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Revenue Support Grant

Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what account her Department takes of levels of (a) elderly and (b) transient populations of seaside towns when deciding upon the formula for the revenue support grant. [238295]

John Healey: Formula Grant is made up from Revenue Support Grant, redistributed Business Rates and principal formula Police Grant and distributed to local authorities in England. The distribution of Formula Grant takes into account the relative need to provide services in an area and the relative ability of an area to raise council tax locally, relative to all other authorities providing the same service. It also contains a central allocation and a floor damping mechanism.

There are relative needs formulae (RNF) for each of the main service areas that are provided by authorities—children’s services, adults’ personal social services, highways maintenance, police, fire and rescue, environmental, protective and cultural services, and capital finance. Except for highways maintenance and capital finance, the resident population (measured by the Office for National Statistics’s sub-national population projections) are the main driver of the formula. In all formulae, there are additional elements to take into account additional factors related to need.

There are two RNFs within Adults’ personal social services to reflect services for Younger Adults and Older People. The main factor in the Older People’s Personal Social Services is the population of people aged 65 and over who are residents in households or are local authority supported residents in permanent care homes. Additional factors to reflect age, deprivation, low income and sparsity are also included in the RNF.

There is no explicit measure of transient population within the formula grant distribution system.

Second Homes

Matthew Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many and what percentage of homes in each county in England are registered as second homes. [239013]

Mr. Iain Wright: Details of the number of properties registered as second homes for council tax purposes and the percentage this is of the total number of homes in each county in England in October 2007 are given in the following table.


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25 Nov 2008 : Column 1282W

Second Homes Total number of dwellings Second homes as percentage of total dwellings

Bedfordshire

720

169,528

0.4

Buckinghamshire

1,014

200,999

0.5

Cambridgeshire

2,043

250,488

0.8

Cheshire

2,543

307,500

0.8

Cornwall

13,201

243,249

5.4

Cumbria

8,084

234,954

3.4

Derbyshire

1,733

337,102

0.5

Devon

11,233

337,152

3.3

Dorset

6,257

189,483

3.3

Durham

707

229,175

0.3

East Sussex

4,749

236,537

2.0

Essex

4,621

589,066

0.8

Gloucestershire

3,133

259,853

1.2

Hampshire

4,436

544,576

0.8

Hertfordshire

2,509

453,967

0.6

Kent

6,255

610,097

1.0

Lancashire

2,795

514,005

0.5

Leicestershire

1,501

266,668

0.6

Lincolnshire

2,649

311,516

0.9

Norfolk

11,686

386,407

3.0

North Yorkshire

7,055

267,360

2.6

Northamptonshire

1,057

289,230

0.4

Northumberland

2,767

144,026

1.9

Nottinghamshire

1,250

340,660

0.4

Oxfordshire

3,382

263,111

1.3

Shropshire

1,194

129,597

0.9

Somerset

2,820

231,139

1.2

Staffordshire

682

356,107

0.2

Suffolk

5,387

316,253

1.7

Surrey

3,424

462,149

0.7

Warwickshire

1,846

232,739

0.8

West Sussex

6,118

347,840

1.8

Wiltshire

2,161

195,414

1.1

Worcestershire

1,328

242,983

0.5

Total

132,340

10,490,930

1.3


The data are from a snapshot taken each year and are as recorded, by each local authority, in council tax base returns submitted annually.

Shared Ownership Schemes

Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many (a) people and (b) key workers have purchased a property through each of the HomeBuy and shared ownership schemes in each region of the country in each year since the schemes were introduced. [234157]

Mr. Iain Wright: The following tables 1, 2 and 3 set out the homes provided through the Housing Corporation's Affordable Housing Programme, including through the Starter Home Initiative, from 1999-2000 to 2007-08 by region and by shared ownership and HomeBuy scheme.

Tables 4 and 5 show how many of the homes in tables 1, 2 and 3 were provided specifically for key workers through these schemes, although some key workers may have benefited from the general shared ownership and HomeBuy products.

Figures have been provided from 1999-2000 as this was the start of the first open market Homebuy scheme. Social HomeBuy was introduced in 2006-07.

Table 1: Shared Ownership/New Build HomeBuy

London South-east South-west East midlands Eastern West midlands Yorkshire and Humberside North-east North-west Grand total

1999-2000

1,078

250

261

369

79

351

235

88

436

3,147

2000-01

959

430

104

191

75

171

133

93

395

2,551

2001-02

699

305

121

230

53

138

119

110

436

2,211

2002-03

912

467

122

158

34

143

92

6

381

2,315

2003-04

1,397

920

183

282

140

189

87

21

355

3,574

2004-05

1,789

1,708

622

432

205

440

42

88

424

5,750

2005-06

1,938

2,286

929

831

958

785

221

139

550

8,637

2006-07

3,539

2,866

844

815

1,211

659

303

100

724

11,061

2007-08

4,789

2,994

1,376

1,311

1,770

1,351

393

109

914

15,007


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