1.5 billion in unringfenced grant for ongoing Covid-19 pressures and extending support to offset the income losses councils are experiencing.

Provisional allocations for the annual local government finance settlement for local authorities in Sussex will be announced shortly.

Government has invited unitarisation proposals from Cumbria, Somerset and North Yorkshire; councils in these areas have been developing ideas about restructuring local government in their areas for some time, and had requested such invitations. It is right that they should now have the opportunity to make proposals for new unitary councils. If Parliament approves the implementation of any such proposal, it is likely that the new unitary councils would be established from 1 April 2023, and hence most of the implementation work councils will be undertaking will be in 2022/23.

Any reform of an area’s local government is most effectively achieved through locally led proposals, put forward by those who best know the area and who are best placed to assess the benefits, including savings as well as resource and implementation requirements.

MHCLG has provided unringfenced funding for local government to support their response to the COVID-19 pandemic using the powers provided by section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003.