Public Health Grant: eligible and ineligible uses

A practical guide to help councils get the most from the public health grant while staying within its conditions.

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Public health grant

The public health grant must be spent on its primary purpose: improving and protecting the health of the local population. That principle is simple to state and harder to apply in practice. This guidance and the accompanying table help councils work out where the line falls, service by service.

Why we have produced this

Councils are under sustained pressure to make every pound work harder, and the public health grant is no exception. Directors of Public Health are routinely asked whether the grant can support work that sits in housing, planning, leisure, community safety, or any of the council services that shape health.

The honest answer is often “part of it can”. The grant cannot pick up core statutory functions or backfill other budgets that have been cut or stretched. It can fund the health-focused components of work delivered across the council, where those components meet the primary purpose test and deliver public health outcomes.

Getting this wrong carries real risk. Spend that fails the primary purpose test exposes the council to audit challenge and weakens the wider case for protecting the grant. Getting it right does the opposite. It shows that public health money is working across the whole system rather than retreating into a single budget line.

The primary purpose test

The test is the foundation. To be eligible, expenditure must have the improvement or protection of public health as its main purpose. Incidental health benefits are not enough. Where a service exists to discharge a statutory duty in housing, highways or social care, it is funded from the relevant budget, even where it also happens to support health.

This is why the below is organised by service area. For each one it sets out what the grant should not fund, why, where the money should come from instead, and where a legitimate public health component may exist.

How to use this resource

Read the below as illustration, not as a rulebook. It cannot anticipate every local arrangement and it does not replace local judgement.

The most useful heading, Where PHG could be used, shows that across almost every council service there is scope for public health to add value: damp and mould respiratory outreach in housing, falls prevention in leisure, health navigation for SEND families, cessation referral in welfare settings. These are not loopholes. They are public health work that happens to be delivered through other services.

Three points to hold onto:

  • The describe the default position, not an absolute ban. A clearly defined, health-focused component within an otherwise ineligible service may still qualify.
  • The grant cannot substitute for another budget. Displacement is the most common way that spend fails the test.
  • Final responsibility sits locally. Check proposed expenditure with your Director of Public Health, who is accountable for the grant and its conditions.

Ineligible and eligible uses of the Public Health Grant (by service)

You can see below examples of activities that fail the primary purpose test, alongside examples where using the grant is appropriate. It is illustrative, not exhaustive. Always check proposed spend with your Director of Public Health (DPH) to confirm it meets the Public Health Grant (PHG) conditions, delivers public health outcomes, and satisfies the relevant legislation and national guidance.

The rule of thumb stays the same throughout; spend the grant only where health is the primary purpose, the activity wouldn't happen anyway, it adds value rather than substitutes for other funding, it's proportionate to defined outcomes, and it delivers best value.