GRANT FOR HEALTH

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 30, 19 February 1937, Page 6

GRANT FOR HEALTH

(Brituh Ot&cial

Alteration in Britain INCREASE & RE-ALLOCATION

RUGBY, Feb. 17. A White Paper has been published containing proposals which have emerged from the expert investigation of the working of a formula under which the annual Exchequer grant of . £44,000,000 is distributed among locai authorities in. England and Wales towards the provision of health. The total. of the grant is to" be incrcased to about £49,000,000 and under a revised formula which gives special weight to the amonnt of local unemployment and factors such as sparsei population a larger share of the increased grant is to be allocated to poorer areas. where ihe need for social servicea is usually greatest while they are . least ablo to pay for them. A revision oi' the block front system was undertaken on account of the great inpqualicies of rates prevailing in different locaiities, attributable to incidence of - uuemployment and other causes, and, t'requently .resulting in a discouragemcnt to industry in just those areas where its recovery was most important. Am'ong the striking examples in the White Paper of the effects of the redistribution is the es'timated gain of £51,000 yearly to Merthyr Tydfil, a dere-i lict mining village in South Wales, representing an equivalent of 5s in the pound on local rates. Durham, Glamorgan and M'onmouth, between them, will gain something like £650,000 yearly. In Loudon, Bermondsey, a poor borough,wili' gain the equivalent of more than1 ' one shilling.