Open consultation

J: Technical Annex on Control Totals

Updated 20 June 2025

Applies to England

1. Introduction

Control totals are the weights applied to each Relative Needs Formula (RNF) in the needs assessment to arrive at an overall assessment of relative need for each local authority.

The government proposes to use the total net current expenditure (NCE) in scope from the revenue outturn (RO) releases to arrive at total values for each RNF. The proportion these are of the overall total would then be the weights applied. The government proposes using the latest year of data available to establish these weights.

The government also proposes to calculate the same information for the three latest available years (currently 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24) to provide the spend information used in regression analysis to derive the RNFs for the Foundation Formula and Highways Maintenance.

2. Proposed methodology overview

Each individual formula is assigned a weight, to help determine the impact a formula has in the overall calculation. The weight is to determine the split of funding – for example for a given amount of funding for local government, what proportion will be allocated via each RNF. These weights are collectively known as the control totals and they reflect the scale of national expenditure on the service area(s) assessed by the formula. The combination of weighted RNFs is then used to determine an overall share of need for each local authority.

The government proposes to calculate the control totals using local authority revenue outturn (RO) data published by MHCLG and Section 251 (S251) Outturn data published by the Department for Education (DfE). The supporting technical document^{[footnote 1]} shows the proposed data mapping from spending lines to RNFs at broad initial level. The government proposes that further adjustments are made to the control totals to ensure accuracy, which are detailed below.

Authorities in scope

The government proposes only including local authorities in the calculation of the control totals who are responsible for providing the relevant services in the needs assessment i.e. all upper and lower tier local authorities plus all authorities with responsibility for fire and rescue services.

Missing data

The government proposes using only the submitted data for local authorities in a given year and not amending the data to account for local authorities that did not submit data. It is assumed that local authorities that have not submitted data will not on their own significantly influence the national spend shares that control totals are based on. The vast majority of local authorities submit RO data, but an individual authority’s allocation will not be substantially affected by whether or not they have made this submission.

Adult social care (ASC) formula weights

The ASC RNF is a composite formula composed of a Younger Adults element and an Older People element. The government proposes to use the existing DHSC methodology to accurately weight the ASC RNF between services for Younger Adults and services for Older People. The composite ASC RNF will then be weighted against other relative needs formulae using Revenue Outturn data. The DHSC proposed weights can be found in the technical annex for the Adult Social Care RNF.

Home-to-School Transport: supplementary use of s251 data

The government proposes supplementing RO data with more detailed information on pre-16 Home-to-School transport (HTST) services from S251 data. Line 65 of form RO1 ‘Other Education and Community Budget’ includes spending on Home-to-School transport and does not provide a further breakdown . In order to arrive at an estimate of HTST spend for each local authority, the government proposes using lines 2.1.4 and 2.1.5 from the S251 Outturn^{[footnote 2]}. The sum of these two lines will be subtracted from the total spend in RO Line 65 for the relevant upper tier authorities. The revised total of Line 65 will be assigned to the Foundation Formula control total, whilst the spend on Home-to-School transport from the S251 data would be assigned to the HTST RNF control total.

Foundation Formula tier split

The government proposes creating a split of spend for single-tier local authorities i.e. Metropolitan Districts (MDs), London Boroughs (LBs) and Unitary Authorities (UAs) for the Foundation Formula so they can be considered in the upper and lower tier versions of the formula on an equivalent basis with Shire Counties (SC) and Shire Districts (SD), respectively. This would be done by applying the annual proportion of total spend on this formula area between SCs and SDs in aggregate, given their respective upper and lower tier responsibilities, to single-tier authorities to split their spend in scope of the Foundation Formula across the upper and lower tier.

Adjusting for concessionary travel spend

The government proposes making an adjustment for concessionary travel spend to account for levies paid by some local authorities to transport authorities. Some authorities fund concessionary travel via a levy to a combined transport authority. In order to calculate the amount each authority spends on concessionary travel, spend by the relevant combined transport authority (CTA) will be multiplied by the proportion of the total CTA levy each contributing authority accounts for. It will be assumed that this figure is the amount of spend by each authority on concessionary travel.

Further amendments to control total mapping

In addition to the mapping shown in the needs calculator for RO spend lines to RNFs, the government proposes making some additional amendments, including the following:

• For Shire Districts, any spend on social care or other services for which there is no lower tier responsibility, will be mapped to the Foundation Formula.
• For Shire Counties, any spend on temporary accommodation (RO4 lines 80 to 85) will be mapped to the Foundation Formula.
• For the Greater London Authority (GLA) and Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), only spend on fire and rescue services (RO6 lines 210, 220 & 230) will be included and mapped to the Fire & Rescue RNF control total, with all other spend being excluded.
• Spend on fire and rescue services (RO6 lines 210, 220 & 230) by Unitary Authorities and Shire Counties with responsibilities for such services would be included in the Fire & Rescue RNF control total. UAs and SCs with no fire and rescue responsibilities will have any spend on those lines assigned to the Foundation Formula control total.
• Spend on fire and rescue services by standalone Fire & Rescue authorities, as well as their central services spend found in RO6, will be assigned to the Fire & Rescue RNF control total.
• Levy expenditure on environment agency and waste disposal (RS lines 724 and 759) will be mapped to the Foundation Formula for all upper and lower tier authorities.

Accounting for local government reorganisation

Due to the fact an average of 3-years’ net current expenditure is used in some of the non-social care formulae, the government proposes using shares of total population to account for local authority reorganisations over this time. This would enable spend to be converted on a consistent geographic basis. This proposal would only impact spend of those areas that have experienced restructuring during the last 3 years of data used.

3. Calculation of RNF control total share

Finally, the government proposes calculating individual ‘control total shares’ for each RNF based on their share of the total national NCE as defined by the steps outlined above. Each formula’s relative proportion of the total aggregate figure would provide the formula’s control total share. Each formula’s control total would then be used to weight the formulae relative to one another in the overall calculation.

1. Control totals mapping tab in the Needs calculator ↩

2. Line 2.1.4 covers “Home to school transport (pre 16): SEN transport expenditure”, while line 2.1.5 covers “Home to school transport (pre 16): mainstream home to school transport expenditure”. ↩