Of every pound this council spends on services, how much is taken up by the care it must legally provide to children and vulnerable adults. It matters because whatever this doesn't take is all that's left for everything else — libraries, parks, roads, bins. A high or rising share means care costs are crowding out the rest; it signals pressure on the council, not that the council is wasteful.
| Council | Class | Value | In its class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blackpool UA | unitary | 55.82 | 1st highest of 62 |
| Swindon UA | unitary | 50.4 | 2nd highest of 62 |
| Middlesbrough UA | unitary | 49.76 | 3rd highest of 62 |
| Staffordshire CC | county | 49.55 | 1st highest of 21 |
| North Somerset UA | unitary | 49.36 | 4th highest of 62 |
| Redcar & Cleveland UA | unitary | 49.32 | 5th highest of 62 |
| Rotherham | metropolitan | 48.83 | 1st highest of 36 |
| Torbay UA | unitary | 48.57 | 6th highest of 62 |
| Darlington UA | unitary | 47.58 | 7th highest of 62 |
| East Sussex CC | county | 47.57 | 2nd highest of 21 |
| Council | Class | Value | In its class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wyre Forest | district | -0.71 | 164th highest of 164 |
| Crawley | district | -0.09 | 163rd highest of 164 |
| East Suffolk | district | 0 | 29th highest of 164 |
| Cotswold | district | 0 | 29th highest of 164 |
| Forest of Dean | district | 0 | 29th highest of 164 |
| Gloucester | district | 0 | 29th highest of 164 |
| Stroud | district | 0 | 29th highest of 164 |
| Tewkesbury | district | 0 | 29th highest of 164 |
| Basingstoke & Deane | district | 0 | 29th highest of 164 |
| East Hampshire | district | 0 | 29th highest of 164 |
| name | social-care-squeeze |
|---|---|
| dataset | 01-revenue-outturn |
| kind | constructed |
| type | percentage |
| unit | % of total service expenditure |
| grain | council-year |
| role | feature |
| source | "Formula: `(RS_asc_net_exp + RS_csc_net_exp) / RS_totsx_net_exp`, and its trend. 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." |
| score_note | Crowding-out share is vivid and computable from this CSV, but it is a pressure indicator more than an inefficiency measure. |
| calculated | ../calculated/social-care-squeeze.csv |
| calculated_rows | 3429 |
| calculated_periods | 2017-18 to 2024-25 |
| calculated_date | 2026-08-13 |
| peer_group | districts (n=204), unitaries (n=65), metropolitan boroughs (n=36), London boroughs (n=33), counties (n=27) — context variable, excluded from leaderboard scoring |
Share of the budget absorbed by statutory adult and children's social care — the crowding-out of everything else. A rising squeeze explains cuts to discretionary services and is a pressure indicator rather than an inefficiency signal in itself. Only meaningful for classes that hold social care responsibilities (not shire districts).