Open data and API

What is available

Only published monthly results are available, and only for nations and council departments that are open on the website. Preview calculations, individual ratings, comments and moderation records are never exposed.

Each council gets a score for each department it runs, a combined social care score and a council score, which is the average of its department scores. Scores are updated once a month, after an administrator has reviewed the calculation. Each response includes the methodology_version and the period (month) it describes.

Endpoints

Base address: https://socialcarescore.co.uk/api/v1

Read-only endpoints
Method	Path	Returns
GET	`/api/v1/methodology`	The methodology version and every scoring parameter currently in use.
GET	`/api/v1/services`	The scores published in each nation (the council score, social care and each department), with the codes and slugs the other endpoints use.
GET	`/api/v1/categories`	The six rating categories. Add service to get the wording used for that department.
GET	`/api/v1/authorities`	Councils in the nations we publish, with their status and latest council score.
GET	`/api/v1/authorities/{slug}`	Full published result for one council: the council score, the social care score and a score for each published department, with components, likely range, rank, and risk and trust indicators.
GET	`/api/v1/authorities/{slug}/history`	Published monthly scores for one council (up to 24 months). Add service for a department.
GET	`/api/v1/rankings`	Rankings for a nation, score and month, with plausible rank ranges and the group each council is ranked in.
GET	`/api/v1/rankings.csv`	The same rankings as a CSV file.
GET	`/api/v1/insights/heatmap`	Category scores for every council in a nation, for heatmaps.

Parameters

period — month as YYYY-MM, for example 2026-08. Defaults to the latest published month.
nation — wales, england, scotland or northern_ireland, where published. Rankings and the heatmap default to the first published nation; the council list defaults to every published nation.
service — council (the council score, the default), social-care, or a department such as education</code>, <code>housing</code>, <code>council-tax-and-benefits. See every service code.

Scores are on a 0–100 scale. Where there are not enough ratings, data_status is insufficient and the score is null. Provisional scores (provisional) are shown with caution and are not ranked.

Councils are ranked only against comparable councils: in the same nation, for the same score. In England, council scores and scores for services shared between county and district councils are ranked in separate groups, given in ranking_group.

Example response

An abbreviated response from /api/v1/rankings?nation=wales&service=housing. The figures below are illustrative only.

{
  "period": "2026-08",
  "nation": "wales",
  "service": "housing",
  "methodology_version": "1.1",
  "national_median": 58.4,
  "min_councils_for_ranking": 5,
  "rankings": [
    {
      "ranking_group": "wales",
      "rank": 1,
      "rank_range": [1, 3],
      "rank_of": 22,
      "overall": 71.2,
      "band": { "key": "good", "label": "Good" },
      "ci": [66.0, 76.4],
      "change_1m": 1.4,
      "trend": "stable",
      "n_effective": 142.6,
      "authority": { "slug": "example-council", "name": "Example Council", "type": "principal_council" },
      "data_status": "scored"
    }
  ],
  "unranked": []
}

Fair use, licence and citation

Requests are rate limited to about 600 an hour per network. Cache responses where you can.
Aggregate scores are intended to be published under an open licence (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 is proposed — confirmation from the operator is pending).
Please cite as: SocialCareScore, [council] council score (or [council] [department] score), [month year], methodology version [x], with a link to the council page.
Always report the likely range alongside a score, and avoid presenting small differences in rank as meaningful. See how scoring works and our guidance for journalists.

Last reviewed: 15/09/2026