This compares a council's pile of unpaid council tax with the amount it bills in a whole year, so big and small councils can be compared fairly. It answers: relative to what this council asks for each year, how much old unpaid debt is it sitting on? A low number means the backlog is small change; a high number means the unpaid pile amounts to a large slice of a full year's bills.
| name | arrears_intensity |
|---|---|
| dataset | 03-council-tax-collection |
| kind | constructed |
| type | numeric |
| unit | ratio |
| grain | billing authority |
| role | feature |
| source | formula: ct_arrears_stock / ct_collectable_debit (Table_9a cols 30, 5) |
| period | 2024-25 financial year (stock at 31 March 2025 over 2024-25 debit) |
| missingness | unknown |
| score_note | Self-normalised arrears burden with a clean built-in denominator; overlaps other arrears ratios in-set. |
| peer_group | council class (district / county / unitary / metropolitan / London) — not yet scored on the leaderboard |
The closing arrears stock expressed as a share of one year's collectable billing, normalising the uncollected pile by council size. High values mean the council carries years' worth of accumulated collection failure. Council tax support schemes affect the collectable base and hence the denominator.