Vol. 464 No. 8
42 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for the Environment the amount by which the rate support grant will need to be increased if local authority funding is diminished by the current amount raised by local authorities in water and other service charges; and if he is considering the creation of a local authority fund. [8997/96]
The existing system of local authority funding is based on a range of Exchequer grants, one of which is the rate support grant, combined with a variety of local income sources, including domestic service charges. Local authority receipts from domestic service charges in 1994, the last year for which such information is available, amounted to £46.6 million. This represents approximately 24 per cent of the 1996 rate support grant allocation.
No fundamental change in the existing system of funding local authorities is envisaged pending the outcome of the professional study on local government financing which is currently under way.
