People may find the following links useful if they receive funding from a LA. They give the cash amounts and calculation used to determine the amount of central government money going to the LA. One of the most useful statistics is that £1,099.50 is added to the social services formula for each person classed as "elderly on Attendance Allowance or DLA" as a "deprivation top-up."

Thanks to Clive Davis at Newcastle WRS for finding these upto date links (but only after I pointed him in the right direction!)

http://www.local.dtlr.gov.uk/finance/0506/lgfrs/chapter4.pdf

http://www.local.dtlr.gov.uk/finance/0506/lgfrs/index.htm

The figures you mention refer to the settlement for 2005/06. This is no longer the case for 2006/07. The new calculation can be found at the link below and as you will see it is no longer a cash amount.

http://www.local.odpm.gov.uk/finance/0607/lgfr067/chapter4.pdf

Thanks Toni. At a time when LAs are making cuts to Welfare Rights its all we need to find out that one of our arguments has become less clearcut!

thanks very much for this latest info. Given it's not cash, are you able to put any sort of financial figure/gain that L.A's receive due to the numbers of AA, DLA, Pension Credit or IS/JSA paid?

I contacted the ODPM for clarification but was advised there is no cash equivalent. Whether your authority will gain from take-up activity will depend on how much funding your authority receives. An authority on the 'floor' in terms of RSG settlement is unlikely to receive any gains in the short/medium term. Sorry this is not much help!

It is posible to work out the impact of AA - DLA claims on the FSS formula - would sugggest you speak to finance section

You'll have to go slow with me on this - (1) what is RSG? (2) is it the case now that local authority funding from central government is not boosting by benefit/tax credit take-up being undertaken in local areas? (3) if I am wrong on this, are there cases when la funding can be increased as the result of benefit/tc take-up?

All help greatly appreciated.

Paul

I think the RSG is the revenue support grant.

Ta, anyone got any ideas re: the other 2 Qs?

I'm trying to track someone down in our county council's finance department that knows what I'm on about and hopefully will be able to answer later!

Ok thanks Keith.

It's bad news as far as using this kind of info to justify ourselves goes. As I now understand, the calculations we have previously used to calculate income for the LA based on Standard Spending Assessment and Formula Spending Share were flawed. This is because those amounts, ie the approx £1,000 for every older person on AA were figures to be used in a formula rather than the actual cash amount received. That figure and all the others determined by various other things gave rise to a total figure, but this wasn't the cash figure. The figures from all LAs were used to proportion the total grant from central govt and it was this proportion of the total that arrived in cash. This means in the past we've unintenionally overstated the amount of income we have produced for the council. I suspect we are not alone in doing this!

The new formula is deliberately designed to avoid people making the kind if links we have erroneously done in the past and also to confirm that the RSG can be spent how the LA sees fit and doesn't have to be divvied up along the lines of the FSS calculation. The situation is then made more complicated by the introduction of a floor level. This means that the govt sets a percentage increase that all LAs will get as a minimum. They then look at what percentage increases are calculated and would increase the amount given if lower than the floor. To pay for this, the LAs with above floor level caculated increase will have a clawback, effectively reducing their increase to pay for the increase in the increase for others.

What this means is your LA could increase benefit takeup, but if every other LA increased by the same amount there would be no extra cash because the proportions remain the same. The analogy given to me was the amount of roads in miles. The formula allows a figure per mile of road. Build more roads and this figure increases but if the other LAs build even more roads you could get less grant than beforehand. I realise the above is a gross simplification of an extremely complex calculation process but I hope you get the idea.

To answer Paul:

Q2 - maybe, but you cannot measure it if it does
Q3 - We now need to look elsewhere for other ways of calculating our worth...

Crikey Keith, you have been busy!

Thank you so much for this information, it's in relation to a briefing i'm putting together around the benefits of funding advice services for the Association of London Government, who represent all the local authorities in London - therefore, I want to be sure that any claims I make are robust - looks like it is back to the drawing board on this aspect.

One thing that does strike me tho, is that one could make an argument that altho you cannot make definite claims that benefit take-up increase the LAs share under RSG/FSS, if a LA does not undertake benefit take-up, it is likely to be losing out when these figures are calculated in comparison to LAs who are doing such work. Would I be correct in that do you think?

Eg, with your roads analogy, if you build more roads, your figure per mile of road increases, yet if other LAs build even more roads, you could get less, therefore it is in your interest to build as many roads as possible, to ensure potential parity with others, and to avoid this situation occuring.

It obviously isn't as strong a message as "benefits take-up will increase your share under FSS/RSG", but I would hazard that there is still a message along the lines of "benefits take-up will protect/avoid losing your share of the FSS/RSG". If you think I've got this arse about face, by all means tell me.

Many many thanks again for your time on this issue.

Don't worry - it would appear your face and arse are in the correct places!

You certainly can make the argument but as the formula covers everything bar education (whose funding will now arrive as a dedicated education grant)it's difficult to see how big a blip either doing or not doing take-up will make as far as the RSG goes.

For those with a connection to social services non-residential charging work there is an opportunity to show an increase in income to the LA from home care charges paid out of increased benefits.

Looks like we're going to have to rely on using the local multiplier on financial gains to show a boost to the local economy. There's a report somewhere that also converts benefit gains into jobs created which may also be useful but this may not provide 'hard' enough figures to keep Directors of Finance happy enough to keep funding a non statutory service.

Anyone else know of any other angles we can exploit?

Some of the issues we are trying to demonstrate relate to the positive benefits for health (see rightsnet policy resources area for various research reports that make findings to this effect);

also, as a result of this, the reduction in demand for health and other related public services (more tenuous but there is some evidence of the effects of poverty/social exclusion),

the potential for more effective community engagement as the result of higher incomes (again difficult to demonstrate but there have been campaigns highlighting the difficulty of people engaging in regeneration initiatives due to benefit problems altho more related to payments/disregards/etc),

also, the obvious benefits re: LAs being both collectors of rent and CT as well as payment agents for HB/CTB, therefore in their own interests to maximise uptake of these for their own revenues.

Anymore for anymore?