Examination of witnesses (Questions 420
- 439)
WEDNESDAY 1 JULY 1998
MR JOHN
BALLARD, MR
CHRIS BREARLEY
and MR DAVID
ROWLANDS
420. And local authorities, the various
grants and the budgets, will be able to have additional credit
approval, it is possible for them to vire it into other Departments;
do you monitor that, and what is the consequence to an authority
that does not use that money on transport-related issues?
(Mr Ballard) All Departments that benefit or contribute,
whichever way you put it, to the Revenue Support Grant system
and the associated funding of local authorities, do, obviously,
monitor what actually local authorities spend the money on, at
the end of the day, and it is always a trade-off, as you will
know from your own experience, between wanting to ensure that
money is spent in conformity with the expected allocation, while
on the other hand, respecting local authorities' redetermination
at the margin of priorities in their local circumstances. So it
is always a balance.
421. So if something appears on a regular
basis but never happens?
(Mr Ballard) I think one would be asking questions
as to why that was so, and certainly one would pursue it with
the individual authority.
Chairman
422. Can I ask you, before we leave roads,
a question on principle. If the Government wants to cut down road
traffic, as it says it does, wants to reduce road traffic growth,
then why is it going to build more new roads, because we know
when you build a new road you get more increase in your traffic?
(Mr Ballard) I think, if you will forgive me,
the answer I would give you to that is that you really ought to
await the White Paper, which will explain all.
423. Oh dear, Mr Ballard. If we use the
existing networks more efficiently, would that obviate the need
to have major new additions?
(Mr Ballard) Certainly, that is something that
is being examined very carefully. Certainly, Ministers attach
a lot of importance to getting the best out of the existing infrastructure,
making the existing infrastructure as effective as possible.
Chairman: Now then,
Mr Forsythe, why do you not have a go and see if you can get any
answers on rural transport.
Mr Forsythe
424. Yes, can I ask you about rural public
transport. How does the additional funding for the rural bus services
and the community-based transport schemes, which were announced
in the March 1998 Budget, compare with the existing levels of
the expenditure on that sector?
(Mr Brearley) They are a very significant addition
to the current levels of spending on rural bus services, about
a doubling.
425. You mean, they are higher; is that
what you mean, they are higher?
(Mr Brearley) Yes.
426. How much higher?
(Mr Ballard) Twice as high.
Mr Bennett: Twice
nothing.
Mr Forsythe
427. How will the effect of the additional
spending be assessed, to ensure that it benefits the rural communities
cost-effectively?
(Mr Brearley) The bulk of the money, the £50
million is a complete national figure, the English share is, in
fact, about £42 million, and the bulk of that, £32 million,
or so, there is an Order before Parliament at the moment to distribute
to authorities, roughly speaking, under a formula of rurality.
And what authorities are being asked to do is to spend that money
on either additional bus services or new enhancements of existing
services in rural areas, and they are being asked to get genuine
improvements in service through the use of the money, and what
they do with it will be audited, that is the bulk of the money,
as I say. There are then two smaller schemes, roughly speaking,
in England, £4-5 million each, one of which will be a rural
bus challenge scheme, I suppose.
Chairman
428. What, to challenge anybody to put a
bus in rural areas?
(Mr Brearley) No. It will be for local authorities
to put forward proposals for innovative rural bus services, of
one kind or another, so jointly-run facilities, or dial-up, all
sorts of things, and, in fact, it will be possible to spend on
capital as well as current, so waiting facilities, or interchange,
call-up, timetable displays, things of this sort. Finally, there
is a further £4 million for community-based transport schemes,
which, again, will be developed in detail a little later in the
year, and which is really centred around volunteer-operated transport
arrangements in rural areas, initiatives of that kind, much more
locally-based, and in many cases brought forward by parish councils,
very probably.
Mr Forsythe
429. What action will be taken then to ensure
that the additional money is used to provide a lasting benefit
and that the services are not withdrawn after the three years
are up; what action will you take, if it is not done?
(Mr Brearley) Clearly, that is the intention,
that things should go on, and the commitment was, of course, only
to the time horizon of present budgeting, as it were, and one
cannot be certain what is going to happen beyond it, but one's
expectation would be that this will get incorporated in the base
as time goes on. This is all against a context where, as I say,
this is a very large increase in what is actually spent on supporting
rural bus services directly by bus subsidy, in the overall context
of, in England, the role of fuel duty rebate, of concessionary
fares, the support that that gives to bus companies, and including
urban bus subsidy grants, as well. Those three things in total
do come to about £1 billion, to put things in perspective.
430. Yes, but what action will be taken
if that does not happen; what action will be taken if the work
that has been done or the money that has been given is not used
properly and it is not used for a long-lasting scheme?
(Mr Brearley) I suppose it is possible that some
of the schemes will, so to speak, simply not be good enough, or
they will fail for lack of support, or prove to have been the
wrong sort of scheme, whatever, in which case the money will hopefully
be available for further and different schemes of the same sort,
but schemes which are a success, one would hope, there will go
on being support available, so far as it is needed.
Mr Pickles
431. Mr Brearley, I would be most interested
if you could just say something about this formula of rurality;
what is it, do you get so many points for the number of hens you
have got, or, if you listen to The Archers, six points?
(Mr Brearley) Sadly, no.
432. What is it, just tell me all about
this?
(Mr Brearley) The criterion that has been used,
and, as I say, the grant is in front of Parliament at the moment,
it is a distribution to local authorities on the basis of their
population living outside settlements of 3,000 people or more,
as shown by the 1991 Census, so it is to do with the proportion
of their population they have got living in small settlements.
433. And this £4 million for the rural
parishes, for transport, what kind of a scheme is envisaged, what
would be a typical scheme, under this?
(Mr Brearley) There is, I understand, a very wide
range, but it might be a vehicle of a suitable kind being made
available which would be driven by volunteers, or by a network
of volunteers, something of that kind, might be quite a good example.
434. Yes, £4 million, it is what it
cost to get your computers to speak to one another, so we are
not talking about something that is going to actually revolutionise
rural life as we know it, there is not likely to be a sub-plot
in The Archers to say they have got their little rural bus?
(Mr Brearley) They might well, I should think,
but, I agree with you, £4 million is £4 million.
Mr Bennett
435. Can I just ask, how does the rurality
factor compare with the sparsity factor that is involved in the
Standard Spending Assessment?
(Mr Brearley) I am not sure whether it is the
same. It is certainly the case that, in devising this approach,
there was a lot of discussion with those who manage the SSA formulae
about what the best sort of approach was to capture the element
which Ministers wished the scheme to capture, which is, indeed,
about rurality.
Mr Pickles
436. So it will be a sliding scale, will
it, the scarcer it is the more they are likely to get?
(Mr Brearley) The more population they have got
in rural areas, so defined.
Mr Stringer
437. How many people do manage to calculate,
fiddle, the SSA, RSG, settlements for local government?
(Mr Brearley) This goes rather outside my field.
438. We are talking about part of it, so
I just wondered, the total calculation, how much it costs in terms
of personnel?
(Mr Brearley) The SSA calculations?
Chairman: I think
we should ask Mr Ballard that.
Mr Bennett
439. There is only one person who understands
it in the whole country, so it will not be all that expensive?
(Mr Brearley) I used to run this area, actually.
(Mr Ballard) There is no difficulty in telling
you how many people are engaged in running the local government
finance system, and within that how many people are calculating
the SSA.
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