Local government revenue expenditure and financing 2018-2019: provisional outturn and budget estimates

Data Interpretation

NDR income figures in this publication are the provisional NDR income figures reported by local authorities in the POBE return or estimates used by the local authorities when setting their budget. Actual distributable amounts received by councils are given in The Local Government Finance (Scotland) Amendment Order 2018 and The Local Government Finance (Scotland) Amendment Order 2019.

Integration of Health and Social Care will affect social work figures. Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) will pool funding from both local authorities and the health boards which is then used to commission services from the local authority and the NHS. This income from the IJB is treated as service income by the local authority and, as such, is excluded from the net revenue expenditure measure in this publication. Therefore, the net revenue expenditure figure here represents the amount of expenditure on services commissioned by the local authority outwith integration plus the amount the local authority has contributed to the IJB for the integration of health and social care.

When looking at trends over time, comparisons should always be made on a like for like basis. That is Provisional Outturn should be compared with the Provisional Outturn from previous publications, and the Budget Estimates should be compared with the Budget Estimates from previous publications. The Provisional Outturn should not be compared with the Budget Estimates.

Other factors to consider when interpreting the data are:

• Across years, changes in accounting standards may impact on the categorisation of expenditure which can lead to discontinuity in the data collected between financial years.
• Budgets are financial plans for the year and will reflect both the anticipated demand for services and the resources available to deliver those services. Any year on year comparisons need to take these factors into account.
• Net revenue expenditure can be affected by large, one-off payments in any year, for example Equal Pay back-pay settlement expenditure.

Related Publications

Capital Provisional Outturn and Budget Estimates are published through the Capital Expenditure and Financing publication, available at www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Local-Government-Finance/Publications/CPOBE.

The final, audited 2018-19 net revenue expenditure figures will be published in the Scottish Local Government Financial Statistics (SLGFS) 2018-19, scheduled for publication in February 2020. Previous SLGFS publications are available at www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Local-Government-Finance/PubScottishLGFStats.