Benefits, public and private sector: welcome to the ultimate local government spreadsheet

The government has just released a complete guide to England's local authorities. See what the data says about where you live
Get the data

This data is compiled for the business department (BIS) to assess applications from local authorities for the government's regional growth fund a 1.4bn, three-year fund that will operate across England to stimulate private sector led sustainable economic growth and employment.

Published last week, it provides the detailed indicators that will be used by BIS. It shows:

Employment in the public sector (you can see our map of public sector employment here)
Employment in the private sector
Growth in private sector jobs
Out of work benefit claimants

It gives a useful indicator of how resilient local economies may be in the face of swingeing public spending cuts, both to council, NHS and Whitehall budgets, and to welfare spending.

Clearly where areas have a high dependency on public employment, the impact of the government's 81bn spending cuts will be challenging.

This economic challenge, however, becomes even trickier if the private sector is unable to step up into the space vacated by the retreating state - and these statistics point to those areas where the private sector is shrinking or underdeveloped. The prospect of growth becomes even more difficult where large numbers of the population in a given area are dependent on benefits - cuts to these will further diminish the amount of local spending power.

What's not immediately clear, though, is the extent to which the private sector in each local authority area is dependent on the public sector. Many areas surely will see private sector job growth in recent years reverse in line wit! h cuts t o spending by councils, schools and universities, Whitehall, the NHS, and the criminal justice system.

The full data is below. What can you do with it?