The 2013 Spending Round (commonly referred to as the ‘Spending Review’) announced a step change in infrastructure investment , backed by an impressive array of specific commitments .

But although the key transport capital budgets have emerged as obvious winners, the picture is less clear when it comes to some of Department for Transport’s (DfT) smaller grants.

At the same time, the unexpected decision to pool a substantial proportion of local transport capital funding into the Single Local Growth Fund (SLGF) makes the long term outcome uncertain.

A clearer picture is unlikely to emerge until the DfT clarifies its detailed spending plans for 2015 onwards and the results of the first SLGF competition emerge in the second half of 2014. The key points from the Spending Round are summarised below.

Treasury big picture:

• The June Spending Round did not entail any net change in overall government spending relative to the March budget.
• In reality, the annual year-on-year growth in total government capital spending between 2014-15 and 2017-18 will most likely fall below the rate of inflation.
• The Spending Round did include some new capital funding commitments beyond 2018, with HS2 and the Highways Agency emerging as the big winners.
• Although overall capital expenditure will be higher in 2014/15 than originally set out in the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), this will be at the expense of resource budgets, which will be 8.5% below original plans. This is of particular significance to local government funding, which has been the main source of savings.

DfT budget:

• In 2015-16, the DfT’s budget will be 4.5% lower than in 2014-15 (as set out in the March 2013 budget).
• Although DfT capital funding will increase by 6.7% (from £8.9 to £9.5 billion), its resource budget will go from £4.4 to £3.2 billion. The largest chunk of the saving will come from Transport for London’s (TfL) resource grant and assumed efficiency savings in Network Rail spending and DfT’s rolling stock procurement.
• Our previous analysis of the 2010 CSR and subsequent budgetary announcements up to Autumn 2012 provides additional background information.

Local transport:

There will be a significant boost to key local transport capital grants in 2015-16:

• +28% in real terms, relative to the 2014-15 budget
• +16% in real terms relative to Labour’s 2010-11 budget

However, the unexpected decision to route a large proportion of local transport grants into Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) via competitive growth deals makes it difficult to anticipate what proportion of this money will end up funding transport schemes in PTE areas.

The Spending Round said nothing about what will become of smaller competitive grants such as the Pinchpoint Fund, the Green Bus Fund, the Cycle Ambition Grant or the DfT’s contribution to the Regional Growth Fund. However, even if these were to be scrapped altogether, local transport capital funding would still increase by around 15% (in real terms) between 2014-15 and 2015-16.

On the revenue side, the current rate of Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) has been protected until 2015-16 and we also know that the DfT will manage a considerable Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) resource grant in 2015-16.

You can read our full analysis of the Spending Review on the pteg website.

Pedro Abrantes