2021-22 local financial returns (LFRs) - guidance notes

12. LFR 09: Central Services

All expenditure and income relating to central services, regardless of which department provides the service, should be recorded in LFR 09. This should include penalties for the late payment of Council Tax or other services.

Central Services data is required using the discretionary subdivisions of service set out in CIPFA's SeRCOP guidance. In addition, expenditure / income is requested for:

• Housing Benefit Administration (Column G);
• Council Tax Valuation (Column M);
• Non-Domestic Lands Valuation (Column N);
• Non-Road Lighting (Column P).

VJBs are expected to provide figures for the following subservices:

• Registration of Electors (Column L);
• Council Tax Valuation (Column M);
• Non-Domestic Lands Valuation (Column N);
• Corporate and Democratic Core Costs (Column R);
• Non-Distributed Costs (Column S).

VJBs should record income received from their constituent councils against the relevant subservices in Row 19. Councils in areas served by VJBs should split the requisition paid to VJBs against the relevant subservices in Row 10.

RTPs are expected to provide figures for the following subservices:

• Corporate and Democratic Core Costs (Column R);
• Non-Distributed Costs (Column S).

RTPs should record income received from their constituent councils against the relevant subservices in Row 19. Councils in areas served by RTPs should record any element of the payment to the RTP against the relevant subservices in Row 10.

Council Tax Reduction Administration (Column D): Councils are required to provide figures for the administration for Council Tax Reduction. Where it is not possible to provide exact figures, councils are required to provide an estimate using an appropriate apportionment methodology. Any returns where this figure is zero will be queried and a figure required to be provided.

Other (Column T): It is expected that all rows in this column will be zero or near to zero as all expenditure and income should be recorded in the appropriate subservices within the LFRs. The exception is costs incurred relating to equal pay for previous years only which should be recorded here.

Where a local authority feels there is no appropriate subservice to record specific expenditure / income, this should be recorded here and an explanation of what the figures relate to should be provided in the Comments box at the bottom of LFR 09.

12.1 Additional Information

COVID-19 Specific Grants (Row 36): Record here the amount of COVID-19 specific grants that have been applied to each subservice. A full list of COVID-19 Specific grants is provided in Annex B.