The Local Council Report / Council tax collection / Dual collection gap · markdown view

Dual collection gap

percentage points · constructed · billing authority

Councils collect two big taxes — council tax from households and business rates from firms — and this adds up the share of each left unpaid in the year. Looking at both together filters out one-off flukes in either tax. A small combined gap means the council is good at collecting money generally; a large one points to a council-wide weakness in getting paid.

Definition

namedual_collection_gap
dataset03-council-tax-collection
kindconstructed
typenumeric
unitpercentage points
grainbilling authority
roleoutcome
sourceformula: (100 − ct_collection_rate) + (100 − nndr_collection_rate) (Table_9a col 9, Table_9b col 9)
period2024-25 financial year
missingnessunknown
score_noteRobust systemic-weakness flag, yet a pure linear combination of two rates already in the set.
peer_groupcouncil class (district / county / unitary / metropolitan / London) — not yet scored on the leaderboard

Combined in-year leakage across both council tax and business rates. Because it sums the shortfall on two independent tax streams, it is robust to one-off quirks in either and flags councils that are systemically weak at collection. In-year rates understate ultimate collection for both streams.