This is the total in court fees and admin charges a council added to people's bills when it took them to court over unpaid council tax. It's a rough measure of how often the council reaches for legal action to get paid. A high figure suggests heavy use of courts and bailiff-style enforcement; a low figure suggests a lighter touch — though some councils under-report this, so low isn't always proof of gentleness.
| name | ct_court_admin_costs |
|---|---|
| dataset | 03-council-tax-collection |
| kind | extracted |
| type | numeric |
| unit | £000 |
| grain | billing authority |
| role | feature |
| source | data/Table_9_QRC4_2024-25.ods / sheet Table_9a / col 31 "25. Court and administration costs" |
| period | 2024-25 financial year |
| missingness | may be under-reported ([note b]); otherwise unknown |
| score_note | Only enforcement-style signal in the set, but note b under-reporting and no denominator limit it. |
| peer_group | council class (district / county / unitary / metropolitan / London) — not yet scored on the leaderboard |
Court and administration costs added to taxpayer accounts through enforcement action. It proxies how heavily a council leans on court enforcement to collect. Caveat [note b]: this figure may be under-reported, so low values are not reliable evidence of light-touch enforcement.