Business rates: status

As part of the Open Data Collaboration group we are exploring local council Business Rates data and we've defined a common format for sharing Business Rates data. This page gives the current status of each council at meeting the standards for sharing. If you are a Local Authority and aren't included, add the URL of your CSV file to our index. If the URL of the Business Rates data is out-of-date, update it and send us a pull request. Before you do, you might want to check your file in our business rates validator.

Notes

Rows

The number of rows we found in the file. If you have empty or partial rows in your file, it will likely mess up other checks.

Valid required headings

This tells you how many of the required column headings match the format specification precisely. Headings with uppercase characters in the wrong place, extra spaces, or extra content won't count. This is used to calculate the score.

If you are getting a score of 9/10 but are convinced that you have the correct headings, it may be that your file contains a byte-order-mark as the first character and that is messing up our checking. If you are exporting from FME, this is turned on by default. Under "Encoding", you can set "Write Byte Order Mark for Unicode" to "No".

Includes required columns?

In the Business Rates format definition there are 10 columns that are listed as required. We've tried to identify how many exist by checking the column headings with a looser matching than the "Valid required headings" check. If your column headings are too different, we won't be able to find them. This is used to calculate the score.

Includes empties?

Does the file include a column Occupied that lists the empties? This is needed if we want to encourage empty properties to become occupied. This is used to calculate the score.

Valid coordinates?

Does the file contain Latitude and Longitude columns and do the cells contain things that look like coordinates? These are necessary if we want to put the properties on a map. If you are a Local Authority and only have postcodes, you can use the ONS Postcode Lookup to get latitudes and longitudes. We've even created a tool that will add latitude/longitude to CSV files with a Postcode column. This is used to calculate the score.

Valid dates

Dealing with dates is always a headache because there are so many different formats. The Government Digital Service recommend using ISO8601 which is an international standard. Dates should be YYYY-MM-DD. We've created the CSV Cleaner tool to help tidy dates into ISO8601 for you. Just drop your CSV file into it and click "Save". This is used to calculate the score.

Valid currency values

These should be given in GBP but just as a decimal number. Don't include commas or currency symbols which can be difficult to deal with consistently. This is used to calculate the score.

Is the file hosted by the Local Authority?

Ideally, files will be hosted and maintained by a Local Authority either on their own website or on a Data Store such as Data Mill North, Calderdale Data Works, Northern Data Hub, or York Open Data. That way the latest version of the Business Rates will be available. This is used to calculate the score.

Is CORS enabled?

If the file is hosted remotely, CORS will need to be enabled so that the file can be loaded by the webpage. This is used to calculate the score.

If you are hosting your file on AWS, you may need to update your CORS configuration. Jaime Scowcroft (Stockport MDC) suggests the following:

<CORSConfiguration>
	<CORSRule>
		<AllowedOrigin>*</AllowedOrigin>
		<AllowedMethod>GET</AllowedMethod>
		<AllowedMethod>HEAD</AllowedMethod>
		<MaxAgeSeconds>3000</MaxAgeSeconds>
		<AllowedHeader>Authorization</AllowedHeader>
	</CORSRule>
</CORSConfiguration>