Road safety grant - the allocation process
The Department has allocated a total sum of £110 million per year to replace the funding provided for safety cameras via the netting off funding arrangement for the National Safety Camera Programme. Allocations for London, the Highways Agency and DVLA left approximately £97 million to be distributed amongst the remaining English Local Authorities.
Some £71.5 million has been allocated to authorities for their road safety needs using the existing LTP road safety formula using the number of casualties over the '94-'98 period. To help deliver a smooth transition to the needs based formula, we have restricted the amount by which allocations increase or reduce each year. Where authorities have a strong road safety need, the increase in their allocation has been restricted to 10% each year. Where an authority has a lesser road safety need, the reduction has been capped by 12.5% in year 1, and by a further 2.5% per annum in future years.
Road Safety Delivery Quality Allocation
The remaining funding of approximately £25.5 million has been allocated on the basis of the quality of road safety delivery and future plans.
This allocation was based on the quality of the Road Safety elements of the first round Local Transport Plan Delivery Reports and second round Local Transport Plan submission.
For the Delivery Reports, there were 3 possible outcomes: did not meet minimum requirements, met minimum requirements, and showed evidence of strong delivery. For the Local Transport Plan submission there were 4 possible outcomes: weak (no authorities were considered to be weak), fair, good and excellent.
Scores were allocated as follows:
| LTP1 Delivery Report Score |
LTP2 Score | |
| Did not meet minimum requirements / Weak | -1 | N/A |
| Fair | N/A | -1 |
| Met minimum requirements / good | 0 | 0 |
| Showed evidence of strong delivery / excellent | 1 | 1 |
The 2 scores were summed, and the following adjustments made based on the 'smoothed needs' allocation:
| Score | Adjustment |
| -2 | -12.5% |
| -1 | -5% |
| 0 | 0 |
| 1 | +5% |
| 2 | +12.5% |
The average total score achieved by LTP authorities based on the above was 1.3.
The allocations
LTP authorities have been advised of allocations for the 4 years '2007-'08, '2008-09, '2009-'10 and '2010-'11. The first 2 years' allocations are confirmed, and the subsequent 2 years are indicative, and will be reviewed in response to Delivery Reports submitted in 2008.
