- Alexandros Alexiou
- Benjamin Barr
Summary
This dataset describes individual spending lines (i.e., sub-categories of spending) for Children’s Social Care services. The extract is sourced from the Social Care and Public Health Services revenue outturn from Local Authorities (known as RO3). Figures are provided for every Lower Tier Local Authority in England for each financial year between 2008-09 to 2021-22, however, note that there are significant inconsistencies on the spending line descriptions between years. Only common lines were included. Generally, the spending categories are more consistent after 2014. The dataset contains Net spending figures.
Technical description
The Children’s Social Care Services spending lines (part of R03) were compiled from annual revenue outturn estimates of Local Authority (LA) revenue expenditure and financing. This includes 9 variables describing spending lines, namely:
- Sure Start
- Children Looked After
- Family Support Services
- Youth Justice
- Safeguarding Children
- Asylum Seekers
- Services for young people
During the time period, there have been changes in spending lines due to services phasing in/out; or changes to the reporting process. The dataset contains only common spending lines (or where changes in wording were minor); some consistency is generally observed after 2014-15. When there is no similar spending line in previous years, values for that financial year are described as `NA`. As such the Total Children’s Social Care value may not be equal to the sum of all individual spending lines; the total value was instead taken directly from the reported total in the source data. A few spending lines have changed names slightly. When obvious, it was assumed they regard the same services.
Values are expressed in thousands (£) and presented on the basis of financial years, i.e. from April 1st to March 31st. However, annual figures were not adjusted for inflation. Figures are provided in Net values, as in:
Gross service spending – Total Income from service = Net service spending
Total Income is the sum of Sales, Fees & Charges, and Other Income of said service provision.
Figures for Lower Tier LAs have been calculated by disaggregating Upper Tier and Other Authority figures based on population ratios (see section “Construction of LA-level data” for a detailed description). Figures from historic LA geography have been referenced to the 2021 LA geography. This includes changes in name/codes, merges, or splits of old LAs to new LAs based on population ratios for that year.
