Many of the responsibilities for improving the public's health and reducing health inequalities were transferred from the NHS to Local Authorities under the Health & Social Care Act 2012. Each Local Authority has been given a dedicated grant since April 2013 to fund these new public health responsibilities. The current basis on which allocations are made is regarded as provisional and a more evidence-based approach is required. The need for a public health formula that has a firmer evidence-base has been explicitly stated in policy documents. Allocation of a separate grant for public health to Local Authorities raises the profile of this element of the formula and justifies it being given further attention. There is considerable potential to develop the data and methods that underpin the resource allocation formulae for public health services. Many public health services funded by Local Authorities are delivered to individuals and the budgets for these can be most sensitively allocated on the basis of an utilisation model, using the latest micro data and estimation methods.
The aim of this research is to support the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation (ACRA) and its Technical Advisory Group (TAG) in developing an evidence-based, equitable formula for distributing public health funds to Local Authorities. The research will provide a formula based on the data currently available for short-term allocations and will review methodologies for improving this formula in the longer term.
