This is the total unpaid council tax a council was already owed from previous years when this year began — the debt it inherited from the past. It matters as the starting point: it's the pile the council should be trying to chase down. A big figure means lots of old unpaid bills carried over; a small one means the council started the year with a fairly clean slate.
| name | ct_arrears_bfwd |
|---|---|
| dataset | 03-council-tax-collection |
| kind | extracted |
| type | numeric |
| unit | £000 |
| grain | billing authority |
| role | denominator |
| source | data/Table_9_QRC4_2024-25.ods / sheet Table_9a / col 17 "13. Arrears for 2023-24 and earlier years brought forward on 1 April 2024" |
| period | as at 1 April 2024 |
| missingness | unknown |
| score_note | Opening stock reflects inherited history, not current performance; a denominator by role. |
| peer_group | council class (district / county / unitary / metropolitan / London) — not yet scored on the leaderboard |
The opening stock of council tax arrears inherited from prior years. It sets the baseline for measuring in-year debt-recovery effort (arrears_recovery_rate) and write-off propensity. A large opening stock reflects historic, not necessarily current, collection failure.