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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of increasing the weight of transport accessibility in allocating regional funding by including metrics such as (a) transport cost as a percentage of household income, (b) public-service frequency, (c) waiting time for buses, and (d) reliability and (e) time taken to travel to capture transport poverty’s multiplier effects.

The majority of funding in the Local Government Finance Settlement is distributed through the Settlement Funding Assessment. This funding includes Revenue Support Grant and retained business rates.

The Settlement Funding Assessment uses a range of formulas to determine the relative funding need of areas, which when combined with a measure of tax base, determines their relative income. Further details on the current funding methodology can be found online, within the ‘Calculation of 2013/14 Formula Funding’ page, linked here.

The government recently published the Fair Funding Review 2.0 consultation, which outlines proposals to update the distribution of funding within the Local Government Finance Settlement for the first time since 2013 – ensuring our approach uses the best available data and evidence. Our proposals include taking account of journey times when calculating the relative differences in cost local authorities face when delivering services to inform funding allocations.

We will publish further information in the government’s consultation response in the Autumn, followed by the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement later this year.

The Department for Transport leads on all other wider public transport funding for local authorities.