the required revenue from local taxes. Instead, they obtain funds from central government through a number of mechanisms. For a large scheme, an authority must prepare a major scheme business case (MSBC). In this context, a large scheme is defined as one costing more than £5m. Authorities fund schemes costing less than £5m through The Local Transport Settlement. The size of their settlement is derived from a formula that relates the funding to a number of factors including population. However, the budget calculated from the formula is modified to account for the DfT’s assessment of the authority’s Local Transport Plan (LTP) and the authority’s record of delivering the elements of their previous plan. Over the period 2006 to 2011, Greater Manchester, a conurbation with a population of about 2.55 million, will receive a settlement of just under £50m a year Size of TIF compared to other funding mechanisms Although TIF funding was to be smaller in total than the Local Transport Settlement, it will be shared between fewer authorities, so for an individual authority it would represent a very large amount of funding. In 2007/8, the Local Transport Settlement will be £1,254m shared by all the authorities in the country. TIF was to be worth about £290m of which £200m will be available to Congestion TIF. According to the Manchester Evening News "The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities wants £1.2bn … virtually all of the £1.4bn currently due to be dished out". So Greater Manchester's bid for TIF funding (£200 m a year) is roughly four times the size of its Local Transport Settlement (£50m a year). References Department for Transport Innovation in the United Kingdom Transport in England