Our previous article looked at how Conwy and Bath & North East Somerset put the premium powers to work. This final article sets out the data approach behind that work, and a practical framework for acting on it.

The data advantage

How smarter analysis closes the gap

It starts with asking the right questions

Data analysis, at its best, is about asking the right questions of the right datasets and surfacing the answers that matter. In the context of council tax premium liability, the questions are specific: is this property genuinely occupied? Does the occupation pattern support the discount or exemption being claimed? Is the declared use consistent with what the data shows?

The Infoshare+ approach to PRAV and SPD analysis draws on:

  • Credit bureau data: showing where individuals’ financial activity is genuinely centred, which often tells a more accurate story than a declared address
  • Property data feeds: capturing occupation signals, utility connection patterns, and ownership structures
  • Council’s own data: cross-referenced and cleansed to remove duplicates and correct errors
  • Electoral roll data: for residency cross-referencing and fraud signal detection

The output isn’t a list of suspects, but rather a risk-ranked set of cases, each with the supporting evidence needed to make an evidence-based decision and, where appropriate, to mount a robust challenge.

Why the evidence chain matters

In the context of premium rate challenges, the evidential standard matters as much as the identification. A council that identifies a potential liability but can’t demonstrate how it reached that conclusion, or whose evidence doesn’t hold up at a Valuation Tribunal, could find it a harder and more costly process to implement successfully.

Building defensible evidence from the outset goes beyond good practice and makes the whole process financially viable. Infoshare+ includes evidence bundling and Valuation Tribunal representation support as part of our managed service.

“There’s a difference between flagging a potential liability and being able to prove it. Councils are increasingly finding that the second part is where cases fall down. You can have the strongest suspicion in the world that a property is being misused, but if your evidence doesn’t hold up at a Valuation Tribunal, you’ve spent time and resource on something you can’t collect. That’s why the evidence chain has to be built in from the start, not assembled afterwards. The analysis and the audit trail need to be one and the same thing.

Gareth Chen-Rees – Director, Local Government and Data, Infoshare+

What should councils do next? A practical framework for action

The combination of new legislative powers, growing avoidance behaviour, and sustained financial pressure creates a clear imperative for councils to act, to turn this risk into an opportunity. The property owners most likely to owe a premium are also the ones most motivated to establish a paper trail that makes future challenges harder. Every year of inaction is a year in which that trail gets stronger, and the revenue gap grows. This section offers a practical starting framework for revenues teams considering how to approach the opportunity.

1. Understand your exposure

Before committing to a full review programme, it’s worth building a picture of the likely scale of the opportunity in your area. Key questions include: How many second homes and long-term empty properties are on your register? What proportion have premium charges applied? What’s your current SPD rate compared to the national average? A benchmarking exercise, even a rough one, can help make the financial case internally.

2. Get your data in order

A review is only as good as the data it starts from. If your council tax records contain duplicates, incorrect addresses, or properties that haven’t been updated since a change of use, that needs to be addressed before analysis begins. This doesn’t have to be a lengthy project. The right tools can automate much of the cleansing and matching process for you.

3. Choose the right partner

The data assets required for effective second home and SPD identification aren’t available to councils directly. Partnering with a specialist provider, one with access to credit bureau data, property feeds, and the analytical capability to bring them together, is the most effective route to a defensible, scalable review process.

4. Build it into business as usual

The councils that see the strongest long-term results treat revenue protection as an ongoing function, not a periodic exercise. An always-on review model, with continuous monitoring of SPD claims and regular refreshes of premium rate analysis, is the most reliable way to keep pace with a landscape that’s changing all the time.

The hidden economy is no longer hidden

The growth of second homes and short-term lets represents one of the most significant structural shifts in UK housing in a generation. For councils, it creates both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is real: identifying which properties qualify for premium council tax, challenging fraudulent occupancy claims, and managing the process within already-stretched revenues teams. But the opportunity is also real and, for many authorities, it’s larger than they realise.

The legislative framework is now in place. The data tools exist. The question is whether councils move quickly enough to take advantage of both, before the window narrows, avoidance behaviour becomes more entrenched, and another year’s worth of revenue goes uncollected.

Infoshare+ exists to make that process manageable. Not by adding complexity to revenues teams’ workloads, but by taking the data-heavy, evidence-intensive work off their desks and delivering results that are defensible, auditable, and financially meaningful.

The hidden housing economy has been reshaping council tax revenues for years. It’s time to reshape the response.

The full report, The hidden housing economy: how second homes and short lets are reshaping council tax revenue, sets out the full picture. Download the full report.

If you would like to talk through what it means for your authority, contact us.