Statistics

Council Tax Comparisons between Scotland and England – Coherence Blog

July 11, 2024 by lisaclark No Comments | Category Public Sector, Statistics Policy

This blog represents part of our themed month to support coherence in statistics. Often, we hear statisticians refer to coherence in the context of the ability to compare statistics across different parts of the UK, or other geographies. Jon Hunter in Scottish Government’s Local Government Analytical Unit describes his recent work to improve contextual information for users of council tax statistics, explaining that caution should be taken when making comparisons across the nations.

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Council Tax rates are regularly quoted as being lower in Scotland than in England. However, does a simple numerical comparison tell you everything you need to know?

At face value, the official statistics show that the average Council Tax bill per dwelling in Scotland is over £350 per year lower. However, there are several key differences that must be taken into account when considering how coherent and comparable the two sets of statistics are.

These differences include:

• Property band valuations for Council Tax in Scotland and England are different – valuation bands boundaries in Scotland are set at two-thirds of 1991 England levels.
• Growth in property values across the UK since the last national Council Tax valuation exercise (more than 30 years ago) has been disparate – it differs nationally and even locally.
• The proportion of dwellings in each property band are not the same – dwellings in England are more likely to be in a lower Council Tax band than dwellings in Scotland.
• Discounts, reductions and exemptions are different.

And perhaps most importantly:

• Local councils in England and Scotland deliver different services and functions with different structures, further complicating direct comparisons of Council Tax and local government funding.

In order to support users of these statistics to understand these differences, we undertook a piece of work to consider the best way to explain the wider context around the topic area and also the understandable desire for stakeholders to make comparisons across the UK. In doing this, we took account of our knowledge of the data, the needs of our users and guidance published by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).

As a result, we published a short paper alongside our latest Council Tax data to support users – Council Tax Rates: Comparing Scotland to other UK nations.  This goes into some detail on the differences in how Council Tax operates and how councils have different structures and responsibilities in England, Wales and Scotland.  It also provides a form of words to be used as a caveat whenever comparing council tax rates across the nations.  This is in line with the OSR’s intelligent transparency guidelines.

Making simple numerical comparisons without referencing the different contexts and explaining the policy choices made over time could be seen as a misuse of statistics by the OSR and we are committed to supporting our users to make appropriate use of these data.

This blog highlights that approaches can differ across the nations, so full coherence is not always possible.  It describes how caution should be taken and context should be set out when making statistical comparisons.  I hope you find this helpful and that some of this resonates with issues you face with your own data.

For more information on Council Tax Statistics, please see the links below:

• Local government finance statistics
• Council tax datasets

For any enquiries, please contact Lgfstats@Gov.Scot

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