Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to ensure the appropriate use of funds allocated to local authorities for the covid-19 response.

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.