Council Tax collection statistics: 2018-2019

2. Council Tax collection rates

Table 2: In-year Council Tax percentage received, by year to which the bill refers by Local Authority¹

Source: Up to 2012-13 - Statutory Performance Indicators published by Audit Scotland; From 2013-14 - Information supplied by local authorities to Scottish Government through the CTRR statistical return.
1 The figures exclude Council Tax Benefit/Reduction and Water and Sewerage Charges. They are before any amounts written off for bad or doubtful debt and reflect any correction to liabilities following billing.
2 For 2011-12;
3 For 2012-13;
4 For 2013-14;
5 For 2014-15;
6 For 2015-16;
7 For 2016-17;
8 For 2017-18,
9 For 2018-19: local authorities have reported collection rates on a 'line by line' accounting basis. Prior returns did not request this.
a Provisional figures.

Table 2 shows the Council Tax in-year collection rates - that is, the amount of Council Tax collected by the end of the relevant billing year, as a percentage of billed Council Tax. In-year collection rates have increased steadily from 87.2% for Scotland as a whole in 1998-99; to 94.3% in 2008-09; to 96.0% in 2018-19. This may in part be due to local authorities' more efficient and timely collection methods (for example, increasing use of direct debit and other 'electronic' methods).

Improvements are particularly clear for the local authorities which previously had the lowest rates of in-year collection. For example, the in-year collection rate for Glasgow City improved substantially from 90.0% in 2008-09 to 95.0% in 2018-19. Hence, variation of in-year collection rates between local authorities is now far less pronounced than in earlier years.

The trends described above are illustrated in Chart 2, which shows the increasing in-year collection rate for Scotland and the reduction in variation between collection rates for individual local authorities.

Until 2012-13, the Accounts Commission published the comparative in-year Council Tax collection rates for each local authority. The local government community, through the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers (SOLACE) and the Improvement Service, now produce this performance information through the Local Government Benchmarking Framework.

Chart 2: In-year Council Tax percentage received, by year to which the bill refers - Scotland, and minimum and maximum for Local Authorities

Table 3: Percentage of Council Tax received as at 31 March 2019, by year to which the bill refers and Local Authority¹

Source: Information supplied by local authorities to the Scottish Government on the CTRR statistical return.
1 All figures are net of discounts (e.g. single person discount), exemptions and surcharges. The figures exclude Council Tax Benefit/Reduction and Water and Sewerage Charges. They are before any amounts written off for bad or doubtful debt and reflect any correction to liabilities following billing.
2 These local authorities have reported their collection rates on a 'line by line' accounting basis. Statistical collections prior to 2011-12 did not ask for this information.

Table 3 shows the percentage of Council Tax for specific billing years, received by 31 March 2019. For 2018-19 this is the same as the in-year collection rate but, for other years, this includes late payments collected in years after the billing year.

For the earlier years, it is unlikely that much more Council Tax will be collected - hence, for these years, the percentages received are converging towards final collection rates.

Previous research has indicated that deprivation is linked to non-payment of Council Tax and this is likely to be a factor in variations between local authorities of these near-final collection rates for earlier years.

Table 4 gives a further representation of how in-year collection has improved over the last decade, from 94.3% for Scotland as a whole in 2008-09 to 96.0% in 2018-19. Conversely, the percentages of Council Tax being collected after each billing year have fallen sharply, from 2.8% for the 2008-09 billing year to 0.6% for the 2017-18 billing year. This pattern is a direct consequence of two factors - there is less Council Tax still left to collect, and less time has elapsed to collect it in (e.g. the 0.6% collected after 2017-18 is over a period of one year only).

Table 5 shows an alternative presentation of in-year and subsequent collection rates. The upper diagonal shows the in-year collection rate for Scotland as a whole and the table should be read by selecting a column and reading downwards. For example, for billing year 2008-09 (the left-most column of figures) the in-year collection rate was 94.3%. By the end of the next year (2009-10), the collection rate had risen to 95.4%. It had risen to 95.8% by the end of 2010-11, then more slowly to 97.1% by 2018-19. This pattern is shown in Chart 3.

Taking these collection rates together, the overall pattern for Scotland is:

• In-year collection is now well over 95%.
• A further 0.6% or so is collected in the following year.
• 'Final' collection can reasonably be expected to exceed 97%.

Chart 3: 2008-09 Council Tax percentage received as at 31 March each year

Table 4: In-year Council Tax percentage received and total Council Tax percentage received as at 31 March 2019, by year to which the bill refers¹

Source: In-year to 2012-13 - Statutory Performance Indicators published by Audit Scotland; Otherwise information supplied by local authorities to Scottish Government on the CTRR statistical return.
1 All figures are net of discounts (e.g. single person discount), exemptions and surcharges. The figures exclude Council Tax Benefit/Reduction and Water and Sewerage Charges. They are before any amounts written off for bad or doubtful debt and reflect any correction to liabilities following billing.

Table 5: Percentage of Council Tax received as at 31 March each year, by year to which the bill refers¹

Source: In-year to 2012-13 - Statutory Performance Indicators published by Audit Scotland; Otherwise information supplied by local authorities to Scottish Government on the CTRR statistical return.
1 All figures are net of discounts (e.g. single person discount), exemptions and surcharges. The figures exclude Council Tax Benefit/Reduction and Water and Sewerage Charges. They are before any amounts written off for bad or doubtful debt and reflect any correction to liabilities following billing.