Catalogue description Home Office and successors: Taxation Branch and successors: Local Government Financial Statistics

Search within or browse this series to find specific records of interest.

Date range

Details of HLG 32
Reference: HLG 32
Title: Home Office and successors: Taxation Branch and successors: Local Government Financial Statistics
Description:

This series comprises financial statistics of receipts and expenditure of local authorities, rateable values and poor law costs. These returns, which are supplementary to the published statistics, were collected successively by the local Taxation Branch of the Home Office the Statistical Department of the Local Government Board and the Audit and Statistical Division of the Ministry of Health.

Much of the material in the series is supplementary to the statistics published in Local Government Financial Statistics; they are mostly the epitomes of accounts and tabulation sheets, which are described below. The series also contains various returns and other unpublished statistical material concerned with rates and rateable values, including summaries of annual local taxation returns. There is also a collection of poor law returns, comprising statements showing the average weekly cost per-head of maintenance in poor law institutions from 1922 to 1930.

Epitomes of Accounts (pieces 3230-3838)

Epitomes of accounts were forms used for the financial returns made by the principal local authorities from 1920-21. Previously Local Taxation 'Financial Statements' (audited periodic statements of accounts) and 'Returns' (receipts and expenditure under the Local Taxation Returns Acts) were made to the Local Government Board.

There are incomplete sets of epitomes for county councils, metropolitan borough councils, and urban district councils covering the years 1937-38 and 1938-39. Epitomes for the years 1939-40 to 1945-46 have not been preserved.

The layout of the forms is substantially the same for all the five principal types of authorities. There are six main tables (five for county councils) and the additional memorandum:

  • Table A - Rate Fund Account (revenue). This sets out income and expenditure on rate fund revenue account. On the income side, separate columns are provided for income from government departments and from other local authorities, and for transfers from other accounts. The last two are of importance in the elimination of duplicate reckonings. On the expenditure side loan charges are distinguished from other items. Transactions are classified according to the service concerned (e.g. Education, Public Lighting, Police), and at the end of the table are shown separately figures for agency transactions, income from rates, contributions and receipts under precepts, Exchequer equalisation grants and some other items not related to particular services, together with balances.
  • Table B - Housing Revenue Accounts, Trading Services, etc. This table is slightly different in form from Table A, but fulfils the same function in relation to the Housing Revenue Account, the various trading services, and corporation estates. In the form used for county councils, this table is merged with Table A, as the transactions of county councils under these headings are comparatively small.
  • Table C (B for county councils) - Special Funds. Here are set out, again in broadly similar form, the transactions of various funds of a special nature: sinking, reserve, superannuation, insurance and miscellaneous other funds. Sinking funds relating to debt on services now nationalised are distinguished separately.
  • Table D (C for county councils) - Loan and Capital Account. This is the capital counterpart to Tables A and B, and the classification is practically the same. It distinguishes, on the receipts side, between those from loans, from government departments, from other local authorities, from other miscellaneous sources, and transfers from revenue account; and on the other side are shown capital expenditure on works, etc, and amounts repaid to lenders or transferred to sinking funds. Separate columns are provided for outstanding loan debt (excluding temporary loans and overdrafts) and sinking fund balances.
  • Memorandum to Table D (C for county councils). This is a summary of loan transactions during the year and is included to facilitate the reconciliation of outstanding loan debt from year to year.
  • Table E (D for county councils) - Consolidated Loans Fund or Loans Pool Capital Account. Before 1949-50, the epitome forms made no provision for transactions of Consolidated Loans Funds or Loans Pools, which are regarded as external lenders. Unapplied balances in these funds or pools were consequently not recorded. Table E was introduced in 1949-50 to fill this gap.
  • Table F (E for county councils) - Salaries and Wages of Officers and Servants of the Council. Here local authorities are asked to state their expenditure on salaries and wages of officers and servants, allocating it between revenue and capital, and between Rate Fund and Trading Services, with a broad sub-division between individual services or groups of services. This table was introduced experimentally in 1949-50 in a rather more elementary shape and elaborated in 1951-52 to its present form.

Tabulation Sheets (pieces 15-3048)

Tabulation sheets were prepared from 1933-34 until 1959-60, and were forms on which the returns of the epitomes are tabulated to show the several services against the various authorities. Each class of authority is tabulated separately and, within this broad sub-division, county districts are shown in alphabetical order under counties. County totals and totals for each class of authority are prepared and summarised for the whole country. The preparation of tabulation sheets ceased in 1960-61 following the introduction of machine accounting.
Date: 1862-1974
Related material:

Local taxation entry books are in HO 92
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Home Office, 1782-

Local Government Board, 1871-1919

Ministry of Health, 1919-1968
Physical description: 4659 files and microform
Administrative / biographical background:

Audit and Statistical Division

In 1899, three departments were combined to form the Audit and Statistical Division of the Local Government Board. They were:

  • the Audit Department, responsible to the chief inspector of audits and which carried out central administrative and clerical work associated with the work of the district audit staff;
  • the Audit Appeals and Sanctions Department, which heard and determined appeals against the decisions of district auditors and dealt with applications under the Local Authorities (Expenses) Act 1887; and
  • the Statistical Department, which was responsible for the collection and processing of local taxation returns, the preparation of parliamentary returns and the distribution of local taxation accounts grants.

The work of these three departments was continued by three distinct branches of the Audit and Statistical Division, each under a principal clerk responsible to the chief inspector of audits. In 1951 functions in connection with local authority finance and audit passed to the Ministry of Local Government and Planning.

Local Government Financial Statistics

Information about receipts and expedition by local authorities was published annually from 1861, as Local Taxation Returns. From 1883-84 until 1913-14 the whole of the information provided by local authorities was published. From 1914-15 to 1918-19 summaries only were published showing separate figures for county councils, county borough councils, the London County Council, metropolitan borough councils, and other groups of local authorities. Prior to 1930, Poor Law Union figures were also given.

From 1934-35 the title was changed to 'Local Government Financial Statistics, England and Wales'.

Short summaries only were published for the years 1937 to 1948. From 1948-49, aggregate figures contained in the epitomes were published in Local Government Financial Statistics. Before 1929-30 the summary was not published as an integral part of the returns, but appeared in shorter form in the annual report of the Ministry of Health

Statistics of Rates and Rateable Values

The department collected from local authorities and from valuation officers of the Inland Revenue information about rate poundage and rateable values for inclusion in an annual publication entitled 'Rates and Rateable Values in England and Wales'. This publication began in 1921 as a Parliamentary Paper covering 1913-14 and 1919-20 onwards with the object of providing a continuous historic record and within limits to make possible comparisons between local authorities and from year to year.

Samples of rates levied in various towns were prepared for the Institute of Municipal Treasurers from about 1885. The return was concerned with rates within the meaning of the Rating and Valuation Act 1925 (i.e. water and drainage rates are excluded). The information was obtained from copies of rate demand notes received from each rating authority supplemented by a special form of return from rural district councils giving the rates levied in each parish. The actual income from rates was obtained from Local Government Financial Statistics. The return was not issued for the years 1939-40 to 1943-44 inclusive.

Have you found an error with this catalogue description?

Help with your research