Cuts "risk worsening road quality"

REDUCED government funding for local authorities risks worsening the quality of roads, a Whitehall-spending watchdog said today.

Department for Transport (DfT) funding to local authorities has remained stable following the 2010 Government spending review and autumn statement, a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) said.
The report went on: "However, there is a 28% real-terms fall in grants from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) over the spending review period (up to 2014/15)."
The NAO said local authorities had a range of statutory duties which reduced their unrestricted spending.
The report went on: "In transport, this includes payments to bus operators to reimburse them for statutory concessionary fares, a cost largely beyond the control of local authorities.
"This means that funding available for other areas of local government spend, including routine highways maintenance, is likely to fall."


The NAO said it had commented, in an earlier report entitled Reducing costs in the Department for Transport, on the effects of cuts in budgets on national and local highways maintenance.
The NAO report today went on: "We said that cuts risked deterioration in highway quality and higher long-term costs for the department (DfT) or local authorities.
"The Audit Commission also reported in 2011 that there was a significant but unquantifiable backlog of maintenance work needed to get local highways to a sustainable level."
Today's report went on: "Against the background of reduced and sometimes uncertain central government funding, the local authorities that we spoke to said that they are having to prioritise and reduce their expenditure on transport."
The report said: "Reduced overall funding for local authorities risks worsening highway quality."
NAO head Amyas Morse added: "As the DfT devolves more funding to a local level, it needs to make sure it has the appropriate assurance over the spending.”