# council-pressure

Source page: https://britishresilienceindex.com/deep-dive/council-pressure
Machine readable data: https://britishresilienceindex.com/data/deep-dive/council-pressure.json

## Sources

- undefined (https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/home-to-school-transport-la-data-collection)
- undefined (https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans)
- undefined (https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions)
- undefined (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/exceptional-financial-support-for-local-authorities-for-2025-26)
- undefined (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2022-to-2025)

## Caveats and data notes

- The pressure score is an indicative analytical construct, not an official statistic. It is the mean percentile rank of four official measures (five year EHC caseload growth, taxi share of special needs transport, the share of EHC plans not issued within 20 weeks, and the looked after children rate), each weighted equally. Different weightings would shift the ranking, but the two headline findings about distress and deprivation are robust to it.
- The analysis covers upper tier councils, the bodies that actually hold these duties. 145 councils were scored.
- Exceptional financial support reflects many causes, including governance failures, commercial losses and demand pressures. Some amounts are agreed in principle and may be revised. The point here is not that high needs is irrelevant, but that it is not the dominant cause.
- The deprivation comparison covers single tier councils only, because child poverty is not published at the county-council level. Counties are therefore excluded from that correlation.
- The five datasets cover slightly different periods and populations, so their figures are not directly additive.

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British Resilience Index, a non-partisan UK civic data project. Every figure is
reconciled to its primary official publisher before it is shown. Free to cite with
attribution: https://britishresilienceindex.com