The government is set to publish provisional allocations for local authority funding after 2020–21 in the middle of next year, it has announced.
The government made the pledge in its response to a select committee report published earlier this which said councils face difficulties with medium-term planning due to the uncertainty over funding in the next spending review period. The government usually publishes the provisional settlement in December each year.
The government said that it recognised that early notification would be “helpful to local authority planning and aims to publish indicative funding allocations in mid 2019 with final allocations being confirmed later that year, in time for the 2020–21 provisional local government finance settlement.”
Elsewhere in the response, the government said that it will consult on transitional arrangements for changes to the local government funding system following implementation of the Fair Funding Review.
“We recognise that introducing a new distribution methodology could result in changes to the funding baselines of some local authorities,” the report said.
“We therefore intend to introduce transitional arrangements that are fair, transparent and easily understood so that budgetary impacts can be accommodated.
“We anticipate that any transitional arrangements will then unwind over time.
“We intend to seek views on the potential approach to transitional arrangements in due course.”
