146Special grants
(1)The Secretary of State may, with the consent of the Treasury, pay a grant (in this section referred to as a “special grant”) in accordance with this section to a charging authority.
(2)Before making any one or more special grants, the Secretary of State shall make a determination stating, with respect to the special grant or, as the case may be, each of the special grants,—
(a)to which authority it is to be paid,
(b)the purpose for which it is to be paid, and
(c)the amount of the grant,
and that determination shall be made with the consent of the Treasury and shall be specified in a report (to be called a special grant report) which shall contain such explanation as the Secretary of State considers desirable of the main features of the determination.
(3)A special grant report shall be laid before the House of Commons and, as soon as is reasonably practicable after the report has been so laid, the Secretary of State shall send a copy of it to any charging authority to whom a special grant is proposed to be paid in accordance with the determination in the report.
(4)No special grant shall be paid unless the special grant report containing the determination relating to the grant has been approved by a resolution of the House of Commons.
(5)A special grant report may specify conditions which the Secretary of State, with the consent of the Treasury, intends to impose on the payment of (or of any instalment of) any special grant to which the report relates; and the conditions may require the provision of returns or other information before a payment is made to the local authority concerned or relate to the use of the amount paid, or to the repayment in specified circumstances of all or part of the amount paid, or otherwise.
(6)Without prejudice to compliance with any conditions imposed as mentioned in subsection (5) above, a special grant shall be paid at such time or in instalments of such amounts and at such times as the Secretary of State may, with the consent of the Treasury, determine.
(7)For the purposes of this section each of the following is a charging authority—
(a)a district council;
(b)a London borough council;
(c)the Common Council of the City of London; and
(d)the Council of the Isles of Scilly.