This tracks whether a council's pile of unpaid council tax got bigger or smaller compared with last year. Think of it as the direction of travel for old unpaid bills. A negative number means the council is chipping away at the backlog; a high positive number means unpaid debt is stacking up faster than it's being cleared.
| name | arrears_growth |
|---|---|
| dataset | 03-council-tax-collection |
| kind | constructed |
| type | numeric |
| unit | % per year |
| grain | billing authority |
| role | feature |
| source | formula: (ct_arrears_stock 2024-25 − ct_arrears_stock 2023-24) / ct_arrears_stock 2023-24 (Table_9a col 30 in Table_9_QRC4_2024-25.ods and Table_9_QRC4_2023-24_revised.ods) |
| period | 2023-24 to 2024-25 |
| missingness | unknown |
| score_note | Direction of the arrears pile is a good dynamic signal, but confounded by write-off policy and year joins. |
| peer_group | council class (district / county / unitary / metropolitan / London) — not yet scored on the leaderboard |
Percentage growth of the total arrears stock year on year, showing whether the uncollected pile is being worked down or is still growing. Write-off policy affects it: a council can shrink arrears by writing debt off rather than collecting it, so read alongside writeoff_rate. Authority list changes across years can break the join.