Case Study 7
One county area modelled as part of this programme the impact of splitting the county council into two or three new unitary authorities. The analysis conducted through this programme sought to estimate how the High Needs Block deficit could be apportioned to each new authority, depending on their historic contribution to expenditure and demand. The figure below shows how this apportionment could vary, both for different variants of a 2 unitary model, and particularly where greater disaggregation is introduced in a 3 unitary model.
Figure 33: potential variation in High Needs Block apportionment
It can be seen in the 3 unitary model, where all authorities are between 300k and 500k population, that one authority may inherit 45% of the deficit, whereas another may inherit 25%. This analysis highlights the potential financial risk for the proposed authorities inheriting a larger proportion of the existing deficit.
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