National statistics about parish precepts

The Department of Communities and Local Government has collected and published, for the first time, data about parishes and the amount of council tax collected on their behalf by their billing authorities for the financial year 2013-2014.

The information is collected from the 326 billing authorities; and the local data section of the Council Tax Requirement forms submitted by 241 parished billing authorities.

The key points are:

•  in England there are over 10,000 local parishes, 16 charter trustees and 2 Temples of London
• of these, 8,805 parishes, charter trustees and Temples (local precepting authorities) instructed their billing authority to collect Council Tax on their behalf in 2013 to 2014, with a collective tax base of 7.3 million band D equivalent properties
• 241 of the 326 billing authorities have parishes; the number of parishes that require the collection of Council Tax within a local authority ranges from 1 to 238
• the total Council Tax collected on behalf of parishes and charter trustees, and apportioned to Temples in 2013 to 2014 is £367 million, representing only 1.6% of the total Council Tax requirement for England of £23.4 billion

The data can be seen here.