FOI reference: FOI-2026-3710
You asked
HM Treasury has confirmed to me in response to Freedom of Information that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) compiles public sector current receipts statistics, including council tax, using local government data collected from the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).
Please provide:
1. Any recorded guidance or methodology explaining how council tax receipts collected by billing authorities are classified and recorded by the ONS within UK public sector current receipts.
2. Recorded information explaining what the council tax figure represents for this purpose — for example, whether it represents actual cash collected, accrued council tax, amounts billed or figures supplied by MHCLG.
3. Any recorded information explaining whether the classification of council tax as a UK public sector current receipt involves any council tax money being paid into, transferred to, credited to, or otherwise accounted for through the UK Consolidated Fund.
4. Section 115(2)(a) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 provides that there shall be paid into the Consolidated Fund: “any sums received by the Secretary of State in consequence of this Act”.
Please provide any recorded information held by the ONS explaining whether section 115(2)(a), or any sums paid into the Consolidated Fund pursuant to that provision, form any part of the statistical or accounting treatment of council tax within UK public sector current receipts.
In particular, please confirm whether the ONS distinguishes between council tax receipts retained or accounted for within local government and any sums arising under the Local Government Finance Act 1992 which are paid into the Consolidated Fund.
For context, HM Treasury has confirmed to me that:
“The Consolidated Fund does not receive any receipts directly from local government authorities.”
I am therefore seeking recorded information held by the ONS that clarifies whether the Consolidated Fund provisions within the 1992 Act have any relevance to the ONS's classification and recording of council tax within public sector current receipts.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are able to answer questions 1 and 2 from the first part of the request. Question 3 and 4 require information that we don't hold. We would recommend contacting the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) for assistance with those. You can email MHCLG at foi@communities.gov.uk.
1. In line with the European System of National and Regional Accounts (ESA 2010), Council Tax is classified by us as a local government current receipt under Other Current Taxes (D.59, specifically D.591a). Receipts collected by billing authorities are collected and published by the MHCLG and the devolved administrations of Scotland and Wales.
Note that, in the case of MHCLG, data are provided to the ONS in advance of publication via their live tables as these are updated quarterly, while the Public sector finances is a monthly bulletin and the most up-to-date data are often required in advance of fiscal events such as the Autumn Budget.
Council Tax (identifier NMHM) can be found in the Appendix D dataset of our monthly Public Sector Finances bulletin.
Northern Ireland is not included within this answer as there is no Council Tax, instead there is a system of Domestic Rates which are recorded differently.
2. Data published by MHCLG and the devolved administrations include accrued data, which we use in turn in compiling a UK total as ESA 2010 guidance requires such data to be on such an accruals basis.
Brief guidance on the treatment of current receipts in the Public Sector Finances bulletin can be found in the cover sheet of Appendix D, although, like some other current taxes, Council Tax is not time-adjusted due to the quality of the data we receive making such further treatment unnecessary.
The only additional treatment we make is one regular small adjustment (less than £10.0 million) supplied in the published Wales data that represents debt write-offs, and as such reduces the accrued total for Wales by around 0.4% each year.