MHCLG · Local authority revenue expenditure and financing, England: revenue outturn multi-year data
Council spending on services
£134.2bnmillion
Council spending on services was £134.2bn in the year ending March 2025, up 8.5% (£10.5bn) from £123.8bn in the year ending March 2024.
▲ 8.5% · +£10.5bn against Year ending March 2024 (previous period)
- MHCLG count
- Year ending March 2025
- published 13 August 2026
- Revenue outturn summary (RS)
- row “England”
- column “RS_totsx_net_exp”
- cell value 134233179
Year ending March 2018 to Year ending March 2025
Breakdowns
What this measures
Net current expenditure on services by each English local authority in the financial year — what running education, social care, housing, transport, bins, planning and the rest actually cost after the income each service earned is taken off — from the revenue outturn returns councils file with MHCLG.
What this doesn’t measure
Capital spending, debt interest, housing benefit payments or the HRA landlord account; nor like-for-like comparability between authorities of different classes — in two-tier areas the county and its districts run different services and report separately.
Important caveat
Net current expenditure from the revenue outturn (RO/RS) returns councils file with MHCLG: spending after the income a service earns (sales, fees, charges and specific grants inside the line) is taken off, in cash prices for the year stated. In two-tier England the county council runs social care and education and the districts run housing, bins and planning, so authorities of different classes are not comparable line by line. Police, fire, combined authorities and the GLA report separately and are inside the England total but have no page here. Every year is restated at each release; an authority that misses the deadline (Cumberland, 2024-25) is absent, not zero. Reserves levels are the RS form's financial reserves lines at 31 March and exclude schools, dedicated schools grant and public health reserves, which are earmarked by rule.
Revision history
No period of this series has been revised since it was first ingested here. Revisions are recorded automatically when a later release publishes a different figure for the same period.
Source
- Publisher
- MHCLG
- Publication
- Local authority revenue expenditure and financing, England: revenue outturn multi-year data
- Release
- Outturn 2017-18 to 2024-25 (v3.2), published 13 August 2026
- Source file
- ro.csv
- File SHA-256
- 885270cfc4d91354cce6e6e0ba3a5b798090b367e51dadbdcfb47c0428c1bc89
- Retrieved
- 4 September 2026
- Sheet
- csv
- Table
- Revenue outturn summary (RS)
- Row
- England
- Column
- RS_totsx_net_exp
- Cell value
- 134233179
- Geography
- E92000001
- Unit
- £ million
- API
- /api/metrics/council_service_spend · /series · /vintages
Government periods
Change during each government, from the level inherited to the last complete period before it left office. Describes the period; does not attribute cause.
| Conservative 2019–2024 | £91.4bnYear ending March 2019 | £123.8bnYear ending March 2024 | ↑ 35.4% |
- Release
- Outturn 2017-18 to 2024-25 (v3.2) · publication page
- Last updated
- 13 August 2026
- Next release expected
- Not yet announced (estimated from the usual cadence)