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City short-changed after cash review

Ben Murch
14/ 1/2003

SALFORD has lost out in a major government review of how local authorities are funded.

Local councils receive most of their funding from central government, with only a small proportion of their revenue coming from council tax.

For many years, Salford Council has been campaigning for the city's high levels of deprivation to be taken into account when money is allocated.

But in making the biggest changes for 30 years to how money is shared out between councils across the country, the government has actually reduced the weighting it gives to deprived areas, putting more emphasis on population levels.

For a city like Salford - with its high levels of poverty meaning there is a heavier demand on council services but census figures showing a falling population - the new formula is a huge disappointment.

Salford Council's finance boss Cllr Derek Antrobus (pictured) said: "This settlement is disappointing but manageable. With other authorities we have campaigned for a greater share of government funding, but few of our suggestions have been taken up. We are very concerned that the government has decided to downgrade the weighting given to deprivation.

"As a result of that, Salford has got the lowest settlement of all the Greater Manchester authorities and the second lowest of all the metropolitan councils. We will be making representations to government about that."

Council chiefs are now examining the implications of the settlement in detail before considering an appeal against it in the New Year.

The bad news comes at the same time that Salford Council is still reeling from an unexpected government report which branded them - they believe unfairly - a "weak" authority.