Regional funding allocation

Funding the major transport infrastructure required to meet current needs and provide for future housing and employment growth is a key concern of the highway authorities that CSS members serve. In 2006, the Department for Transport introduced a new system for determining priorities – the Regional Funding Allocation (RFA) in which, for the first time, the advice of the English Regions was sought by the Secretary of State to inform his decisions in approving individual schemes.

Where does CSS stand?

• CSS is concerned that the overall level of RFA resources is inadequate to meet regions’ current needs and future aspirations. Across the county there is a legacy of under investment which has resulted in poor accessibility and congestion. The Government’s accelerated growth proposals to meet housing and employment needs will be unsustainable if there is inadequate resourcing of transport infrastructure.
• While broadly welcoming the opportunity for greater consideration of priorities at a level below national Government, there remains concern that advice is provided by unelected Regional Development Agencies (RDA) and Regional Assemblies that are not directly elected and are not universally respected by local authorities. CSS is concerned that the extensive expertise contained within the Highway Authorities has not been allowed to be sufficiently influential in shaping priorities.
• Wasteful duplication has occurred as each region has developed its own prioritisation methodology, usually involving expensive consultancy, while at the same time there has been inconsistency in the treatment of construction inflation and risk analysis in determining scheme costs. CSS wants to see more consistency.
• Large schemes have a distorting effect on programmes where the expectation is of broadly equal annual expenditure across a programme. Schemes of local rather than regional importance struggle to find a place in programmes that are determined regionally. CSS would like to see better guidance on how very large and small local schemes are handled in the RFA process.