How we spend your Council Tax

Your council is committed to openness and providing the residents of South Lanarkshire with clear and accessible information.

This includes details about how we provide your services and every year we also explain exactly how we spend and invest the Council Tax that is contributed by local households to help pay for those services.

When the council’s 2024-25 budget was approved on 21 February 2024 it was agreed that there would be no increase in Council Tax rates. This means Council Tax rates in South Lanarkshire remain among the lowest in Scotland.

South Lanarkshire is the fifth largest council in Scotland and following the budget agreement we will spend more than £958 million in 2024-25 on general services on behalf of our residents. As in previous years, our biggest area of spend will be on providing education services.

Full details of how we deliver our services and invest in the local area can be found in our Council Tax financial information 2024-25 section but, to offer some highlights, in a typical year we will spend our budget on:

• teaching more than 24,877 primary pupils in our new schools
• teaching more than 20,606 secondary school pupils in new school buildings
• providing 8,257 Early Learning and childcare places
• caring for 3,359 older people and adults at home
• looking after more than 2,096 older people in care homes
• collecting waste every week from more than 158,000 households
• maintaining 2,295km (1,426 miles) of roads

We also have a General Services Capital Programme for 2024-25 that will see the council invest £49.5m in long-term investments in the area, including roads improvements and further upgrades to our excellent schools estate. A further £77.3m has been approved for this year’s Housing Capital Programme.