Briefing 51
Local Government Financial
Statistics 2000-2001
The Local Government Finance Statistics branch
of the Scottish Executive have recently published the Scottish Local
Government Financial Statistics for 2000-2001.
This publication gives information on local government
finance in Scotland as well as providing information on the income
and expenditure of police and fire services for the year 2000-2001.
The figures in the publication are broken down
to show both capital and revenue accounts and also the split between
the different service accounts operated by local authorities.
The figures on Local Authority accounts within the publication
are split into three broad sections these are Income and Expenditure,
Outstanding Debt and Local Taxes.
Section 1 – Income and Expenditure
Scottish LA accounts have two distinct constituent parts,
the Revenue Account and the Capital Account.
- Revenue Expenditure covers the cost of maintaining local
services and includes costs such as employee salaries and service
operating costs.
- Revenue Income comes from a variety of sources including
Government Grants, local taxes, sales, fees and charges on local
authority services.
- Capital Expenditure relates to the provision and improvement
of tangible fixed assets such as schools, new houses and machinery
that continue to be of value long after their acquisition.
- Capital Income is made up mostly from the sale of these assets.
Income
Scottish Local Authority gross income in 2000-01
was £13 billion. This can be split into gross revenue income of
£12.8 billion and also gross Capital income of £0.2 billion, coming
mostly from the sale of fixed assets. Revenue income excluding
special, common good and superannuation funds was £10.9 billion
in 2000-01. Of this, £5.6 billion came from government grants;
£1.8 billion from fees and charges, £1.7 billion from non-domestic
rates and £1.3 billion from council tax. For percentage breakdowns
of LA income from 2000-2001 see Figs 2 and 4 below
Source: Scottish Local
Government Financial Statistics for 2000-2001.
Expenditure
In 2000-01, Scottish Local Authority gross expenditure
was £12.8 billion. This was split into gross revenue expenditure
of £12 billion, and gross capital expenditure on land, buildings
and other major assets of £0.8 billion. Revenue expenditure on
general fund services, housing and trading services i.e. excluding
special, common good and superannuation funds was £11 billion.
Just under half of this £11 billion local authority revenue expenditure
went on education (£3 billion) and housing services (£2.3 billion)
in 2000-01. A further £1.6 billion went on social work services,
with revenue expenditure on law, order and protective services
amounting to almost £1.1 billion. Approximately 40 per cent of
local authority revenue expenditure on general fund, housing and
trading services was accounted for by employee costs with 45 per
cent on operating costs and a further 10 per cent on loan charges.
For percentage breakdown of LA expenditure for 2000-2001 see figs
1 and 3 below
Figure 3: Capital expenditure
Source: Scottish Local
Government Financial Statistics for 2000-2001
Section 2 – Outstanding Debt
The publication reveals Scottish LA debt for 2000-2001 amounts
to £9.9 billion. These figures are broken down into their constituent
parts for the general fund, trading services and the housing revenue
account as follows;
General fund services are those services financed principally
from non-domestic rates, council tax and revenue support grant
and include education, social work, roads and transport, law,
order and protective services and cleansing. The figures for 2000-2001
show that total relevant debt of all Scottish LAs amounted to
£6.3 billion and for non-relevant debt the figure was £0.5 billion.
- Trading Services & Housing RA
The costs of servicing debt on local authority
Trading Services are met mainly through the charges made for these
services, whilst the costs of servicing Housing Revenue Account
(HRA) debt are met principally from income from rents and from
Housing Support Grant. The figures for Trading Services show total
Scottish Local Authority debt at £104,078, whilst Housing Revenue
Account figures show overall debt standing at £3.5 billion for
2000-2001.
Section 3 – Local Taxes
Local taxes are an important element of financing for local authorities
accounting for a quarter of all Scottish Local Authority revenue
income. There are essentially two different types of tax levied
by local authorities, domestic taxes (council tax) and non-domestic
taxes (non-domestic rates — NDR). The publication shows that
at April 2001 the total non-domestic rateable value of all Scotland's
local authorities stood at £4.3 billion. In addition, Scottish
Local Authorities income from non-domestic rates stood at £1.6
billion and income from Council Tax stood at £1.6 billion also.
Information for branches
Be aware that the publication provides a useful breakdown of
Scottish LA spending on services including employee costs. For
example out of a total expenditure on Law, Order & Protective
Services of £1.04 billion employee costs stood at £920 million.
Of this £736million was spent on Police and £182 on the Fire Services.
Contacts list:
Dave Watson - d.watson@unison.co.uk
@ The P&I Team
14 West Campbell St
Glasgow G26RX
Tel 0845 355 0845
Fax 0141-307 2572
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