Accredited official statistics

Local authority revenue expenditure and financing: 2023-24 budget, England

Published 22 June 2023

Applies to England

1. In this release:

1.1 Total service expenditure

• Local authority net current expenditure on services is budgeted to be £117.6 billion in 2023-24. This is £6.5 billion (5.9%) higher in real terms than was budgeted for 2022-23.

Within this, the following changes were the largest in budgeted service expenditure:

• Adult Social Care net expenditure (excluding funding via NHS) is budgeted to be £22.3 billion, £2.0 billion (+10%) higher in real terms than budget for 2022-23. This change was largely funded by: i) a real terms increase of £1.4 billion in social care grant funding compared to 2022-23, as well as ii) a real terms increase of around £550 million to council tax through the adult social care precept for 2023-24.

• Children’s Social Care net expenditure is budgeted to be £12.7 billion in 2023-24, £1.2 billion (+11%) higher in real terms than budgeted for 2022-23.

• Education services net expenditure is budgeted to total £38.7 billion in 2023-24, £1.4 billion (+3.7%) higher in real terms than the budget for 2022-23.

There was also a notable increase in budgeted expenditure Highways and Transport Services (excluding the GLA) to £3.4 billion. This is £455 million (+15%) higher in real terms than was budgeted for 2022-23.

1.2 Revenue expenditure

• The total of the wider measure of revenue expenditure is budgeted to be £121.7 billion in 2023-24. This is £6.0 billion (5.2%) higher in real terms than budgeted for 2022-23.

Release date: 22 June 2023
Date of next release: Late June 2024
Responsible Statistician: Gavin Sayer
Contact: [email protected]
Media enquiries: [email protected]

2. Introduction

This Statistical Release, and all the associated tables, presents National Statistics on budgeted revenue expenditure for local authorities in England for the financial year 2023-24. This release includes detail on how much authorities are budgeting to spend across the services they provide, and the main sources of income to finance this expenditure.

2.1 Revenue Account returns and response rate

The information is compiled from Revenue Account (RA) budget returns submitted to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities by local authorities in England. This information is then validated by DLUHC and any apparent inconsistencies and outliers are sent back to authorities for review and explanation.

This publication is based on returns from 397 (97%) local authorities in England. As at the early June cut-off for inclusion in this publication, thirteen authorities had not submitted data in time (Chesterfield ,Cumberland, Hillingdon, North West Leicestershire, North York Moors National Park Authority, North Yorkshire, Pendle, Slough, South Holland, South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse, Westmorland and Furness, Woking).

Estimated England totals have been calculated using a grossing methodology. This works by calculating scaling factors drawn from sources where there was data for all authorities, principally from previous years’ budget data, as well as directly from grant allocations where these were readily available for 2023-24.

2.2 Key contextual information

Functions and responsibilities of local government can change from year to year, so comparisons between financial years may potentially not be wholly valid, but where major changes occur these are highlighted in the release.

Figures in this report and the associated tables are collected and reported as net current expenditure. So, for example, a decrease may be driven by decreases in expenditure or increases in fees or other income relating to a category of services.

Figures have been adjusted to real terms using the GDP Deflator, which is a general purpose and widely-used deflator. It is sourced from the Office for National Statistics’s National Accounts, and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast. Its values were +5.68% during 2022-23 and +2.52% in 2023-24. We continue to average the figures for 2020-21 and 2021-22 (both to +2.73%) to remove an exceptional and unrepresentative fluctuation in this source over those two years.

Definitions of terms used in this release can be found toward the end of this document. The full definitions of what is included in each service category and guidance notes can be found in the forms section of our website.

2.3 Please tell us how you use the data

We are keen to know of all of the types of uses made of these and related data (eg also Revenue Outturn and Quarterly Revenue Outturn). Please feel free to send us a brief description at [email protected], preferably with email subject: ‘How we use these data’. Please also feel free to send us any feedback and suggestions.

3. Local authority expenditure

Most local authority revenue expenditure can be divided into different service areas which sum to ‘Total Service Expenditure’. This is a net figure calculated as total expenditure minus total income that is specific to each service.

3.1 Service expenditure

Table 1 shows budget and outturn total service expenditure for the main areas of spend over the recent years in real terms (adjusted to 2023-24 prices).

Following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, service expenditure increased by 9.4% to £118.4 billion in 2020-21. Service expenditure fell slightly in 2021-22 (by 2.0%) and was then budgeted to fall to £111.0 billion in 2022-23. For 2023-24, service expenditure is budgeted to increase by £6.5 billion (5.9%) from 2022-23 to £117.6 billion.

Within this, the following changes are most notable in budgeted service expenditure (in real terms):

• Children’s Social Care budgeted net expenditure increased in real terms by +£1.2 billion (+10.8%) from 2022-23 to £12.7 billion in 2023-24. This increase was predominantly the result of real terms increases to three categories of children’s services: +£700 million on looked after children, +£200 million on children and young people’s safeguarding, and +£220 million on family support services.

• Adult Social Care net expenditure is budgeted to be £22.3 billion, +£2.0 billion (+10.0%) higher in real terms than 2022-23. This change was largely funded by: i) a real terms increase of £1.4 billion in social care grant funding compared to 2022-23, as well as ii) increases to council tax through the adult social care precept increases for 2023-24 which totalled an additional £561 million, which equates to a real terms increase of £547million.

• The total budget reported for education services for 2023-24 was £38.7 billion. This was £1.4 billion (3.7%) higher than the budget for 2022-23.

There are also notable increases in total budgeted expenditure on:

• Highways and Transport Services is budgeted to total £5.2 billion in 2023-24, up by £279 million (+5.7%) in real terms. Within this total. expenditure by the Greater London Authority is budgeted to be £176 million (-9.1%) lower, whereas budgeted expenditure on Highways and Transport Services excluding the GLA totalled £3.4 billion. This is £455 million (+15.3%) higher in real terms than was budgeted for 2022-23. Several authorities with large increases cited Bus Improvement Plan Grant Funding.

• Housing Services net expenditure is budgeted to total £2.1 billion, £191 million (+9.8%) higher in real terms than was budgeted for in 2022-23. Fourth fifths of this increase in the housing services aggregate category was due to the increase the total budgeted for homelessness services. N.B This does not include costs of temporary accommodation which are reclaimed from central government.

Table 1a: General fund revenue account: Outturn 20219-20 to 2021-22 and budget 2022-23 to 2023-24 (real terms)

£ million – adjusted for inflation, and are shown in 2023-24 prices.

Service Category	2019-20 (outturn)	2020-21 (outturn)	2021-22 (outturn)	2022-23 (Budget)	2023-24 (Budget)
Education [note 1]	37,280	37,201	37,748	37,368	38,763
Highways and transport	4,296	8,726	5,775	4,932	5,211
Highways and transport services (excl GLA)	3,149	3,962	3,243	2,983	3,439
Highways and transport services (GLA only)	1,147	4,764	2,532	1,949	1,773
Children’s Social Care	11,343	11,701	12,211	11,435	12,671
Adult Social Care [note 2]	19,330	20,838	20,571	20,234	22,263
Public Health [note 3]	3,690	4,212	4,584	3,742	3,766
Housing (excluding Housing Revenue Account)	2,029	2,289	2,369	1,955	2,146
Cultural, environmental and planning	10,013	11,238	10,853	9,994	10,454
Police	13,954	14,562	14,743	14,795	15,118
Fire & rescue	2,468	2,442	2,457	2,482	2,632
Central services	3,717	4,592	4,435	3,210	3,352
Other Services	48	586	268	859	1,175
Total Service Expenditure	108,169	118,387	116,016	111,007	117,550

Notes:

1. Expenditure on education is not comparable over time due to those schools that changed their status to became academies which are centrally funded rather than funded via local authorities.
2. These figures exclude transfers from the NHS (including Better Care Fund).
3. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 transferred substantial duties to local authorities from 2013-14 to protect and improve the public’s health, including for ages 0-5 from mid 2015-16.

Chart A shows the proportion of local authority service expenditure by service. This covers expenditure by councils, combined authorities and single-purpose local authorities, including Police.

Education funding, which is ring-fenced, is budgeted to account for 33% of this total. Adult Social Care and Children’s social care are also large elements of council expenditure, and this expenditure accounts for 19% and 11% across all expenditure of all authorities.

Chart A: Proportion of budgeted service expenditure by service, England, 2023-24

(a)‘Other’ includes Public Health, Fire and Rescue, Housing, Central and Other services.

3.2 Revenue expenditure and non-current expenditure

Revenue expenditure involves accounting for other current expenditure in addition to service expenditure and non-current expenditure. Other current expenditure includes housing benefits paid to residents, any money passed down to parish councils through local precepts and any additional levies and adjustments charged during the year.

Non-current expenditure includes financial payments necessary to balance local authorities’ budgets; generally expenditure where the cash impact falls in one year but the cost is spread over more than one year.

The figures included in the non-current expenditure also include interactions with local authority accounts other than the revenue account. The largest of these are with the capital account. The main interactions are capital financing (interest payments and leases) and CERA (capital expenditure charged to the revenue account).

Total Revenue Expenditure by local authorities in England is budgeted to be £121.7 billion in 2023-24, 5.2% higher in real terms than 2022-23 budget.

Table 2a: Estimated net current expenditure by service, England, 2022-23 and 2023-24

£ million – adjusted for inflation, and are shown in 2023-24 prices.

Service Category	Net current expenditure 2022-23	Net current expenditure 2023-24	change (£m)	change (%)
Education services	37,368	38,763	1,396	3.7
Highways and transport services	4,932	5,211	279	5.7
Highways and transport services (excl. GLA)	2,983	3,439	455	15.3
Highways and transport services (GLA only)	1,949	1,773	-176	-9.1
Children’s Social Care services	11,435	12,671	1,236	10.8
Adult Social Care services	20,234	22,263	2,029	10.0
Public Health services	3,742	3,766	23	0.6
Housing services (excluding Housing Revenue Account)	1,955	2,146	191	9.8
Cultural, environmental and planning services	9,994	10,454	459	4.6
of which:
Cultural services	2,440	2,466	25	1.0
Environmental services	5,971	6,361	390	6.5
Planning and development services	1,583	1,627	44	2.8
Police services	14,795	15,118	322	2.2
Fire and rescue services	2,482	2,632	150	6.0
Central services	3,210	3,352	142	4.4
Other Services	859	1,175	316	36.8
Total Service Expenditure	111,007	117,550	6,543	5.9
plus precepts, levies, trading accounts and adjustments
Housing Benefits [note 1]	14,665	13,965	-700	-4.8
Parish Precepts	637	705	68	10.7
Levies [note 2]	60	33	-27	-45.2
Trading Account Adjustments and Other         Adjustments [note 3]	-480	-353	128	-26.6
Non Current Expenditure and External Receipts	-15,677	-15,888	-210	1.3
of which:
Capital expenditure charged to Revenue         Account (CERA)	2,108	1,904	-204	-9.7
Housing Benefits Subsidies	-11,639	-10,991	647	-5.6
Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL)	-144	-151	-7	4.7
Netting off expenditure capitalised by a         direction under Section 16(2)b	-112	-246	-134	119.7
Appropriations to(+)/from(-) dedicated         schools grant adjustment account	-52	-173	-122	236.4
Capital financing and debt Servicing [note 4]	5,468	6,071	603	11.0
Revenue Expenditure	115,680	121,665	5,985	5.2

Notes:

1. Includes all Mandatory and Non-Mandatory Housing Benefits.
2. Includes ‘Integrated Transport Authority levy’, ‘Waste Disposal Authority levy’, ‘London Pensions Fund Authority levy’ and ‘Other levies’.
3. Includes ‘External Trading Accounts’, ‘Internal Trading Accounts’, ‘Capital items accounted for in External Trading Accounts’, ‘Capital items accounted for in Internal Trading Accounts’, ’Adjustments to net current expenditure’, and ‘Appropriations to/from Accumulated Absences Account’.
4. Includes provision for repayment of principal, leasing payments, external interest payments and HRA item 8 interest payments and receipts.

4. Revenue expenditure financing

This section outlines the different funding streams that finance local authorities’ expenditure and how these are forecast to differ for 2023-24 from what was budgeted for 2022-23.

Authorities also receive income from sales, fees and charges. The revenue account budget data return collects only expenditure for detailed categories of services that is already net of sales, fees and charges income. While sales, fees and charges income is not identified separately in the RA budget return, it is reported and published separately in the annual Revenue Outturn returns.

Tables 3 and 4 below show how local authorities intend to finance revenue expenditure.

Central government funding comprises funding announced in the annual Local Government Finance Settlement plus grants from a number of government departments.

Central government grants are expected to account for 51% of Revenue Expenditure (or 52% excluding appropriations from reserves) , while council tax accounted for 32%, and the majority of the remainder o be financed through locally retained business rates

Central government grants are expected to total £61.7 billion in 2023-24. This is £1.9 billion (3.2%) higher in real terms than was reported in 2022-23 budget data. This change was largely driven by the social care support grant of £3.8 billion in 2023-24, an increase of £1.4billion (+59%) in real terms compared to 2022-23.

Income from grants for 2023-24 as reported by local authorities includes: £32.4bn from Dedicated Schools Grant, the Pupil Premium and Infants Free School Meals, Police Grant (£8.8bn), and Public Health Grant (£3.3bn).

Table 3a: Budgeted revenue expenditure and financing, England, 2022-23 to 2023-24 (real terms)

£ million – adjusted for inflation, and are shown in 2023-24 prices.

Service Category	Net current expenditure 2022-23	Net current expenditure 2023-24	change (£m)	change (%)
Revenue expenditure [note 1]   Financed by:	115,680	121,655	5,985	5.2
Total Government Grants [note 2]        of which:	59,742	61,657	1,914	3.2
Specific grants inside AEF           Including:	48,920	50,865	1,945	4.0
Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG)	30,297	30,970	673	2.2
Pupil Premium Grant	1,167	1,194	27	2.3
Universal Infants Free School Meals	311	271	-40	-12.9
Public Health Grant	3,270	3,261	-9	-0.3
Social Care Support Grant	2,395	3,809	1,414	59.0
Improved Better Care Fund	2,097	2,080	-18	-0.8
New Homes Bonus	565	289	-276	-48.9
The Private Finance Initiative (PFI)	1,263	1,193	-70	-5.5
Other grants inside AEF	7,554	7,798	243	3.2
Revenue Support Grant	1,719	1,963	244	14.2
Police grant	9,103	8,829	-274	-3.0
Council tax requirement [note 3]	37,168	38,726	1,557	4.2
Retained income from Business Rate Retention Scheme	19,496	18,634	-862	-4.4
Appropriations to (-)/ from (+) revenue reserves [note 4]	-757	2,180	2,937	-388.0
Other items [note 5]	30	327	297	985.7

Notes:

1. The financing elements do not sum exactly to the Revenue expenditure total (a difference of £142million, or 0.1% of revenue expenditure) because their grossing up to England figures was necessarily done separately to the grossing for all expenditure figures.
2. Figures as reported by local authorities. These may differ from allocations amounts despite data collection forms having been pre-populated with allocations data for larger grants.
3. Increases can be due to changes in both tax base and bills. A small number of queries challenging differences from the CTR return were unanswered at the time of publication.
4. Due to legal and accountancy requirements, COVID business rates relief grants paid during 2020-21 and 2021-22 were reported as passing through reserves. This has been adjusted for as far as possible. In this table, the adjustments required as a result were for 2022-23 and to items Retained income from Business Rate Retention Scheme and Appropriations to (-)/ from (+) revenue reserves See footnotes in table 4 for further details.
5. This comprises line 980 Council tax net collection fund deficits / surpluses from the previous year, plus line 985 other items where business rates surpluses/deficits have been recorded, and for 2023-24.

Table 4: Financing of revenue expenditure, England, outturn 2019-20 to 2021-22 and budget 2021-22 to 2023-24 £ million – adjusted for inflation, and are shown in 2023-24 prices.

Year	Revenue Expenditure [note 1]	Government Grants [note 2]	% of Total [note 3]	Retained income from Business Rate Retention Scheme [note 4],[note 5]	Council Tax [note 6]	Locally retained income	% of Total [note 3]	All other appropriations from (+) reserves excluding COVID business rates relief grant [note 5],[note 7]	Other Items [note 8]
2019-20 (Outturn)	112,261	55,335	49.9	19,686	35,964	55,650	50.1	876	400
2020-21 (R) (Outturn)	122,036	73,151	56.8	18,772	36,888	55,660	43.2	-6,889	159
2021-22 (Outturn)	120,430	68,358	54.8	19,173	37,310	56,483	45.2	-3,368	-993
2022-23 (Budget)	115,680	59,743	51.3	19,496	37,169	56,665	48.7	-757	30
2023-24 (Budget)	121,665	61,657	51.8	18,634	38,726	57,359	48.2	2,180	327

Notes:

1. The financing elements do not sum exactly to the Revenue expenditure total (a difference of £142million, or 0.1% of revenue expenditure) because their grossing up to England figures was necessarily done separately to the grossing for all expenditure figures.
2. Includes ‘Specific grants inside AEF’, ‘Revenue Support Grant’ and ‘Police Grant’. Where COVID Grants had unusual timing effects for outturn 2020-21 and 2021-22 the grants totals and corresponding reserves movements have been adjusted to make the figures comparable to other years. This is explained in detail in the Revenue Outturn 2021-22 technical note and its annex.
3. Percentage of total expenditure excluding use of reserves and council tax collection fund surplus and other items.
4. The timing of the payment of COVID business rate relief grants impacted the reported retained income from business rates retention scheme. These items have been adjusted for 2022-23 by moving the reported amount of £3.578bn from Appropriations from reserves onto retained business rates. Please note that some uncertainty remains as to the accuracy of these reported figures.
5. Whereas normally business rate reliefs are known before the forecasting of business rates income in the NNDR1 process, during both 2020-21 and 2021-22 substantial further reliefs were announced subsequently. The prescribed accounting treatment included recording grants received to compensate for these additional reliefs in reserves until the following year. Due to this and the scope for interactions with the collection fund over a longer period, care is needed when interpreting the reserves and retained business rate retention scheme incomes figures in this table.
6. The increase in council tax receipts reflects the combination of increases of bills and the change in tax base (i.e. the effective number of households due to pay).
7. We have made adjustments so figures are as comparable as possible over time. For budget 2022-23 this was to show COVID business rates relief grants as part of retained business rates, instead of as appropriations from reserves (as per reporting requirements). Outturn figures: Outturn 2021-22 figures also show COVID business rates relief grants as part of retained business rates, instead of as appropriations from reserves for the same reason. In order to present a figure that is as comparable as possible to other years, the 2020-21 and 2021-22 outturn figures also include adjustments for where the timing of payments of grants was unusual. For further details see the Revenue Outturn 2021-22 statistical release.
8. Other items include any income from inter-authority transfers and net collection fund surpluses(+)/deficits(-) from the previous year.

5. Accompanying tables

5.1 Symbols used

:      =   not available
0    =   zero or negligible
-      =   not relevant
M   =   RA return not received in time for publication, therefore imputed figures used
®  =   Revised since the last statistical release

Rounding

Where figures have been rounded, there may be a slight discrepancy between the total and the sum of constituent parts.

5.2 Tables

This release does not include summary tables by class of local authority. Local authority classes are shown in the accompanying dropdown tables presenting detailed revenue expenditure and financing figures for 2023-24 for all local authorities are available to download alongside this release. But please note that 13 local authorities across 4 classes of authority had still not submitted data in time for the publication (eight weeks after the deadline).

These tables present all revenue information, by local authority, in a similar format as returned to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, Communities. This data forms the basis of the tables in this release.

These tables can be accessed at Local Authority Revenue Expenditure and Financing.

RA Part 1

Revenue Account Budget part 1 – contains all revenue expenditure and financing categories

RA Part 2

Revenue Account Budget part 2 – contains all other sections including reserves levels, local council support revenue foregone, capital items, and the investment properties memorandum section.

SG

Specific and Special Revenue Grants

6. Technical notes

Please see the accompanying technical notes document for further details. This can be found at: Local authority revenue expenditure and financing England: 2023 to 2024 budget.

Information on Official Statistics is available via the UK Statistics Authority website.

Information about statistics at DLUHC is available via the Department’s website: Statistics at DLUHC.

7. Definitions

The most relevant terms for this release are explained below.

Aggregate External Finance – This is the total amount of grant provided to finance all local government expenditure, excluding that subject to separate arrangements under statutory schemes, rent allowances and rebates and council tax benefit, which are funded by specific grants outside Aggregate External Finance.

Central Government Grants – The biggest source of funding that local authorities receive is from central government. This is made up from ‘specific’ grants and a general grant (also called the Revenue Support Grant). Central government grant money pays for capital projects, such as roads or school buildings, as well as revenue spending, such as the cost of maintaining council housing and running services, including employee wages.

Central Services – These are services organised on a corporate basis that support the delivery of services to the public. Central services include building costs, administration and IT.

Council Tax Requirement – The amount of revenue a local authority needs to raise through council tax, (its council tax requirement) is calculated by deducting from its planned spending, any funding from reserves, income it expects to raise, and funding it will receive from the government.

Current Expenditure – This is the cost of running local authority services within the financial year. This includes the staffing, heating, lighting and cleaning, together with expenditure on goods and services consumed within the year. This expenditure is offset by income from sales, fees and charges and other (non-grant) income, which gives total net current expenditure. Total net current expenditure also includes payments made by local authorities on behalf of central government, under statutory schemes and the payment of rent allowances and rebates. Such payments are fully funded by central government through specific grants outside Aggregate External Finance.

Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) – There was a change in the funding of specific and formula grants in 2006-07 largely due to changes in the way that expenditure on schools is funded. From 2006-07, local authorities receive school funding through specific grant rather than funding previously included in formula grant.

Funding through the Settlement Grant – This is the main channel of government funding. This includes Retained income from the Rate Retention Scheme, Revenue Support Grant, and Police Grant. The distribution is determined by the Formula spending shares formulae, also taking account of authorities’ relative ability to raise council tax and the floor damping mechanism. There are no restrictions on what local government can spend on it.

Greater London Authority (GLA) Group – This includes the GLA (the Mayor of London and London Assembly) and it’s five constituent functional bodies; the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), the London Fire Commissioner (LFC), Transport for London (TLF), the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) which administers Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC). Transactions in their General Fund Revenue Account are reported by the GLA and the five functional bodies as a group.

Housing Revenue Account – The HRA is a local authority statutory account, it contains all the spending and income related to the housing stock owned by the council. Mandatory Housing Benefit – This is financial help given to local authority or private tenants whose income falls below the prescribed amounts as required by law. This usually consists of mandatory Rent Allowances and mandatory Rent Rebates, to HRA and non-HRA tenants.

Net Current Expenditure – see Current Expenditure

Reserves – These are sums set aside to finance future spending for purposes falling outside the definition of a provision. Reserves set aside for stated purposes are known as earmarked reserves. Non-ringfenced revenue reserves comprise of unallocated reserves and other earmarked reserves. Local authorities often earmark reserves to meet known financial commitments and to mitigate known risks. As reserves of this type cannot be used without putting wider service delivery at risk, most local authorities will have significantly lower usable revenue reserves than their non-ringfenced revenue reserves balance would imply. It is not possible to identify usable revenue reserves in the current release.

Retained income from the Rate Retention Scheme – Since 2017-18 some local authorities have been able to retain 100% of their business rates revenue as part of their Devolution deal. In 2017-18, the local share for London boroughs was also increased to 67% to reflect additional functions given to the GLA. In 2018-19 and 2019-20, some local authorities participated in pilots to retain an increased share of revenue for that year only. For 2018-19, this was 100% and in 2019-20, this was 75% retention. These business rates pilots have now ended.

Revenue Expenditure – Revenue expenditure involves accounting for other current expenditure in addition to service expenditure and non-current expenditure. Other current expenditure includes housing benefits paid to residents, any money passed down to parish councils through local precepts and any additional levies and adjustment charged during the year. It excludes expenditure financed by grants outside Aggregate External Finance. Revenue expenditure is financed by grants inside Aggregate External Finance, council tax and authorities’ reserves.

Revenue Support Grant – A general grant now distributed as part of Funding through the Settlement Grant.

Specific Grants inside AEF – These are revenue grants which are paid to local authorities by individual government departments, for which the local authority has sole responsibility for decisions on how the grant is allocated. The main purpose for the provision of these grants is to deliver core local authority services.

Specific Grants outside AEF – These are revenue grants, which are paid to local authorities by individual government departments. However, the local authority usually only acts as the ‘middle person’, as the grants are passed over to a third party who administers the service. The local authority does not normally have any control over the service for which the grant was intended for. This responsibility rests solely with the third part that receives the grant.