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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the report entitled, Research into drivers of service costs in rural areas: national analysis of unit costs, published by LG Futures in December 2014, whether the conclusions of that report will be used as an evidence base in his Department's review of local government funding.

The Government is undertaking a review of the relative needs and resources of local authorities in England, with a view to setting fresh baseline funding levels in 2020-21. We are working closely with local government representatives and others to examine all of the available evidence for the costs faced by authorities; including how factors such as rurality, sparsity and other geographical features affect the cost of delivering services across the country, and how to account for these in a robust manner.

Our December 2018 consultation paper (link below) set out a proposed Area Cost Adjustment approach, which uses the best available evidence, based on journey times, to reflect the impact of congestion in urban areas, as well as longer travel distances in rural areas on the relative cost of providing services. The consultation closed on 21 February and we will consider the many representations made in response, which will feed into the next phase of this work.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/review-of-local-authorities-relative-needs-and-resources.