Civil partnership licences: how much local councils are charging
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Version 0 of 1. Some councils are charging religious premises up to sixteen times more for civil partnership licences than marriage licenses. The Guardian's national sample of 42 local councils suggests that those in which Conservatives are the largest political party and those in the east of England, are charging the most on average. It has been legal for places of worship to hold civil partnership ceremonies since December 2011. But while a permanent marriage licence for a religious building costs a standard fee of £120 set by the registrar general, local councils have been allowed to decide the cost of a civil partnership licence. The table below shows the cost of a licence to conduct civil partnerships in places of worship, across 42 local councils. However, some councils have chosen to decrease the cost of the licence by extending their grant period from the standard three years to five, seven, or ten years. Swansea, Pembrokeshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire have all granted permanent licences of £120 (effectively reducing the annual cost of permanent licences to zero). The interactive map above and chart below take account of the length of time covered by each council's licence, by comparing their annual cost. The map reveals the three highest-charging local councils in our survey are clustered in the centre of the country - although nearby councils charging much less bring down the average annual regional cost in all of these areas except East Anglia. In East Anglia, religious premises are asked to pay an average of £1650 per licence - 13 times more than a standard marriage licence. Civil partnership licences cost the least in Wales, at just £196 on average. The average overall cost of the licences (not taking account of differences in length) reveals a similar trend to the average annual cost, but bumps the South West up the chart. Somerset County Council's decision to spread its high charge of £1,300 over seven years lowered this region's position in the annual comparison. Councils in which the largest party are the Conservatives charge an average of £1,183 for a civil partnership licence – nearly ten times more than the cost of a marriage licence. Where Labour, the average charge was £785, and where Liberal Democrat, £148. Data summary Civil partnership licence cost by council Click heading to sort table. Download this data <strong> </strong> Civil partnership licence, annual cost by council Click heading to sort table. Download this data <strong> </strong> Download the data • DATA: download the full spreadsheet NEW! Buy our book • Facts are Sacred: the power of data (on Kindle) More open data Data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian World government data <strong></strong> • Search the world's government data with our gateway Development and aid data • Search the world's global development data with our gateway Can you do something with this data? • <strong>Flickr</strong> Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group<br />• Contact us at data@guardian.co.uk <strong>• Get the A-Z of data<br />• More at the Datastore directory</strong><br /><strong>• Follow us on Twitter<br />• Like us on Facebook</strong> |