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Richard J.[_3_] · June 16th 10, 03:40 PM posted to uk.transport.london

wrote on 16 June 2010 11:35:21 ...
In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

I'm no expert at all but I understand this led to problems in tourist/
well visited areas, an example that was cited being Blackpool where
lots of non-locals were making use of the free concessionary travel,
with Blackpool Council being landed with the bill. I think things were
tweaked so local authorities in areas where this happened (such as
Blackpool) get more money from the DfT to help them out. (Not a
clearing house system, more a recognition of need/demand.) Others here
will be far more expert on all this.

It's a surprising selection of councils that have been hit by the funding
formula. Cambridge is a member of the million pound club, a number of
small authorities which have been hit with unfunded expenditure increases
of over a £ million.

While that is a relatively small amount alongside a London Borough or big
city budget in the hundreds of millions, it's a huge proportion of the
total Council Tax income of a place like Cambridge whose net revenue
budget is only about £15 million.

Worse still, this problem was quite foreseeable before the national scheme
started. The last Government did announce changes to improve the grant
distribution but that led to hysterical claims of cuts to concessionary
travel from London Boroughs.

The hysteria arose because the government cut the grant that it pays to
London to cover free travel by non-London pass holders by £29M after the
council budgets for 2010-11 had been set in outline. Thus councils were
faced with last-minute budgeting changes in order to meet their promises
(which many had already made) of no council tax increase. There was
never any real threat to the Freedom Pass, but hinting that there might
be ensured that the government's last-minute change became fully visible
to the public.

In fact, the expected deluge of pass-holders on the capital as a result
of the English concessionary travel scheme has not materialised. Even
with the reduced grant, the London boroughs are not out of pocket on
that particular deal, though to be fair they would claim that they are
well out of pocket in many other areas where central government have
imposed unfunded extra requirements.
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)