The simplest headline comparison: how much the council spends on services each year for every person living in the area. It matters because raw totals just reflect council size, while this puts big and small councils on the same footing. Higher can mean better-funded services, greater local need, or higher costs; lower can mean efficiency or underfunding — and it only makes sense compared between councils of the same kind.
| Council | Class | Value | In its class |
|---|---|---|---|
| City of London | london | 23,396 | 1st highest of 33 |
| Isles of Scilly | unitary | 4,682 | 1st highest of 61 |
| Camden | london | 3,173 | 2nd highest of 33 |
| Hackney | london | 2,862 | 3rd highest of 33 |
| Islington | london | 2,736 | 4th highest of 33 |
| Tower Hamlets | london | 2,715 | 5th highest of 33 |
| Westminster | london | 2,675 | 6th highest of 33 |
| Knowsley | metropolitan | 2,651 | 1st highest of 36 |
| Lewisham | london | 2,582 | 7th highest of 33 |
| Halton UA | unitary | 2,569 | 2nd highest of 61 |
| Council | Class | Value | In its class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nuneaton & Bedworth | district | 75.37 | 161st highest of 161 |
| Hart DC | district | 87.35 | 160th highest of 161 |
| Brentwood | district | 92.42 | 159th highest of 161 |
| Gloucester | district | 100.2 | 158th highest of 161 |
| Eastleigh | district | 105.95 | 157th highest of 161 |
| Broadland | district | 107.04 | 156th highest of 161 |
| Hinckley & Bosworth | district | 108.5 | 155th highest of 161 |
| Waverley | district | 111.3 | 154th highest of 161 |
| Oadby & Wigston | district | 112.65 | 153rd highest of 161 |
| South Kesteven | district | 114.81 | 152nd highest of 161 |
| name | spend-per-resident |
|---|---|
| dataset | 01-revenue-outturn |
| kind | constructed |
| type | numeric |
| unit | £ per resident per year |
| grain | council-year |
| role | feature |
| source | Formula: `RS_totsx_net_exp * 1000 / population`. Inputs: this dataset's CSV + ONS mid-year population estimates (external, joined on `ONS_code`) |
| 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. ONS mid-year population estimates joined on `ONS_code` are not in this or sibling folders and must be sourced externally; undefined until that join exists." |
| score_note | The one-sentence headline comparator, but needs external population and mixes need, funding and efficiency; per-resident normalisations recur across datasets. |
| calculated | calculated/spend-per-resident.csv |
| calculated_rows | 317 |
| calculated_periods | 2024-25 only — population substituted from WasteDataFlow Q001 "Population of Authority" (dataset 12 raw quarterly CSV, last quarter's value), mapped to ONS codes via Defra LA_and_Regional_Spreadsheet Table_1, as ONS mid-year estimates are not on disk; Q001 exists only for 2024-25 |
| calculated_date | 2026-08-13 |
| peer_group | districts (n=161), unitaries (n=61), metropolitan boroughs (n=36), London boroughs (n=33), counties (n=21) — context variable, excluded from leaderboard scoring |
Headline size-adjusted cost of the council: total service expenditure per resident. It is the first-pass efficiency comparator but only meaningful within LA_class, since councils of different classes deliver different services. Requires the external ONS population join before it can be computed.