Data visualisation - Financial sustainability for local authorities’ how to guide –Transcript

 

Narrator: Alex Burfitt – Audit Manager

 

Here’s our simple guide to help you navigate through our dashboards following on from our report on the financial sustainability of local authorities. I’ll guide you through each dashboard, so you can get a greater insight into the challenges faced by local authorities.

 

Beginning with the first dashboard, this shows you the change in local authorities’ income between 2010-11 and 2017-18. This is formed of council tax and central government funding, which combined is known as ‘revenue spending power’.

 

You can click on an individual local authority to see the level of reduction that particular authority encountered.

 

You can also switch between district councils, and single tier and county councils by clicking here.

 

On to the second dashboard which looks at the change in net expenditure for the main services provided by Local Authorities.

 

Nationally most services have seen a reduction in net expenditure which can be viewed here. When you hover on a particular service area this also brings up data on spending in the sub-services that form part of the overall service area.

 

You can also select a local authority from the drop-down list to see how their net spending on services has changed over time through here.

 

Moving onto the next dashboard, this allows you to view the level of funds local authorities have in reserves compared to their annual net revenue expenditure. Use the drop-down selector to choose which types of reserves you want to include in the calculation.

 

The final dashboard compares planned spend with actual spend.

                                                                             

I hope this guide helps you navigate your way through our dashboards. If you need more information visit our website.