Data description

What is ‘CSP’?

The data we will be using throughout this course relates to the Core Spending Power (CSP) of English local authorities between 2015 and 2020. This is a measure of the resources available to local authorities in England to fund service delivery. The CSP is broken down into several components, presented as variables in the data. These components include:

  • Settlement Funding Assessment (sfa)
  • Compensation for under-indexing the business rates multipler (under_index)
  • Income from council tax (ct_total)
  • New Homes Bonus (nhb)
  • Rural Services Delivery Grant (rsdg)

Spending power is given in millions of pounds (£). The data were provided by the UK government’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Full guidance on the data can be found on the Department’s website. A brief description of the variables included in the data are given below.

Descriptions of variables

Identifier variables

Each dataset contains a unique identifier code variable, ons_code. This is a code given by the Government’s Office for National Statistics (ONS), and is used to join different datasets. There is also an authority variable which contains the local authority name (to see where each local authority lies on a map, you can visit the Government’s geoportal website).

Regions of England

In addition to each local authority’s unique code and name, we are given the region that they lie within. England is separated into 9 regions (shown on this map) which are given as acronyms in the data. These are:

  • L = London
  • NW = North West
  • NE = North East
  • YH = Yorkshire and the Humber
  • WM = West Midlands
  • EM = East Midlands
  • EE = East England
  • SW = South West
  • SE = South East

Settlement Funding Assessment (SFA)

The Settlement Funding Assessment (sfa in the data) is the baseline funding level of local authorities, and includes the Revenue Support Grant (a central government grant given to local authorities).

Under-indexing business rate multipliers

The under_index variable is given to compensate local authorities that under-indexed business rate multipliers in previous years (i.e. those that used a measure of inflation that was lower than that should have been used).

Council tax

Council tax (ct_total) is the income made by each local authority from council tax. In England, the amount of council tax charged to residents is set by each local authority to make up additional revenue needed to cover planned spending.

New Homes Bonus

The nhb variables is the funding received as part of the New Homes Bonus, a government inncentive to encourage local authorities to promote new housing delevopment.

Rural Services Delivery Grant

The rsdg variable is funding received as part of the Rural Services Delivery Grant, provided to rural councils to recognise additional costs in these areas.