Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to HM Treasury's press release, Chancellor announces £4.5 billion of measures to bring down debt, published on 4 June 2015, what guidance his Department provides to local authorities on cost effectiveness of public health interventions to help them decide how to make in-year savings.

Public Health England advises local authorities on the evidence base for particular interventions, both in terms of the interventions’ impact on health outcomes and their cost effectiveness. It has published a range of knowledge and intelligence tools and is continuing to develop its health economics capability in order to strengthen the support it can offer to local government.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has also published extensive guidance on public health interventions, including tools that help the commissioners of those interventions to calculate the financial return on their investment.