To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent estimate has been made of the annual costs to (a) his Department of distributing each grant made by it to local authorities and (b) local authorities of administering each such grant.

This information is not collected centrally.

The Department uses an in-house electronic information system, the business management system (BMS), which brings together the Department's human resources, procurement and finance information and processing into a single integrated system. The Department uses the BMS system to process and issue adult personal social services grants.

The Department contributes to the area-based grant in the form of monthly payments, via BMS, to the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG). CLG then distribute these grant monies direct to local authorities.

The Department distributes capital grant monies and specific revenue grant monies directly to local authorities, via regular grant payments, again using the BMS. Information on costs to local authorities of administering each grant is not collected by the Department.