Elliott Report And The Area Cost Adjustment

EDM number 707 in 1996-97, proposed by David Nicholson on 19/03/1997.

That this House notes the various criticisms by honourable Members of all parties of the area cost adjustment subsidy in local government finance; regrets that the statistical analysis and economic theorising by Professor Elliott and his team; reported in July 1996 did not adequately or satisfactorily challenge the assumption, which permeates their report, that higher employment costs in the private sector in an area inevitably drive up pay in the public service; notes the absence of evidence in the Elliott report that local authorities outside London had to pay above rigid national pay scales for such groups as teachers, police and fire services; welcomes the Government's decision not to implement in the 1997-98 local government settlement their changes in SSA and grant recommended by the Elliott report especially as these would have disadvantaged Bedfordshire, Cornwall, Derbyshire, Devon, Durham, East Sussex, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hereford and Worcestershire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire and North Yorkshire, which would together have lost a total of over ú186 million of standard spending assessment; and calls on the government rapidly to phase out payments of area cost adjustment subsidy to shire counties, except where these can be justified by authorities incurring specific extra costs, and to redistribute the proceeds to other shire counties.

This motion has been signed by a total of 3 MPs.