Local authority property acquisitions data

A database of assets acquired by local authorities in England, from 2014/15 - 2018/19, via Freedom of Information (FOI) requests

You can access the reporting recipe related to this investigation here

Summary of how much each council spent on “investment” properties and how many they acquired

The full list of assets acquired by local councils, compitled by the Bureau from FOI responses

The amount spent on land and buildings (defined in the dataset as fixed assets) by local authorities in England between 2013/14 and 2017/18

A table showing outstanding borrowing for local authorities in England, broken down by types of lending sources

A list of the local authorities that responded to the FOI

Investment acquisitions - Summary

The name of the local authority

The amount spent by the local authority to acquire investment assets

The number of investment assets acquired by the local authority

A "-" in the "Amount spent on investment assets" column, means that the local authority purchased at least one "investment" asset but did not provide information about the price of the assets it purchased

The reference number given to the asset by the Bureau

The Unique Property Reference Number of the asset, where supplied. In some cases other reference numbers were given in response to this question

The local authority which owns the asset

The name of the asset as provided by the local authority

The type of asset as provided by the local authority, usually land or building

The address of the asset

The postcode of the asset, where applicable

The date on which the asset was acquired. Note: the format was inconsistent/partial from council to council

The financial year in which the asset was acquired (this was extrapolated by the Bureau from the date in order to provide consistent categorisation)

We asked whether the asset was classified as an investment, where it wasn't it is categorised by us as non-investment

How much the council paid for the asset

Who the council bought the asset from

This column was added by The Bureau to help find entries from the "Bought from" column that might have been spelled differently (i.e. "Company (UK) Limited" and "Comapny Ltd." would both be changed to "company ltd" in this column)

Extra information provided by the councils but not covered by the above categories

Extra information provided by the councils but different from the information contained within the 'notes' column

You can see the questions we asked under FOI, here

If a piece cell is blank then the information was not provided in the FOI response

In some cases a cell will contain the section of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that the local authority used to withhold the information

The information was exempt because the council says it would exceed the cost or time limit to provide it

The information was exempt because the council said it could "reasonably" be obtained elsewhere. In the case of this dataset this was either the council's website or the Land Registry

The information was exempt because it identified an individual. This mostly relates to the names of purchasers and vendors, though you will notice that some councils have provided this level of detail

The information was exempt because it is deemed to be commercially sensitive

Name of the local authority

Type of local authority (UA = unitary, SC = county, SD = district, L = London borough, MD = metropolitan district)

Amount spent on fixed assets in 2013/14

Amount spent on fixed assets in 2014/15

Amount spent on fixed assets in 2015/16

Amount spent on fixed assets in 2016/17

Amount spent on fixed assets in 2017/18

Total amount spent on fixed assets between 2013/14 and 2017/18

A summary of the latest statistical release, published in October 2018, can be found here.

The original data, published yearly by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government can be found here.

A breakdown of the data by council can be found in the "individual local authority data" tables. For example, the 2017/18 data, can be found here.

The amount spent on land and buildings (defined in the dataset as fixed assets), can be found in the COR A1 data sheets...

The figures will be under the "Total capital expenditure & other transactios" tab, in the "Total expenditure on fixed assets" column. (Column FQ for 2017-18)

A unique identifier code for each local authority

The name of the local authority

The type of local authority

According to the Bureau's FOI, has the council purchased an investment asset since 2014-15

The council's net revenue budget for 2018-19, which can be found in this dataset

The difference in the council's total usable reserves between 2016 and the end of 2018-19

The total outstanding borrowing at the end of Q4 2016-17 - this shows the outstanding borrowing at the begining of the previous financial year

The total outstanding borrowing at the end of Q4 2017-18 - this shows the outstanding borrowing at the begining of the current financial year

The total outstanding borrowing at the end of Q1 2018-19

The total outstanding borrowing at the end of Q1 2018-19 - these are the latest outstanding borrowing figures available

Total borrowing as percentage of net current expenditure

This is a calcuated field showing total outstanding borrowing at the end of Q2 2018-19 as a proportion of net current expenditure in 2018-19

Increase/Decrease to total borrowing since Q1 2018-19

The increase or decrease of total borrowing in the last quarter - in absolute value

Increase/Decrease to total borrowing since Q1 2018-19 as percentage

The increase or decrease of total borrowing in the last quarter - as percentage

Increase/Decrease to total borrowing since Q4 2017-18

The increase or decrease of total borrowing since the begining of the current financial year - in absolute value

Increase/Decrease to total borrowing since Q4 2017-18 as percentage

The increase or decrease of total borrowing since the begining of the current financial year - as percentage

Increase/Decrease to total borrowing since Q4 2016-17

The increase or decrease of total borrowing since the begining of the previous financial year - in absolute value

Increase/Decrease to total borrowing since Q4 2016-17 as percentage

The increase or decrease of total borrowing since the begining of the previous financial year - as percentage

The red column header indicates the latest outstanding borrowing total (from the end of Q2 2018-19).

The blue column headers indicate previous outstanding borrowing totals - included to show any recent changes - since Q4 2016-17, Q4 2017-18 and Q1 2018-19.

The orange column headers indicate columns showing recent changes to the total outstanding borrowing of the local authority

The original data can be found here, in the table named "Borrowing and investment live table, Q2 2018 to 2019".

The original data used to calculate the "Change in total reserves 2016 - 2019" is published here by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

For example, to find the 2018-19 figure, you would need to click on this link:

Local authority revenue expenditure and financing England: 2018 to 2019 budget individual local authority data

Download the spreadsheet called "Revenue account (RA) budget 2018 to 2019".