By Lucy Phillips
10 December 2010
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has defended his decision to ring-fence council public health budgets, denying that the move is at odds with a wider government drive to remove local finance restrictions.
Speaking to Public Finance, Lansley claimed the Department of Health had ‘entirely embraced’ the removal of local government ring-fences. He cited the decision in the Comprehensive Spending Review to roll a £2.4bn grant for social care into the general formula grant.
But he said it had been agreed
‘across government from the outset’ that public health budgets, to be handed
over to local government from the NHS from 2013, would be ring-fenced.
This was because it was a new pot purely ‘for the purpose of securing health improvement’, not because Whitehall did not trust councils to spend the money on its desired cause.
He added that the ring-fence
would operate differently from previous ones.
‘What we’re doing with public health is saying there is a ring-fence for health improvement but actually the range of what can be comprised within your health improvement strategy is in itself very wide,’ he said.
‘All that local government has to do is demonstrate that they are achieving the objectives of improving health and health inequality. They have very considerable flexibility in how they can apply it.’
The Local Government Association has condemned the decision, saying funding decisions should be made locally. Senior policy consultant Alyson Morley told PF she hoped the ring-fence would turn out to be ‘as loose and light as possible’.
She added that it should not stop the public health improvement taking place.
