STANDARD SPENDING ASSESSMENTS

That this House notes that Her Majesty's Government's current review of local authority standard spending assessments will benefit comparatively prosperous areas of the country, while having adverse effects upon many areas with high levels of social need; notes and agrees with the Audit Commission that there are serious questions as to whether the sophistication of the standard spending assessment models is adequate for the policy purposes to which they are put; further believes that the standard spending assessments process is flawed and inflexible; and urges the Government to call off the standard spending assessment review, to maintain the present real terms level of standard spending assessments in 1994-95 and to commission a genuinely independent study of social need and local authorities' need to spend.