Security Through Obscurity is now Government Policy

[Roger Hird]

This may be off topic but:

In article <+es+Q$FA3pyHFAxB@perry.co.uk>,
   Roland Perry <lists@internetpolicyagency.com> wrote:

> It seems that local government spending (which in the UK is 2/3 funded 
> by central grants) depends on how many people there are living in an 
> authority's area. When it comes to working out the central grant it is 
> claimed that the government mainly looks at census data. Hence rapidly 
> growing areas (Slough has been mention in this context) get "left 
> behind" because its population has been seriously under-estimated.
> -- 

It is probably simpler now but when I was last involved - 20 plus years
ago - the formula for calculating what used to be called the Rate Support
Grant but was then called something else, used a myriad of statistics to
work out the "needs" of each local authority (LA).  

The local government assosciations and the central government departments
responsible for major areas of LA activities agreed statistics-based
indicators to assess overall needs and particular needs, LA by LA, in the
main spending areas. This was used to apportion the funds between LAs. 
Similarly, when special programmes, eg "Brown announces =A3Z Million new
spend on whatever", came up the share between LAs was often based on some
sort of indicator with a statistical basis.

Much of the complexity of the modern census springs from the increasing
use of - and demand for - social statistics both in long term planning and
in local authority spending formulae.

--=20
Roger Hird
roger.hird@argonet.co.uk

Running RISCOS 4.39 on an Acorn StrongARM RiscPC