About this data

Source: Scottish Government, Local Government 2025-26 Provisional Outturn and 2026-27 Budget Estimates

• Budget estimates for April 2026 to March 2027, sent by councils to the Scottish Government in spring 2026.
• Figures are councils' net revenue expenditure on services: day-to-day spending, after income from fees, charges, rents and ring-fenced government grants (about £0.4 billion in 2026-27) is taken off. They are on a 'funding basis', without accounting charges such as depreciation. Capital spending, debt costs, council housing (the Housing Revenue Account) and housing benefit are not included.
• Police, fire and rescue, and water are run nationally in Scotland, not by councils. Adult social care is planned with the NHS through integration joint boards (IJBs): councils' spending here is what they pay into them, and NHS funding for social care isn't counted.
• Central services include council tax collection, elections, corporate and democratic costs, and councils' trading services (a small net income). Valuation joint boards and regional transport partnerships, which spend around £10 million a year in total, aren't included.
• Figures are put on as similar a basis as possible to England's, but each nation's councils provide different services and are funded differently, and the statistics are collected in different ways, so comparisons between the nations are only rough. In particular, Scottish and Welsh councils fund almost all state schools, while in England most schools are academies, funded directly by central government.

This chart appears in Public spending.