As I said, none of the provisions in this Bill change any of the requirements on local authorities, but the transparency requirements are different in each case depending on what the award is and whether it is under a scheme. Sometimes, if it is a generally approved scheme, there are literally thousands of small grants, for instance. Sometimes the recipients are not identified under local authority transparency but may need to be identified under a particular scheme, depending on the size of the award. The noble Lord is correct that none of the requirements in the Bill change the requirements on local authorities; we are talking about different information for different purposes.
I understand the point made by noble Lords that, in most cases, one month should be sufficient to avoid excessive mistakes that could cause confusion for interested parties. None the less, I note that public authorities face a great many administrative obligations. Therefore, there would be an increased risk of error, or an increased cost in avoiding error, resulting from a deadline of one month—particularly for authorities that give a large number of subsidies in possibly quite complex formats.
Furthermore, the inaccuracies may not result from avoidable human error. To take another example, many subsidy schemes, particularly but not only those in the form of tax measures, are created with estimates for the value of the budget or the individual awards, but the final amounts may vary from that estimate. Sometimes the subsidy award is variable—it could be a performance-related grant—and if the beneficiary exceeds its estimates for the subsidy objective, it may be entitled to a proportionately larger subsidy. In other cases, such as subsidies in the form of tax measures, which I am sure my noble friend would never have been responsible for when he was Chancellor, the variation may be a result of higher or lower than expected expenditure—for example, on research and development—which will in turn affect how much tax subsidy that beneficiary would be entitled to.
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This means that a public authority would be able to upload only an estimate initially, which may then need to be revised. These revisions would generally be considered a permitted modification within the meaning of Clause 81, where the budget can be increased, for example, by up to 25% and the subsidy duration by an additional six years. Otherwise, a new entry for the subsidy would need to be made. Where that new subsidy entry needs to be made, the limitation period would start again. For these sorts of subsidies, deadlines as short as those proposed by the noble Lord could lead to poorer-quality data, greater confusion and, potentially, more disputes.
As I have mentioned, subsidies in the form of tax measures are more likely to have performance-related conditions or other variables, and therefore it could take longer to determine the exact amount of the subsidy. Although the public authority will have an estimate for the purposes of establishing compliance with the principles, this may be an upper limit and ultimately not an accurate reflection of the subsidy award amounts.
These final amounts will not be known until the tax declaration has been completed. Even when a tax declaration has been completed, taxpayers can amend it, so the final amount could still change in a 12-month period following the tax declaration’s submission. For these reasons, we have provided public authorities with 12 months from the date of the tax declaration to calculate the exact amount and upload the subsidy to the database.
It is worth pointing out that tax subsidies are already extensively scrutinised, as they are normally given in the form of primary legislation, so each scheme will almost certainly have come before this House before it even starts to dispense funding. As with all primary legislation, full impact assessments will be produced which will give the public and interested parties an opportunity to estimate the subsidy in advance.
It is also worth noting that the consultation we carried out in 2021 included the approach we have now taken in the Bill, including the six-month deadline. Of the responses we received to it, 74% agreed with the Government’s approach, which suggests that respondents agreed with our proposed balance between speed and accuracy. In the light of that, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.