This is the total unpaid council tax owed to a council, divided by the number of people who live there — roughly, how many pounds of unpaid bills exist per resident. It makes councils of very different sizes comparable. A low figure means little unpaid debt hanging over the area; a high figure means a lot of tax has gone unpaid relative to the population.
| name | arrears_per_capita |
|---|---|
| dataset | 03-council-tax-collection |
| kind | constructed |
| type | numeric |
| unit | £ per person |
| grain | billing authority |
| role | feature |
| source | formula: ct_arrears_stock × 1000 / population (Table_9a col 30; population from sibling dataset 12-wastedataflow, Q001 population in Waste_Collection_data_England_2024-25.csv, joined on authority) |
| period | as at 31 March 2025 |
| missingness | unknown |
| score_note | Depends on a fragile cross-dataset population join and duplicates arrears_intensity's job. |
| peer_group | council class (district / county / unitary / metropolitan / London) — not yet scored on the leaderboard |
Closing arrears stock divided by resident population, giving a size-normalised arrears burden comparable across all councils. It complements arrears_intensity with a demographic rather than billing denominator. A dwellings denominator would be preferable, but no sibling dataset 01-12 carries a verified dwellings count; the cross-dataset join on authority name/code can also fail for reorganised councils.