House of Commons East Midlands Regional Committee The share of funding received by the East Midlands First Report of Session 2009–10 Volume I HC 104–I House of Commons East Midlands Regional Committee The share of funding received by the East Midlands First Report of Session 2009–10 Volume I Report, together with formal minutes Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 18 March 2010 HC 104–I Published on 26 March 2010 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £0.00 East Midlands Regional Committee The East Midlands Regional Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine regional strategies and the work of regional bodies. Current membership Paddy Tipping MP (Labour, Sherwood) (Chair) Mr John Heppell MP (Labour, Nottingham East) Mr Bob Laxton MP (Labour, Derby North) Judy Mallaber MP (Labour, Amber Valley) Sir Peter Soulsby MP Labour, Leicester South) Powers The East Midlands Committee is one of the Regional Committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No.152F. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/emid/emid_reports_and_publicat ions.cfm Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are: Adrian Jenner (Clerk); Ian Thomson (Inquiry Manager); Emma Sawyer (Senior Committee Assistant); Ian Blair (Committee Assistant); Anna Browning (Committee Assistant); and Shireen Khattak (NAO Adviser). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the East Midlands Regional Committee, Committee Office, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general inquiries is: 020 7219 0654; the Committee’s e- mail address is: [email protected]. The share of funding received by the East Midlands 1 Contents Report Page Summary 3 1 Introduction 5 Our inquiry 5 The region 5 2 Regional Funding 7 Regional Expenditure Data for the East Midlands 7 How funding is disbursed 8 Regional Funding Advice 9 Funding for the East Midlands 11 Population in the East Midlands 12 3 Transport 15 Transport funding in the East Midlands 15 Electrification of the Midland Mainline 18 4 Police 21 Police Funding allocations 21 The Comprehensive Spending Review 23 Review of the police funding formula 24 5 Other funding areas 25 Lottery funding 25 Health funding 28 Funding for Schools and Children Services 28 6 Conclusion 31 Conclusions and recommendations 32 Formal Minutes 35 Witnesses 36 List of written evidence 37 List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 38 The share of funding received by the East Midlands 3 Summary Our inquiry examined whether the East Midlands region receives an appropriate share of funding from the Government. In our Report we consider the role of regional bodies, including the Regional Minister, the Government Office for the East Midlands and the East Midlands Development Agency in securing, and lobbying, for funding. We also look at potential future challenges the region might face in relation to funding. We took oral evidence on transport, police and lottery funding and received written evidence on many other policy areas. As Government Departments’ budgets are allocated, it is difficult to aggregate regional figures on funding. However, some information on Government funding in the East Midlands is available. The Government Office for the East Midlands (GOEM) provided us with regional funding statistics drawn from a wide range of sources. The Government Office for each English Region must produce annually an analysis of expenditure in their region, in similar format to that provided by GOEM for our inquiry. This information should be published. Concern was expressed about the “fragmented manner funds are disbursed through various agencies, each with separate objectives and targets.” We recommend that public expenditure should be mapped and co-ordinated at a strategic level. Witnesses suggested that ‘Total Place’ initiative could be a useful tool for achieving this. We call on the Government to publish an evaluation of the ‘Total place’ Pilots as soon as this is available. The East Midlands had the fastest growing population of any region between 2001 and 2007 and this trend is projected to continue. Population statistics are a major factor in calculating the level of funding for public services, but we heard that they were not always sufficiently up to date. The Government and the Office for National Statistics must ensure that the most current population figures are available on which to base funding decisions. Mechanisms should be put in place to ensure that regular updates to these figures are available to ensure that funding better reflects current population figures and takes into account predicted changes. We heard that transport funding in the East Midlands was 65% less per head than for the UK. Other witnesses pointed out that the £69 million allocated for the linespeed scheme for the Midland Mainline is 25% less than the £90 million scheme to upgrade car parks at West Coast Mainline stations. We were also told that for relatively small investment major improvements could take place in the transport infrastructure, particularly the Midland Mainline, in the region. It is unacceptable that the region’s transport spending per head remains 65% less than the UK’s spend per head. We commend the investment of Network Rail and East Midlands Trains but are concerned that, due historic underinvestment in the region, it will still lag behind other regions. We also heard evidence regarding the benefits of the electrification of the Midland Mainline. We urge the Government to approve the electrification of the Midland Mainline as soon as possible. 4 The share of funding received by the East Midlands On police funding, we heard that the funding formula was not being fully implemented and that a floor damping mechanism was being applied. The five East Midlands Police Authorities told us that, if the funding formula was fully implemented, it would deliver an extra £19 million of Government funding to police the East Midlands, enough to afford an additional 518 officers. We recommend that the Government should implement the police funding formula in full and phase out the floor and damping mechanisms. Since the introduction of the lottery in 1994, the East Midlands has received £1.2 billion of lottery funding. We note the slow start experienced by the region in obtaining lottery funding and commend the lottery distributors for their proactive efforts to rectify this. However, we are concerned that the region continues to lag behind other regions in terms of lottery funding. In conclusion, we welcome the increased funding that the East Midlands has received for a wide range of services and projects in the region. Whilst many services are not provided on a region wide basis, we note that the Government is encouraging regional bodies to work together in a more co-ordinated way. This is particularly illustrated in the development of an Integrated Regional Strategy which will provide guidance on transport, planning and housing matters. We see part of that strategy as being the identification and securing of appropriate levels of funding for the entire region. We are also concerned that the Government, when setting spending limits and targets for services in the East Midlands, is not always allocating the funding that their own formulae defines. As a consequence, we are concerned that some service providers are unable to meet the Government’s targets. More transparency and simplicity is required in the way funding levels are decided, particularly in relation to how formulae are devised and the weighting and damping mechanisms that are applied to them. It is essential that the data provided to inform the formulae is as current and complete as possible so that funding reflects current needs. The share of funding received by the East Midlands 5 1 Introduction Our inquiry 1. In our first inquiry we examined the East Midlands Development Agency and the Regional Economic Strategy. In the light of concerns expressed to us from a number of stakeholders in our region, we decided our second inquiry should examine whether the East Midlands receives an appropriate share of funding from the Government. We announced our inquiry on 23 July 2009 with the following terms of reference: • whether Government bodies, and local government, in the region, including but not limited to the police, health services, and education, receive an appropriate share of Government funding for these services available in the nation as a whole; • the processes by which the levels of such funding are decided; and • whether national funding bodies, such as Lottery Funds, allocate an appropriate share of their spending to causes and projects within the East Midlands region. 2. We received 17 written submissions, which we publish with this Report. We would like to thank all those who took the time to submit evidence which we found helpful in informing the conclusions we draw in this Report. We also held three oral evidence sessions. A list of the witnesses to our inquiry and the written evidence received can be found at the end of this Report. We are very grateful to all our witnesses. 3. In our Report we consider the role of regional bodies, including the Regional Minister, the Government Office for the East Midlands and the East Midlands Development Agency, in securing, and lobbying for, funding. We than go on to look at three areas of funding in more detail: transport, police and lottery. We then look at potential future challenges the region might face in relation to funding. The region 4.