05 April 2002
Fears are mounting that the government's 'tight timetable' to draw up the replacement for the Standard Spending Assessment will curtail discussion.
Neil Kingham, director of the economic and environmental division at the Local Government Association, and Stephen Fitzgerald, director of local government finance at the Association of London Government, have launched a joint offensive on the issue.
Both have written to Mark Lambirth, outgoing director of local government finance at the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, to stress the need for thorough consultations.
Possible alternatives to the SSA have been considered by the formula review group, a steering committee operating under the aegis of the DTLR.
The government will feed the group's findings into its final proposals, to be published in a consultation document.
Officially the DTLR says this will be produced 'in the summer', but privately local government leaders have been told this could mean September. Kingham told Public Finance this would leave only a short period before the new system was introduced.
'An awful lot of work needs to be done,' he said. 'The reforms need to be decided by November so they can form the basis of the provisional finance settlement at the end of that month. It is essential that the department produces its proposals in July so there can be as much consultation as possible.'
Kingham stressed that local authorities wanted to see the replacement for the SSA in position for the start of the 2003/04 financial year, but were equally keen to ensure the new system was properly worked out.
The ALG's Fitzgerald said he wanted the technical review sub-group, which is considering the technical ramifications of possible SSA alternatives and is due to wind up this month, to continue meeting until the end of June.
He expressed concern that a failure to explore properly all the options before the DTLR reached its final position would mean restricting those in the running.
'What we don't want to happen is that ministers have such a narrow range of options presented to them that they have no real choice in terms of what they can go for,' he said.
A DTLR spokesman said: 'We will continue to work with local government to review the revenue grant distribution in order to create a fair and transparent system, and will be consulting on the new formula in due course.'
PFapr2002
