Band 6+: The three pie charts below show the changes in annual spending by local authorities in Someland in 1980, 1990 and 2000. Summarize the information and compare where relevant, by selecting and reporting the key features. You should write at least 150 words.

The three pie charts detail expenses by local authorities in a specific area over a 30-year period (1980 to 2000). Overall, it is readily apparent that higher education made up the largest proportion of expenditure and kept stable over the period, while “other”, constituting the lowest percentage, decreased. Additionally, spending on transportation underwent fluctuations.

Initially, higher education accounted for 35% of total budget of local authorities, followed by 25% of K-12 education, and 16% of transportation. In the subsequent decade, only higher education rose slightly by 10%, while transportation and K-12 education, decreased gradually by 9 and 5%, respectively. However, in 2000, transportation spending grew substantially to 22%, while for higher and K-12 education declined to 40% and 18%, respectively.

With respect to the other 3 expenditures, environmental services and “other” had identical figures in 1980, around 5% each. In 1990, the figures for other declined by 2%, accounting for 4%. By contrast, the proportion of environmental services increased slightly to 5%. Likewise, in the next 10 years, expenses for environmental services continued to rose, having 9%, whilst figure for “other” was only 1%. When it comes to health and human recourses, spending had started at 14% in 1980, before growing to 20% in 1990, but decreasing in 2000 by 4%.