“David Cameron has been accused of buying off Tory MPs threatening to block local government cuts, after it emerged that a new £300m relief fund will overwhelmingly help Conservative areas, including his own Oxfordshire council.”
Surrey – £24.1m
Hampshire – £18.7m
Hertfordshire – £15.6m
Essex – £13.9m
West Sussex – £12.4m
Kent – £11.4m
Buckinghamshire – £9.2m
Oxfordshire – £8.9m
Leicestershire – £6.6m
Cambridgeshire – £6.4m
Wiltshire – £6m
Warwickshire – £6m
North Yorkshire – £6m
Cheshire East – £5.9m
Dorset – £5.9m
Richmond upon Thames – £5.8m
Devon – £5.6m
Staffordshire – £5.6m
East Sussex – 5.4
Worcestershire – £5m
Councils not to get any “transition” funding over the two years include: Carlisle, Barnsley, Barrow-in-Furness, Bassetlaw, Birmingham, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Bolsover, Bolton, Bradford, Burnley, Darlington, Derby, Doncaster, Dudley, Durham, Gateshead, Hackney, Haringey, Hartlepool, Hounslow, Islington, Knowsley, Lambeth, Lancaster, Leeds, Leicester, Lewisham, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, North Tyneside, Oldham, Preston, Redcar and Cleveland, Rochdale, Rotherham, Salford, Sandwell, South Tyneside, Southwark, St Helens, Stockton-on-Tees, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland, Wakefield, Walsall, Waltham Forest, Wigan, Wirral and Wolverhampton.
If you have relatives in the Labour-run north of England, you might want to suggest they move in with you! But beware, £5.6 million doesn’t go very far – though further than nothing!
East Devon Watch 
So how was that worked out? For example population of:
Wiltshire. 680K. – £6m
Devon. 880K. – £5.6m
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Its obvious- it is based on levels of deprivation-the Surrey stockbroker belt needs £24.1 million- the Devon yokels £5.6.
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The two great things about such funds are:
1. It is one-off funding.
So the cuts will apply year-on-year, but the “Relief Fund” is a one-off cost that won’t derail the government’s austerity targets.
2. They are not subject to the normal funding calculations.
County Council allocations are based on a pre-defined formula which determines the relative amounts each council gets – this is independent of the political party in power in the council or the political party of the local MP.
But a “Relief Fund” is NOT subject to these calculations – instead it is up to the politicians to direct the money where it will have the greatest impact – in this case possibly on the election prospects for the Tories rather than any real financial need.
Hence the preponderance of Tory councils in the more affluent areas where vicious grant cuts might have a major influence on how Tory voters will vote in future elections (e.g. like in next year’s Devon County Council elections!!!)
No doubt if we were to suggest that this was a “Bribe Fund”, David Cameron would trot out a long list of reasons to justify both its existence and the way that the money has been allocated – but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it almost certainly is a duck.
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This must have been calculated using something like ‘bistro maths’ (you have to be old enough to remember where that quote comes from!). There is obviously a good explanation of why Devon deserves less than Richmond upon Thames – I just can’t see what that might be, but I’m not the brightest animal…
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