Of every pound this council spends on services, how much goes on running the organisation itself — finance, HR, IT, collecting council tax, running elections — rather than on frontline services like bins, housing and care. Higher isn't automatically waste, but two similar councils shouldn't need very different shares.
| Council | Class | Value | In its class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oadby & Wigston | district | 79.28 | 1st worst of 164 |
| Guildford | district | 77.87 | 2nd worst of 164 |
| Brentwood | district | 75.92 | 3rd worst of 164 |
| Hertsmere | district | 73.38 | 4th worst of 164 |
| Uttlesford | district | 59.93 | 5th worst of 164 |
| King's Lynn & West Norfolk | district | 55.26 | 6th worst of 164 |
| South Norfolk | district | 53.46 | 7th worst of 164 |
| Canterbury | district | 53.24 | 8th worst of 164 |
| Cheltenham | district | 52.52 | 9th worst of 164 |
| Eastleigh | district | 52.05 | 10th worst of 164 |
| Council | Class | Value | In its class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blackpool UA | unitary | -0.1 | 1st best of 62 |
| Barking & Dagenham | london | -0.06 | 1st best of 33 |
| Brighton & Hove UA | unitary | 0.23 | 2nd best of 62 |
| Westmorland and Furness | unitary | 0.4 | 3rd best of 62 |
| Dorset UA | unitary | 0.42 | 4th best of 62 |
| Hertfordshire CC | county | 0.47 | 1st best of 21 |
| Derbyshire CC | county | 0.56 | 2nd best of 21 |
| Greenwich | london | 0.6 | 2nd best of 33 |
| Surrey CC | county | 0.66 | 3rd best of 21 |
| Nottinghamshire CC | county | 0.69 | 4th best of 21 |
| name | central-services-ratio |
|---|---|
| dataset | 01-revenue-outturn |
| kind | constructed |
| type | percentage |
| unit | % of total service expenditure |
| grain | council-year |
| role | feature |
| source | "Formula: `RO6_centot_net_cur_exp / RS_totsx_net_exp`. Inputs: this dataset's CSV only" |
| period | "FY 2017-18 to 2024-25, annual (year_ending 201803-202503)" |
| missingness | Rows with status other than "submitted" (i.e. "total" aggregates and "not submitted") must be filtered out; a non-submitted council-year is a genuine gap, not zero. 2024-25 covers 410/411 councils. Councils abolished/created in 2017-25 reorganisations appear only for the years they existed. |
| calculated | calculated/central-services-ratio.csv |
| calculated_rows | 3429 |
| calculated_periods | 2017-18 to 2024-25 |
| calculated_date | 2026-08-13 |
| score_note | Recharge-robust overhead comparator computable from this CSV alone, but substantially overlaps corporate-overhead-ratio. |
| peer_group | districts (n=204), unitaries (n=65), metropolitan boroughs (n=36), London boroughs (n=33), counties (n=27) — scored within each class against its median/IQR |
Broader overhead share: all central functions (including tax collection and registration) over total service expenditure. More robust to each council's recharge-line choices than the corporate overhead ratio, so it is the safer overhead comparator across councils within a class.
Independent recomputation from the published RS files confirmed the anchors (Worcester 19.42%, Birmingham 4.60%, Woking 35.21%) and the spread (councils-only IQR ~3-27%). Structural caveat confirmed: shire districts' median is ~27% vs 1.5-3.4% for counties/mets/London/unitaries — districts carry council tax collection, elections and corporate core on a small total-service denominator, so a high ratio there is a class feature, not proportionately higher overhead. Compare within council class only.