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Scottish Local Government Financial Statistics 1998-1999

Introduction

Scottish Local Government Financial Statistics is an annual publication prepared by the Local Government Finance Statistics branch of the Scottish Executive. It gives a series of tables largely relating to local authority accounts.

Source and coverage of data

The tables in this issue have been compiled from various financial returns made by local authorities, as well as joint boards. The co-operation of these bodies in completing returns is gratefully acknowledged.

Most of the data are presented at Scotland level, however, tables 10, 11 and 12 (showing, respectively, ‘Outstanding Debt’ and ‘Local tax base’) have been broken down to show individual local authority data. All of the data used relate to the 1998-99 financial year, with the exception of sections 3 and 4 which also provide figures for other years.

Contents

The publication gives information, contained in four broad sections on local government finance in Scotland.

• Section 1 – Income and Expenditure
• Section 2 – Outstanding Debt
• Section 3 – Local Taxes
• Section 4 – Local Authority Employment

Summary

Expenditure
In 1998/99, Scottish local authority gross expenditure was £11.8 billion. This can be split into gross revenue expenditure of £11.0 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 £10.0 billion. [Tables 1 and 2A]

Just under half of this £10.0 billion local authority revenue expenditure went on education (£2.6 billion) and housing services (£2.2 billion) in 1998/99. A further £1.4 billion went on social work services, with revenue expenditure on law, order and protective services amounting to just under £1 billion. [Tables 2A and 3]

Almost 40 per cent of local authority revenue expenditure on general fund, housing and trading services was accounted for by employee costs; 44 per cent on operating costs and a further 11 per cent on loan charges. [Fig 1]

Income
Scottish local authority gross income in 1998/99 was £12.5 billion. This can be split into gross revenue income of £12.1 billion and gross capital income of £0.4 billion. Revenue income (excluding special, common good and superannuation funds) was £10.0 billion in 1998/99. [Tables 1 and 2A]

Of this, £5.4 billion came from Government Grants; £1.7 billion from fees and charges (mainly council house rents); £1.4 billion from non-domestic rates and £1.1 billion from council tax. [Tables 1 and 2A]

Employment
As at December 1999 local government in Scotland employed over 290,000 people. Of these, over a third worked part-time.

Structure and functions of local government
The Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994, which came into force on 1 April 1996, significantly changed the structure of local government in Scotland. Prior to the 1996-97 financial year local government in Scotland operated mainly on a two-tier basis, with 9 regional councils and 53 district councils. The district and regional councils had responsibility for delivering different types of local government services while the three island councils provided services for Orkney, Shetland and Eilean Siar (the Western Isles).

Local government reorganisation left the 3 island councils unchanged while the district councils and regional councils were replaced with 29 single tier (or unitary) bodies (see map on page 5). These 32 unitary councils are responsible for all the local government services formerly administered by their predecessors with two main exceptions: water and sewerage (now the responsibility of 3 public water authorities) and the reporters to Children’s Panels (for which responsibility now lies with the Scottish Children’s Reporters Administration).

In addition to information from the 32 unitary authorities described above, this publication provides information on the income and expenditure of police and fire services. For most of Scotland these services are provided through Joint Boards, which are the collective responsibility of two or more councils. The publication also includes information drawn from the income and expenditure of the Forth Bridge, Tay Bridge and the Strathclyde Passenger Transport Authority (which are the collective responsibility of groups of councils in the same way as police and fire services).

Notes to tables
All financial data are shown at outturn level. That is to say that figures are actuals supplied after the year’s accounts have been closed. Wherever possible actual figures have been used, where this was not possible "near actual" figures have been taken. For this reason the figures published in this edition may not always agree with those published in Local authority Abstracts of Accounts.

Please note that, due to rounding, some totals may not agree with the sum of their constituent parts.

The following symbols are used throughout the publication:

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