Source · Select Committees · Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
Recommendation 19
19
Accepted
Paragraph: 66
Publish DLUHC departmental and combined authority expenditure data for public monitoring.
Recommendation
One of our core tasks is to monitor the policy of the DLUHC and without sufficient data we are limited in our ability to do so. We are concerned that the lack of accessible data was not foreseen or resolved in a timely manner. As the DLUHC noted themselves that there is not “sufficient data” we recommend DLUHC remedy this problem as quickly as possible. Therefore, the Department must produce and make publicly available the data on departmental expenditure and data on combined authority income and expenditure so that our committee, local government, and communities are able to access and monitor the policy’s progress.
Government Response Summary
The government outlines ongoing efforts to make data publicly available, including through the Subnational Indicators Explorer and a subnational expenditure project. It also states that an Annual Report on Devolution will be published by March 2024, and the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will mandate annual progress reports.
Paragraph Reference:
66
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
Whilst there is always more that could be done on data, and improvements are continuously sought, good progress has been made against measuring the metrics in the technical annex of the Levelling Up White Paper. The vast majority of these metrics are now publicly available, including on the Subnational Indicators Explorer. And indeed, many of them are recent innovations that give interested parties a level of granular detail and specificity that we have never had before. For instance, it is only in the last six months that we have been able to measure Gross Value Added (GVA) at small area geographies (e.g. LSOA level). The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will require the Government to provide an annual report on progress against the missions. In addition, through the subnational expenditure project, the Department is working to provide access to quality-assured expenditure data from government departments at local authority level, and in some cases at neighbourhood level. We are making progress on publishing this subnational expenditure data for the Department (including selected Arm’s Length Bodies). The Department produces an Annual Report on Devolution setting out the key central funding streams paid to Mayoral Combined Authorities over the previous year. The 2022-23 report is currently in development and will be published before 31 March 2024. Separately, each MCA is also required to publish its own annual accounts, publicly available online. The committee will also appreciate that grants and funding streams delivered by MCAs on behalf of other government departments will each be subject to monitoring by those departments, as they see fit.