basic expenditure

The general account budget includes most of the basic expenditures for current government operations.

Clearly, this had nothing to do with real costs of service provision or true basic expenditure needs.

The assessment of basic expenditure needs should urgently be removed from the political arena.

It calls for spending on a dubious new venture at a time when schools are scrambling to cover even basic expenditures.

Those wishing to set up are often afraid that they will lose entitlement to benefit and so not be able to meet their families' basic expenditure.

All of this instability, it must be emphasized, occurred in the supposedly 'objective' assessment of basic expenditure needs for Local Authorities.

Basic expenditure needs for each Local Authority are assessed using over 60 major indicators of needs and associated unit costs, with some 200 indicators being used overall.

But changes in the details of the assessment of basic expenditure needs through the GRE have also led to remarkable (and indefensible) instability over recent years.

Since 1981/2, Central Government has assessed the basic expenditure needs of Local Authorities through a complex formula for determining Grant Related Expenditure (GRE).

Central Government assessments of total basic expenditure needs for Local Authorities in England for 1985/6 ranged from £359 per head of population for Surrey to approximately £717 per head for Islington.

In recent months, the physical condition of equipment and buildings has deteriorated alarmingly, due to lack of maintenance, and due also to the lack of basic expenditure on light, water, security guards, chalk, stationery, publications and books.