Major capital projects in councils

 

Our follow-up report on Major capital investments in councils was published in January 2016.  It found that councils have taken a range of actions and display aspects of good practice. But, overall, they need to increase the pace of improvement to comply fully with good practice.

You can find out more about the types of projects councils are involved in, how they are procured and how they are funded in the interactive graphics below.

View data visualisation on Tableau 

Related reports

Major capital investment in councils: follow-up

An overview of local government in Scotland 2016

About the data

We collected the data on the individual project status and capital spend as part of our field work for our report, Major capital investments in councils, published on 14 January 2016. The audit focused on major capital projects over £5 million. The data on individual projects were provided to us by councils. The information on capital spend and funding is based on external auditor assessments and councils' audited annual accounts.

Projects marked as 'complete' were finished between April 2012 and October 2015. Projects marked as 'in progress' were ongoing as at October 2015, the last month captured in the report. The spend on these projects and their status may have changed since then. The sources of funding councils' capital spend are presented for the four financial years from 2011/12 to 20214/15. Factual accuracy of this information has been agreed with individual councils.

For the project type graphics:

  • Accommodation includes housing and office projects
  • Other includes art, sports, IT and projects which the councils themselves had classified as other, such as day care centres, harbour improvements and land regeneration
  • Roads and transport includes Edinburgh Trams

How to use our graphics

All the graphics are interactive:

  • Hovering over the map and graphs will give you more detailed information.
  • If you click on a council on the map the data presented will be for that council only.
  • Clicking on a category in any of the graphs or keys will show only the councils that category applies to.
  • To clear selections click on any white space in the graph you used as a filter.
  • Drop down menus let you select 'complete' or 'in progress' projects and choose a year for capital spend.
  • 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.