EDUCATION FUNDING

at end add 'that the same applies to police, fire, social services and other obligations laid on local authorities by central government: further believes that the case for requiring local authorities to raise their own expenditure is now outdated; recommends that local authority expenditure be wholly funded by central government, thus eradicating the costs of raising money and so making all funding to local authorities available for spending; believes that creating an acceptable formula for funding local government would be no more complex than the Rate Support Grant formula of yesteryear or the Standard Spending Assessment currently on the Statute Book; feels that providing a fixed annual sum of money for each local authority would increase accountability by transparently relating local authority expenditure to their known income, thus enabling them to justify to their electorates how they spend a fixed annual sum; and invites the Secretary of State for the Environment earnestly to seek political consensus for this scheme, with the proviso that local authorities be granted powers locally to raise an additional rate, if they so wish and subject to electoral approval, up to an agreed percentage of the allocated sum as described above.'.