Fair funding review modelling tools

This year, TRL Insight was commissioned by the Local Government Association to deliver two spreadsheet tools. These will help member authorities to evaluate the impact of future proposals arising from the fair funding review, or to enable them to consider proposals of their own. The LGA will also use these tools to help inform policy discussions.

Both tools were published by the LGA on its website last week.

The relative needs assessment model allows the user to build their own bespoke relative needs assessment, with a custom choice of formulae, indicators and their weightings. The model contains over 100 built-in cost drivers that the user can choose from. Users can also input up to 14 custom cost drivers, provided they have the data for each individual local authority to which they would apply.

The relative council tax deduction model calculates the council tax deduction which is part of the relative resource assessment. The deduction is subtracted from the assessed relative needs to calculate funding baselines for individual local authorities. The tool allows the user to build their own bespoke relative resources assessment, by specifying the total amount of the deduction at a national level, choosing any adjustments to the council tax base, and choosing to use either actual Band D rates or one of three sets of notional Band D rates (or a mix of these).

The outputs from the two tools are presented in a common format. They show what levels of funding would result from the users’ choices, for individual local authorities, regions, classes of local authorities and combined authority areas.

If you have any thoughts on these tools, please get in touch – feedback is always welcome.