Funding of local government in Scotland: 2022 to 2023

What information was used to calculate the allocations?

Each service area had a different funding formula.

So, for example

• The formula for street lighting distributed £60 million. It was shared out in proportion to the total length of roads in urban areas within each council.
• The formula for Planning & Economic Development distributed £98 million. It was shared out partly in proportion to population, and partly in proportion to deprivation levels, with an extra allocation for island populations.

The formulae used the latest data and often took account of deprivation or rurality. Island populations were usually also given a 12 per cent uplift because of their additional costs.

Sometimes councils were given a fixed amount each as part of the formula. In a few cases funding was decided on the basis of bids for funding.

How much of the formula was distributed based on population or pupil numbers - 49%

Summary of the 123 different indicators used in the funding formula

Summary of the data used to distribute the 2022-23 settlement

Graphic text below:

• Subsets of pupil numbers £2.90bn
• Age-based subsets of population £1.77bn
• Elderly mortality, morbidity and living alone £1.42bn
• Total pupil numbers £1.03bn
• Deprivation (DWP data) £1.03bn
• Deprivation (other data) £982m
• Population adjusted for visitors £629m
• Loan and contract costs £617m
• Other school data £552m
• Total population £423m
• Other data £407m
• Deprivation (SIMD data) £369m
• Homelessness data £220m
• Road usage £198m
• Road-length data £190m
• Rural pop £173m
• Children in lone parent households £168m
• Number of dwellings £134m
• Historical allocations £81m
• Flat rate £27m
• Urban pop £24m
• For other organisations £22m