This tells you whether a council's need for emergency bailouts is getting bigger or smaller each year. Why care: a council whose bailouts keep growing is sinking deeper; one whose bailouts are shrinking may be recovering. If a council has a rising trajectory, its financial problems are getting worse despite the help.
| name | efs_trajectory |
|---|---|
| dataset | 04-efs-s114 |
| kind | constructed |
| type | categorical |
| unit | sign (-/0/+) |
| grain | council (councils with >=2 EFS years) |
| role | feature |
| source | formula: sign of efs_amount_in_year(t) - efs_amount_in_year(t-1); inputs: efs_amount_in_year (this dataset) |
| period | 2020-21 to 2026-27 |
| missingness | Undefined for councils with fewer than two EFS years or with unparseable amounts in either year; sensitive to retroactive amount revisions. |
| score_note | Direction-of-travel signal defined for few councils and flips under retroactive revisions. |
| peer_group | council class (district / county / unitary / metropolitan / London) — not yet scored on the leaderboard |
Whether a council's reliance on exceptional support is growing or shrinking year on year, from the sign of consecutive EFS amounts. A rising trajectory suggests deepening distress; a falling one, stabilisation. Caveat: in-principle amounts are revised retroactively, so the sign can flip after GOV.UK updates.