{"id":18635339,"url":"https://github.com/bbc-data-unit/council-cuts-charts","last_synced_at":"2025-11-04T12:30:26.695Z","repository":{"id":72157050,"uuid":"160669215","full_name":"BBC-Data-Unit/council-cuts-charts","owner":"BBC-Data-Unit","description":"How cuts changed council spending, in seven charts","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2019-01-02T09:59:10.000Z","size":4425,"stargazers_count":0,"open_issues_count":0,"forks_count":0,"subscribers_count":5,"default_branch":"master","last_synced_at":"2024-12-27T08:42:10.673Z","etag":null,"topics":["councils","cuts","listicle","r","tomcalver"],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":"https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46443700","language":"HTML","has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":null,"status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/BBC-Data-Unit.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README.md","changelog":"change.plot.png","contributing":null,"funding":null,"license":null,"code_of_conduct":null,"threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":null,"security":null,"support":null,"governance":null,"roadmap":null,"authors":null,"dei":null,"publiccode":null,"codemeta":null}},"created_at":"2018-12-06T12:05:32.000Z","updated_at":"2019-01-02T09:59:11.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":"2023-09-16T20:46:35.330Z","dependency_job_id":null,"html_url":"https://github.com/BBC-Data-Unit/council-cuts-charts","commit_stats":null,"previous_names":[],"tags_count":0,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/BBC-Data-Unit%2Fcouncil-cuts-charts","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/BBC-Data-Unit%2Fcouncil-cuts-charts/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/BBC-Data-Unit%2Fcouncil-cuts-charts/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/BBC-Data-Unit%2Fcouncil-cuts-charts/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/BBC-Data-Unit","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/BBC-Data-Unit/council-cuts-charts/tar.gz/refs/heads/master","host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":239433910,"owners_count":19637806,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2022-07-04T15:15:14.044Z","host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":["councils","cuts","listicle","r","tomcalver"],"created_at":"2024-11-07T05:24:36.147Z","updated_at":"2025-11-04T12:30:26.654Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/BBC-Data-Unit.png","language":"HTML","funding_links":[],"categories":[],"sub_categories":[],"readme":"# How cuts changed council spending, in seven charts\n\n![](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/C1A4/production/_104627594_chart6.housing_v2-nc.png)\n\nIn December 2018 we published [an article showing 7 ways in which cuts had changed council spending](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46443700). **Tom Calver** provided additional analysis and visualisation.\n\nThe cleaning, combination and analysis was largely done in R. You can find a number of notebooks and R scripts in this repo, with descriptions below.\n\n## Get the data\n\n* Most of the data was taken from the [Local authority revenue expenditure and financing collection](https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing), going back to 2010-11\n* Copies of the spreadsheets can be found in this repo, each beginning with 'Revenue_Outturn_Summary__RS__data'. The 2017/18 data is named [RS_2017-18_data_by_LA.xlsx](https://github.com/BBC-Data-Unit/council-cuts-charts/blob/master/RS_2017-18_data_by_LA.xlsx)\n\n## Quotes and interviews\n\n* Kathy Evans, chief executive, Children England\n* Spokesperson, County Councils Network\n* Spokesperson, The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)\n* Spokesman, Local Government Association\n\n## Visualisation\n\n![](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/172B6/production/_104620949_chart7-nc.png)\n\n* Stacked bar chart: spend per person on each service across England 2017/18\n* Multiple filled line charts: spend per person on each service, 2010/11 - 2017/18\n* Multiple bar chart: Spending by councils in 2010/11 vs 2017/18, as pence in pound, by service\n* Line chart: average Band D council tax in England, 2010/11 - 2018/19\n* Histogram: distribution of change in housing spend, 2010/11 - 2017/18\n* Multiple bar chart: Spending change in real terms, per person 2010/11 - 2017/18: North vs Rest of England\n* Histogram: distribution of usable reserves as a percentage of 2017/18 spending\n\n## Analysis, scripts and notebooks\n\n* The notebook [1downloadcleanaccounts.Rmd](https://github.com/BBC-Data-Unit/council-cuts-charts/blob/master/1downloadcleanaccounts.Rmd) details the process of downloading, cleaning, and analysing council accounts.\n* The notebook [1bcombineaccounts.Rmd](https://github.com/BBC-Data-Unit/council-cuts-charts/blob/master/1bcombineaccounts.Rmd) details the process of combining the council accounts.\n* The notebook [1ccombineaccounts_cbind.Rmd](https://github.com/BBC-Data-Unit/council-cuts-charts/blob/master/1ccombineaccounts_cbind.Rmd) details the process of combining council accounts using `cbind`. This process was not used in the end, however, as using the uncombined accounts with `sqldf` (below) was a much simpler and more flexible approach\n* The notebook [1ccombineaccounts_sqldf.Rmd](https://github.com/BBC-Data-Unit/council-cuts-charts/blob/master/1ccombineaccounts_sqldf.Rmd) details the process of querying multiple council accounts to make comparisons.\n* The notebook [2analyseaccountsDANamended.Rmd](https://github.com/BBC-Data-Unit/council-cuts-charts/blob/master/2analyseaccountsDANamended.Rmd) outlines the process of analysing the accounts further\n* The R function script [stripbackro.horiz.R](https://github.com/BBC-Data-Unit/council-cuts-charts/blob/master/stripbackro.horiz.R) takes an Excel filename and a year, then returns a subset for main categories of spending with the year added as a prefix for the columns\n* The R script [givemesqlquery.fromto.R](https://github.com/BBC-Data-Unit/council-cuts-charts/blob/master/givemesqlquery.fromto.R) will, given a column name, and the names of 2 data frames, generate a SQL query that will generate \n#a table showing change from one data frame to another\n\n## Related repos\n\n* You can [find all stories tagged 'cuts' that the data units have been involved in here](https://github.com/search?q=topic%3Acuts+org%3ABBC-Data-Unit\u0026type=Repositories)\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fbbc-data-unit%2Fcouncil-cuts-charts","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fbbc-data-unit%2Fcouncil-cuts-charts","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fbbc-data-unit%2Fcouncil-cuts-charts/lists"}