Please click on one of the questions below to expand the answer

• What is a floor target?

  • Floor targets were first introduced in 2000 as the social equivalent of the Minimum Wage. More funding has been provided to back up these goals. Such targets are now a fixed part of government policy and were further strengthened in 2002.

    
    

    Floor Targets:

    • help reduce the gap between the poorest areas and the rest of the country.
    • show what the priorities should be at a local level.
    • make sure that where public services are failing, they get better.
    • work by setting the minimum standard for poor areas and disadvantaged groups.

• How is a Floor Target measured?

  • Each floor target is measured in a different way, and for a specific group of areas. The target specific areas are decided by the Department that owns the target. The current round of targets from the Spending Review 2004 have a target year end of 2008 or 2010.

• What is a Spending Review?

  • Spending Reviews set firm and fixed three-year Departmental Expenditure Limits, and through Public Service Agreements, define the key improvements that the public can expect from these resources.

    Successive Spending Reviews since 1997 have targeted significant increases in resources for the Government's priorities, matched by far-reaching reforms, and have set ambitious PSA targets for improvements in key public services: in education, health, transport and criminal justice.

• What is a Public Service Agreement (PSA)?

  • The Government introduced PSAs following the 1998 Comprehensive Spending Review, setting out for the first time what each department aimed to achieve in terms of targets for public service improvements. PSAs set out the key improvements that the public can expect from Government expenditure. They are three year agreements, negotiated between each of the main Departments and HM Treasury during the Spending Review process. Each PSA sets out a Department's high-level aim, priority objectives and key outcome-based performance targets.

• What are the NRF areas? How were these selected?

  • There are currently 86 local authorities that benefit from Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF) resources. These are: (Link to document listing the current 86 NRF areas)

    Any local authority district which falls within the top 50 most disadvantaged nationally against any of the six district level summaries of the Indices of Deprivation 2004 (Local Concentration, Extent, Income Scale, Employment Scale, Average of SOA Ranks, Average of SOA Scores) are eligible to receive NRF resources.

• How often is the data on FTI updated?

  • The data on FTI is received from other Departments at varying stages throughout the year. FTI is updated each time new data is received. (Link to Data Timetable??)

• Why is the data on FTI not as up-to-date as that available on other Government websites?

  • There is a slight delay between a Government department releasing new data and that data being forwarded on to us. The main reason for this is the transformation of the data to make it compatible with our systems. Once this process has been carried out, an FTI update follows immediately thereafter.

• Why is data not available for all areas?

  • Data for all geographical areas is available for the majority of the datasets on FTI. However, there are a small number of indicators where some data is missing. This is due to either data not being available or doubts about the data that was returned.

• How do I contact FTI with comments, queries or suggestions?

  • We value your continued feedback. Please email us at fti@communities.gsi.gov.uk. Emails are checked regularly.

    You can also use this email address to inform us if you would like to add your details to our mailing list, to be informed of FTI updates and news.