Official Statistics

Release notes, 24 April 2014 (England & Wales)

Published 25 September 2014

Applies to England and Wales

Summary

At the end of March 2014, there were 23.4 million domestic properties with a Council Tax band in England and 1.4 million in Wales.

At 16% the South East region had the largest share of domestic properties with a council tax band in England, followed by London (15%) and the North West (14%)

Around a quarter of all domestic properties in England were in Council Tax band A, a fifth were in Council Tax band B, and a further fifth were in Council Tax band C. The remainder were in Council Tax bands D to H.

Approximately a fifth of all domestic properties in Wales were in Council Tax band B with a further fifth in Council Tax band C. Each of the remaining Council Tax bands represented less than a fifth of domestic properties in Wales.

About this release

This release provides details of the number of dwellings by Council Tax Band for each administrative area and parliamentary constituency in England and Wales together with national and regional totals. It is an update of a previous release last published on 25 April 2013.

The counts are calculated from data for England and Wales extracted from the Valuation Office Agency’s administrative database on 31 March 2014.

The counts for each parliamentary constituency are generated by combining the administrative data with the National Statistics Postcode Lookup (NSPL) file in accordance with guidance from the Office for National Statistics.

For all tables counts are rounded to the nearest 10 with counts fewer than 5 reported as negligible and denoted by “-”. Totals may not sum due to rounding.

Data quality

The information supplied in the tables is based on administrative data held within the VOA’s operational database. The VOA has made every effort to ensure its accuracy.

Parliamentary constituency information is derived from the same administrative data. Constituencies have been assigned to VOA records by linking individual postcodes held on the VOA’s database to those appearing in the February 2014 version of the NSPL file. The matching process resulted in around 9,000 out of 24.8 million records (or 0.04%) for which it was not possible to find an equivalent postcode in the NSPL. These records are excluded from the band estimates in table 4. Note also that 14,525 (or 0.06%) records were assigned a constituency on the basis of imputed grid coordinates based on neighboring postcodes. This is usually due to a delay between the creation of new postcodes and the recording of accurate grid coordinates. Accurate coordinates will be included in later versions of the NSPL, which may have a minor impact on subsequent constituency estimates.

Use made of the data

This publication is being released as part of a general drive towards making VOA’s data more accessible. The data are used to inform government policy and conduct operational analyses to support the Valuation Office Agency.

Glossary

Area code – a unique identifier for administrative geographies as specified by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Band – council tax band.

Billing authority – a local authority empowered to collect council tax on behalf of itself and other local authorities in its area. In England, shires, metropolitan districts, the Council of the Isles of Scilly, unitary authorities, London boroughs and the City of London are billing authorities.

Billing authority code – a unique identifier for billing authorities.

Dwelling – a dwelling is a separate unit of living accommodation, together with any garden, yard, garage or other outbuildings, attached to it, all occupied by the same person(s) and within the same area of land.

**Parliamentary constituency **– the statutory name of the current Westminster Parliamentary constituencies of England and Wales.

Region **–a geographical unit formerly referred to as Government Office Region (GOR). The GOR framework was the primary classification for regional statistics and comprised nine regions of England, which combined with the devolved administrations collectively spanned the United Kingdom. From 1 April 2011 the term GOR was dropped in favour of region. This release comprises England regions plus Wales.**

Background notes**

The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) is a central government agency responsible, amongst other things, for banding homes for council tax purposes. It does not set the level of council tax nor collect the money, which is the task of local government.

The VOA has had responsibility for banding properties for council tax since the tax was first introduced in 1993, and before then the VOA was responsible for the earlier system of domestic rates. Council tax is a local tax, set by local councils, to help pay for local services. It uses the relative value of homes to determine each household’s contribution for these local services.

It is the duty of the VOA to act fairly and impartially, and to make sure that each home is correctly assessed and placed in the right band. This is so that there is the fairest possible basis on which local councils can send bills to taxpayers for the right amount of council tax – no more, no less. In carrying out this duty, the VOA operates to professional standards.

The VOA’s job is to place each home in one of eight valuation bands (nine bands in Wales) on the basis of its value at 1 April 1991 (1 April 2003 in Wales), which then determines the amount to be paid. The tables below show the breakdown of bands for England and Wales. New homes are assigned a band on the basis of what they would have been valued at in 1991 (2003 in Wales). The basis of valuation is set down in regulations made under the Local Government Finance Act 1992. Minor updates were made to the initial regulations in 1994 but they have not been changed since then.

Bands for England

Band	Value of dwelling (at 1 April 1991)
A	Up to £40,000
B	40,001 up to 52,000
C	52,001 up to 68,000
D	68,001 up to 88,000
E	88,001 up to 120,000
F	120,001 up to 160,000
G	160,001 up to 320,000
H	320,001 and above

Bands for Wales

Band	Value of dwelling (at 1 April 2003)
A	Up to £44,000
B	44,001 up to 65,000
C	65,001 up to 91,000
D	91,001 up to 123,000
E	123,001 up to 162,000
F	162,001 up to 223,000
G	223,001 up to 324,000
H	324,001 up to 424,000
I	424,001 and above

Further Information

The responsible statistician for this release is Sarah Sawyer who can be contacted via email at [email protected].

This release can be found at the following location on the VOA website: http://www.voa.gov.uk/corporate/publications/statisticsCouncilTax.html

Timings of future releases are regularly placed on the Agency’s website at the follow location: http://www.voa.gov.uk/corporate/publications/ReleaseTimetable.html

Further information on the area codes used in this release please refer to the ONS’s website at the following location: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/geography/geographic-policy/best-practice-guidance/index.html

Administrative Areas: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/geography/geographic-policy/best-practice-guidance/presentation-order-guidance/administrative-areas/index.html

Electoral Areas:http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/geography/geographic-policy/best-practice-guidance/presentation-order-guidance/electoral-areas/index.html

CSV Metadata

The following table provides the variable names and descriptions appearing on the CSV files included in this release.

Variable	Variable Description
BA_CODE	Unique identifier for billing authorities.
AREA_CODE	Unique identifier for geographic areas as specified by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
AREA	Administrative area name.
BAND_A	Counts of dwellings with Council Tax band A.
BAND_B	Counts of dwellings with Council Tax band B.
BAND_C	Counts of dwellings with Council Tax band C.
BAND_D	Counts of dwellings with Council Tax band D.
BAND_E	Counts of dwellings with Council Tax band E.
BAND_F	Counts of dwellings with Council Tax band F.
BAND_G	Counts of dwellings with Council Tax band G.
BAND_H	Counts of dwellings with Council Tax band H.
BAND_I	Counts of dwellings with Council Tax band I (Wales Only).
TOTAL	Counts of dwellings across all Council Tax bands

The table below details the variables present in each CSV file (denoted by ‘X’).

Variable / Table	1	2	3	4
BA_CODE		X	X
AREA_CODE	X	X	X	X
AREA		X	X
REGION	X
PCON				X
BAND_A	X	X	X	X
BAND_B	X	X	X	X
BAND_C	X	X	X	X
BAND_D	X	X	X	X
BAND_E	X	X	X	X
BAND_F	X	X	X	X
BAND_G	X	X	X	X
BAND_H	X	X	X	X
BAND_I			X	X
TOTAL	X	X	X	X