Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the funding formula is that was used for the 2016-17 allocation of Rural Services Delivery Grant.

The Rural Services Delivery Grant is distributed to the top quartile of authorities ranked by their super-sparsity, as calculated using data from the 2011 Census. The amount that each authority receives is dependent on their super-sparsity above the threshold value of 0.089302, their total resident population (calculated using information from the 2011 Census) and the types of services that the council delivers. Further information on the methodology can be found in Part K of the 2014-15 Local Government Finance Report.