Producing time series comparable to 2020-21 LFRs: guidance note

Changes to LFRs Over Time

The LFRs are reviewed each year ahead of the returns being issued for completion, with revisions to the return made where required. Changes to the LFRs between years can impact comparability over time.

The 2011-12 LFRs saw the introduction of LFR 00 and a substantial change to the format and content of the service-level LFRs. This document, therefore focuses on LFRs from 2011-12 onwards. If users require comparable data prior to 2011-12, they should contact lgfstats@gov.scot for advice.

The following changes have been made to the LFRs since 2011-12 and can be adjusted for to provide figures comparable to the 2020-21 LFRs. The specific adjustments required are detailed in the next section.

Signage for Income

From 2016-17 onwards, income is presented as negative figures within the LFRs to mirror the signage used in local authorities’ accounts. The adjustments set out in this document reflect the appropriate signage to allow direct comparisons to 2020-21 LFRs.

Recharges

This relates to income generated by one service area for specific work provided to another service within the same local authority. Prior to 2016-17, recharges were included within the Gross Service Income figure. From 2016-17 onwards, recharges are included in Gross Expenditure to better reflect the expenditure attributable to each service and eliminate double counting within expenditure figures due to intra-authority transfers.

Contributions to / from IJBs

Following the establishment of IJBs, LFRs from 2015-16 to 2018-19 included lines relating to contributions to and from IJBs in gross expenditure and income calculations respectively. The recording of transfer payments to and from IJBs was reviewed ahead of the 2019-20 LFR.

Since 2019-20, transfer payments to IJBs are recorded in total against a new ‘Integration Joint Board (IJBs)’ subservice in LFR 03, rather than across all subservices as in prior years. This means that an adjustment must be made to exclude transfer payments to IJBs from all subservices for 2015-16 to 2018-19.

Since 2019-20, ‘Income from IJB to commission services’ (previously called ‘Contributions from IJBs’) are retained across all subservices and so no adjustments need to be made in relation to this.

Further information on the impact of this change on key figures is provided in the ‘Notes’ tab of the 2019-20 LFR 03 workbook.

Revenue Contributions to Capital (RCC)

RCC is revenue expenditure that has been used to fund capital projects. Prior to 2015-16, this was included in the Gross Expenditure calculation within the LFRs. However, RCC is also captured within the capital data provided by local authorities (via LFR CR from 2019-20 onwards) and presented in SLGFS.  From the 2015-16 LFRs onwards, it was therefore excluded from revenue expenditure calculations entirely to avoid double counting.

Requisitions

Requisition income refers to income received by a joint board from its constituent councils. The payment of requisition income is recorded by the constituent councils as a third party payment to joint boards. To eliminate double counting in aggregate LFR figures, an adjustment relating to requisition income is made when calculating the ‘adjusted for LFR purposes’ figures.

The only service-level LFRs completed by joint boards are LFR 05 and LFR 09, and so, strictly speaking, adjustments relating to requisitions only need to be made when working with these LFRs. However, requisition rows are blank in all other service-level LFRs and so the adjustments as detailed in the next section can be used across all service-level LFRs without error.

In the 2011-12 service-level LFRs, requisition figures were not detailed specifically. However, requisition income was included in the ‘Contributions from other local authorities’ line and so appropriate adjustments can still be made to provide 2011-12 figures on a comparable basis to 2020-21.

Figure 1: Summary of Changes to LFRs Over Time