Benford’s Law Validation of UK Council Spending Data

This is an interesting analysis, but some context can probably explain the outliers.

For local-authority funded residential care, there's a standard set of prices the council will pay based on geography and the level of care required. It's a take-it-or-leave-it deal for the care providers. (Any contribution from the individual is collected directly by the council, instead of the care provider splitting the bill between the council and the resident.)

Because of this, I wouldn't expect these payments to follow Benford's Law at all, and all payments for one provider having one of two values makes sense.

There's probably a similar explanation for the 'REDACTED PERSONAL DATA' payments. If the bulk of these payments are housing benefit payments to private tenants, then the caps on housing benefit will distort the data.