Local government in Scotland: Challenges and performance 2019

About the data

All figures relating to spending are in real terms with a base year of 2017/18.

We use data from the following sources:

• Local Government Benchmarking Framework: The Improvement Service, in partnership with councils, collates and reports on the Local Government Benchmarking Framework (LGBF) to provide comparative performance information for councils to help them improve. The framework includes over 70 performance indicators. While these are not designed to comprehensively cover performance across all council activities, they are spread over a broad range of service areas.
  
  For education indicators, as leaver information is not available when the LGBF publishes data, the LGBF uses data based on the year pupils are expected to leave school rather than the actual year they left. This means there are some small differences between it and data published by the Scottish Government later in the year.
• Scottish Government: Scottish index of multiple deprivation (SIMD) data.
• National Records of Scotland: Population change data 2013-2017 and population broken down by age group.
• Scottish Government: Local government finance circulars 2013, 2014 and 2019 used to calculate change in core revenue funding by council, from 2013/14 to 2018/19.
• Scottish Government: Urban rural classification rurality data.
• Scottish Government: Children in families with limited resources across Scotland 2014-2016 data on children in poverty.

How to use our graphics

All the graphics are interactive:

• Hovering over the map and graphs will give you more detailed information.
• You can select the council you are interested in using either the map or the drop down filter menu.
• To clear selections, click on any white space in the graph you used as a filter.
• To access the data behind the graphics, click on the graph you're interested in, then click 'Download' at the bottom of the graphics and select the format.