Review of local authorities’ relative needs and resources

This consultation seeks views on the approach to measuring the relative needs and resources of local authorities, which will determine new baseline funding allocations for local authorities in England in 2020-21.

This consultation:

• proposes to simplify the assessment of local authorities’ relative needs
• considers the type of adjustment that will be made to an authority’s relative needs assessment to take account of the relative resources available to them to fund local services
• proposes a set of principles that will be used to design potential transitional arrangements and examines how the baseline for the purposes of transition should be established.

The introductory presentation is to be read alongside this consultation and the technical paper maps local authority spending lines onto our proposed relative needs assessment outlined in the consultation.

The responses we received on the December 2017 consultation on relative needs have been carefully considered in taking forward the work of the review and in preparing this consultation paper.