Form

CTR3: Council Tax requirement return - guidance notes

Updated 8 February 2024

Applies to England

Notes for completion of the Council Tax Requirement return 2024-25 on DELTA by the Greater London Authority only.

This guidance note is provided for the 2023-24 collection, adapted for the DELTA form ‘CTR3-2024-25-apr’.

It is important that your authority returns the information by the due date (Monday 11 March 2024) as the DELTA system will not accept submitted returns after midnight on deadline day without a manual extension from DLUHC. If you are unable to meet this deadline, then please contact ctr.statistics@levellingup.gov.uk

Forms can be saved before submission. Forms can also be saved as a pdf after the form has been saved or submitted (ready to certify).

Forms will need to be certified by your Chief Finance Officer via DELTA. This is done once the form has been completed and submitted as ready to certify.

Notes for completion

The calculation of council tax by the GLA is governed by the Local Government Finance Act 1992 (“the 1992 Act”) and the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (“the 1999 Act”).

Section 12 of the Greater London Authority Act 2007 amended section 85 of the 1999 Act. This amendment along with the amendments made by the Localism Act 2011 requires separate council tax requirements to be calculated for each of the GLA’s constituent bodies. These are added together to produce the GLA’s consolidated council tax requirement. Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Act require further calculations to determine the band D council tax level for residents in the City of London who do not pay for the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and Metropolitan Police, and for those in other parts of Greater London who do pay^{[footnote 1]}.

For the purposes of this form we require separate reporting of the council tax requirement of the GLA for its non-police functions (the Assembly, Mayor, TfL, LFEPA), and the council tax requirement for its police functions.

Part 1a: Council tax requirement

Line 1: The figure entered into column 1 will equal R minus A in section 88(2) of the GLA Act 1999. The figure entered into column 2 will equal S2 in section 89(4) of the GLA Act 1999. The figure in column 3 will be the aggregate of the amounts in columns 1 and 2 and must be the same as the consolidated council tax requirement which the GLA must calculate under Section 85(8) of the 1999 Act. Column 3 will be automatically calculated. The amounts should be shown to the nearest £. 

Line 2: the amount of any levies and special levies issued for the year or anticipated in pursuance of regulations under section 74 or 75 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988.  This is the amount that was anticipated in pursuance of regulations under section 74 or 75 of the 1988 Act in the calculation of a constituent body’s council tax requirement in 2023-24.

Validations on Line 2 columns 1 and 2 against the 2023-24 figures will be included after this part.

Part 1b: Tax base

Line 3: for column 1 the council tax base figure is T, the amount calculated for the purposes of section 88(2) of the GLA Act 1999. For column 2 the council tax base figure is TP2, the amount calculated for the purposes of section 89(4) of the GLA Act 1999. Each amount should be shown to 1 decimal place.

Validations on Line 3 columns 1 and 2 against the 2023-24 figures will be included after this part.

Part 1c: Council tax

Lines 4 – 7 in this part are all automatically calculated. It is advised that these figures are checked.

Line 4: this should be the same as the basic amounts of Council Tax calculated by the Greater London Authority. 

Line 4 column 1 should be calculated under section 88 of the GLA Act 1999 and is the basic amount of council tax for Band D taxpayers in the City of London.

Line 4 column 2 should be the additional amount of council tax in respect of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime calculated under section 89 of the GLA Act 1999. This is calculated as Line 1 divided by Line 3 for the relevant columns. The amount in both columns will be shown to the nearest penny.

Line 5: this is the amount of Band D Council Tax for 2024-25 notified to the councils of the London boroughs, but not the Common Council of the City of London by the Greater London Authority in accordance with section 40(2)(a) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992. This is calculated as the sum of column 1 and column 2 in Line 4. The amount will be shown to the nearest penny.

Lines 6 & 7: authorities will be required to seek the approval of their local electorate, in a referendum, if they set council tax increases that exceed the principles set out in a report to the House of Commons and approved in parallel with the Local Government Finance Report. For the GLA two principles are set by reference to what are termed relevant basic amounts of council tax as defined by section 52ZX of the 1992 Act.

Relevant basic amounts of council tax for the purposes of council tax referendums are automatically calculated for 2024-25.

Line 6 refers specifically to the amount charged in the City of London and is calculated by dividing line 1 by line 3 (from column 1). Line 7 refers to the remainder of the GLA’s area and again is calculated by dividing line 1 by line 3 (from column 2) then adding line 6 (from column 1). Both amounts must be shown to the nearest penny. The figures for 2024-25 should be checked by the authority to establish whether they have exceeded the principles applicable for the year.

The referendum principles are that their relevant basic amount of council tax would be excessive if GLA set increases of:

• More than £37.26 for the adjusted relevant basic amount of council tax
• More than £24.26 for the unadjusted relevant basic amount of council tax

Part 1d: Referendum

Line 8: you must inform this Department if you are required to hold a referendum due to the increase in either or both of your relevant basic amounts of council tax. You should select either “No” or “Yes – to be held” from the drop-down box when this form is initially returned.

If you select “Yes – to be held” you must submit a revised form immediately following the result of the referendum. To resubmit, you will need to contact us at ctr.statistics@levellingup.gov.uk so that we can reopen your DELTA form.

If the electorate votes to accept the council tax that was set, when submitting the revised form please select “Yes – resulted in no changes” as the data submitted in your original form will be correct.

If the electorate votes for a lower, non-excessive increase, when submitting the revised form please select “Yes - changes made to form” and reflect the changes in the data throughout the form.

Part 2: Precept payable to the GLA by billing authority

Please enter in column 2 the council tax requirement from each billing authority listed in column 1, which is the amount stated in the precept in accordance with section 40(2)(b) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 as the amounts payable for 2024-25. The amounts should be shown to the nearest £.

The figures given in the total line should be the sum of these amounts and should also match Line 1 column 3 of the main CTR3 form. A validation to check this is included after this part.

The figures in Part 2 will be compared by DLUHC to those submitted by each individual billing authority. We will query these with both parties if they do not match.

Submission

The DELTA form can be entered on the system. Once data is in the form, it should be checked, and any outstanding validations resolved. The form can be saved at any time in the process.

Once the form is complete it should be submitted (submit for certification). At that point it will be ready for the Chief Finance Officer to certify.

Forms should be submitted and certified by the deadline of Monday 11 March 2024.

Queries

Any queries about the completion of the form should be sent by email to ctr.statistics@levellingup.gov.uk and addressed ‘CTR3 DELTA QUERY 2024-25’.

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

February 2024

1. Sections 88 and 89 of the GLA Act 1999 were amended by section 77 of the Localism Act 2011. ↩