Councils to hear result of Supreme Court appeal on EU funds next week
Nine local authorities in Merseyside and South Yorkshire will next week find out if their appeal to the Supreme Court over the Government’s allocation of EU structural funding has been successful.
The Supreme Court will hand down its judgment in R (on the application of Rotherham Borough Council and others) v Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills UKSC 2014/0204 next Wednesday (25 February).
The case concerned the Secretary of State’s allocation decisions for the 2014-2020 funding period. The total allocation of EU structural funds to the UK for this period had been cut by around 5%.
On 26 March 2013 the Government announced a funding allocation that cushioned the effect of the cut on Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
On 27 June 2013 the Secretary of State announced the sub-allocation of funds as between the English regions, under which the appellant councils’ allocation was reduced by approximately 65% by comparison with the previous 2007-2013 funding period.
Merseyside and South Yorkshire, being the only two UK regions that received tapering funding during 2007-2013, were particularly affected by the Government taking the distribution of funds in the year 2013 as the basis for the 2014-2020 allocation.
In February 2014 Mr Justice Stewart ruled that the Secretary of State had failed to comply with the public sector equality duty under s. 149 of the Equality Act 2010. However, he rejected all the other grounds of challenge.
The Court of Appeal rejected the local authorities’ appeal in July 2014, with the Master of the Rolls, Lord Dyson, saying the High Court judge had been right to hold that the margin of discretion was a wide one in the circumstances of the case.
The MR added that the Court of Appeal should only interfere if satisfied that the decisions were manifestly inappropriate or manifestly wrong.
The key issue in the Supreme Court appeal therefore was the scope of the margin of discretion to be accorded to the Secretary of State in allocating EU structural funding; and whether his allocation decisions in this case breached the EU principles of proportionality and equal treatment.
A seven-justice panel heard the case on 22-23 October 2014.
