Six and a Half Billion Pounds of Council Bail-Outs Since 2020, and Birmingham Took a Fifth of It. The New Ledger of Which Councils Are Closest to the Edge.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
In short. "Bankrupt" is not a legal state for a council. What exists instead is a set of published markers: a section 114 notice from the finance officer, a statutory intervention by the ministry, a Best Value Notice, Exceptional Financial Support agreed in principle, and reserves running low. This site now holds all five for every English council on one page, How close to the edge is each council?, rebuilt by machine from the documents and refreshed monthly. The headline figures: £6.45 billion of Exceptional Financial Support agreed since 2020-21 for 51 councils, of which Birmingham accounts for £1.24 billion [1]; twelve councils have issued a section 114 notice, seven of them since 2018 [2]; seven councils have a Best Value Notice in force [3]; and the general-fund reserves of 308 councils, set against what they spend, show who has the least room left [4].
Where the bail-out money has gone
Exceptional Financial Support is the ministry's permission for a council to pay day-to-day bills with capital money, by borrowing or selling assets. It is granted in principle when a council cannot otherwise set a balanced budget. The ministry publishes a list for each year, and later lists revise earlier years [1]. Reading all seven lists together, and taking the latest figure the ministry gives for each year, the support agreed in principle from 2020-21 to 2026-27 comes to £6.45 billion across 51 councils [1].
The ten largest totals, with amounts agreed in principle and not necessarily drawn:
- Birmingham, £1,240 million. Slough, £549 million. Thurrock, £518 million. Bradford, £391 million. Croydon, £389 million.
- Woking, £226 million. Shropshire, £219 million. Havering, £214 million. Southampton, £212 million. Lambeth, £191 million.
The other 26 councils on the lists share £749 million between them [1]. The pie chart on the ledger page shows the shares; Birmingham's slice is 19 per cent of the whole.
The other markers
Section 114 notices. Twelve English councils have issued one, the formal statement that spending is likely to exceed resources. Seven are since 2018: Northamptonshire (since abolished), Croydon twice, Slough, Nottingham twice, Thurrock, Woking and Birmingham. The other five are from 1988 to 2000 and are listed as history, not scored [2].
Statutory interventions. The ministry publishes a collection of documents for each council it has intervened in. Eleven such collections exist; those updated within the last eighteen months are Thurrock, Slough, Nottingham, Birmingham, Woking, Croydon, Spelthorne, Tower Hamlets and Warrington [5].
Best Value Notices. Seven are in force: Basildon, Cheshire East, Hillingdon, Newham, Shropshire, Somerset and the Tees Valley Combined Authority. Twelve have lapsed [3].
Reserves. From the ministry's revenue outturn for 2024-25, the ledger takes each council's general-fund reserves at 31 March 2025, leaving out schools, public health and housing reserves which are ring-fenced, and sets them against that year's net revenue expenditure [4]. Below 10 per cent are Hillingdon, Shropshire, Cheshire East, West Berkshire, East Hertfordshire and Sefton, with Plymouth and Oxford reporting none at all on this measure [4]. Low reserves do not make a council bankrupt and high reserves do not make it safe. The ratio is simply the most widely used measure of how much room is left.
The ranking, and what it is not
The ledger page sorts every council by a points method this site states in full: three points for a section 114 notice since 2018, three for a live intervention, two for a Best Value Notice in force, two for support agreed in any year, and two for reserves below 10 per cent of spending. On that method Birmingham, Slough, Thurrock, Croydon, Woking and Nottingham tie at the top. Shropshire, Cheshire East and Hillingdon follow, each with a notice in force, support agreed and reserves below 10 per cent. The points are a way to sort the table so the most-marked councils come first. They are not a prediction, and the amounts beside them matter more than the score.
What is new here
Nothing on the ledger is a new fact. Every marker was already public, scattered across seven ministry lists, a collection of notices, eleven document collections, a statistical release and the councils' own announcements. What is new is that they are in one place, keyed to the same 335 councils this site already covers, each marker a link to the document it came from, and rebuilt automatically when the ministry changes a figure. When a later list revises an earlier year, the old figure is kept and the new one shown. When a notice lapses, it moves to history rather than disappearing.
Two things the ledger does not yet do. It does not show a council's borrowing, which is the next marker to add from the capital outturn. And it does not yet show each council's markers on that council's own page on this site; the table links to those pages, and the reverse link is coming.
Sources
- Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, "Exceptional Financial Support for local authorities" (the collection; one guidance page per year from 2020-21 to 2026-27, each read in full and later revisions applied). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/exceptional-financial-support-for-local-authorities-capitalisation-directions
- Section 114 notices: the index of notices (CC BY-SA), each row cited on the ledger page to the council's own document where the index carries one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_114_notice
- MHCLG, "Best Value Notices for local authorities" (current and lapsed notices). https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/best-value-notices-for-local-authorities
- MHCLG, "Local authority revenue expenditure and financing England: 2024 to 2025 individual local authority data, outturn", revenue outturn summary (RS) table. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing-england-2024-to-2025-individual-local-authority-data-outturn
- MHCLG, "Intervention at Thurrock Council" (one of the eleven intervention collections; all eleven are linked from the ledger page). https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/intervention-at-thurrock-council