Of every pound this council spends on services, how much goes on head-office costs — leadership, councillors, and back-office functions like HR and finance — rather than on frontline services. Lower generally means leaner, but a near-zero figure usually means the council counts those costs inside its service budgets rather than truly spending almost nothing on administration.
| Council | Class | Value | In its class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brentwood | district | 76.28 | 1st worst of 164 |
| Oadby & Wigston | district | 69.71 | 2nd worst of 164 |
| Uttlesford | district | 60.22 | 3rd worst of 164 |
| Guildford | district | 53.99 | 4th worst of 164 |
| Reigate and Banstead | district | 53.73 | 5th worst of 164 |
| King's Lynn & West Norfolk | district | 50.16 | 6th worst of 164 |
| Lewes | district | 46.96 | 7th worst of 164 |
| Eastbourne | district | 46.18 | 8th worst of 164 |
| Harborough | district | 44.48 | 9th worst of 164 |
| Eastleigh | district | 44.04 | 10th worst of 164 |
| Council | Class | Value | In its class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mansfield | district | -9.52 | 1st best of 164 |
| Basingstoke & Deane | district | -6.74 | 2nd best of 164 |
| Waverley | district | -5.85 | 3rd best of 164 |
| Oxford | district | -2.58 | 4th best of 164 |
| Dorset UA | unitary | -2.13 | 1st best of 62 |
| Mid Sussex | district | -1.55 | 5th best of 164 |
| Epping Forest | district | -1.36 | 6th best of 164 |
| Brighton & Hove UA | unitary | -1.29 | 2nd best of 62 |
| Middlesbrough UA | unitary | -1.06 | 3rd best of 62 |
| Greenwich | london | -0.94 | 1st best of 33 |
| name | corporate-overhead-ratio |
|---|---|
| dataset | 01-revenue-outturn |
| kind | constructed |
| type | percentage |
| unit | % of total service expenditure |
| grain | council-year |
| role | feature |
| source | "Formula: `(RO6_cencrp_net_cur_exp + RO6_cennd_mng_spp_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. Near-zero numerators usually reflect aggressive recharging, not genuine leanness. |
| calculated | calculated/corporate-overhead-ratio.csv |
| calculated_rows | 3428 |
| calculated_periods | 2017-18 to 2024-25 |
| calculated_date | 2026-08-13 |
| score_note | Intuitive 'spend on running the organisation' share with real efficiency content, though recharging artefacts and overlap with central-services-ratio cap it. |
| 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 |
Share of the budget spent on running the organisation (corporate core plus non-recharged management/support) rather than on services. Lower is roughly leaner, but near-zero values usually mean aggressive recharging, not efficiency — treat extreme lows as accounting artefacts. Use the central services ratio as a recharge-robust cross-check.