Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will make an assessment of trends in the level of reserves held by local authorities over the last decade.

The government considers reserves to be an important part of the resources available to local authorities.

We encourage local authorities to consider how they can use their reserves to maintain services in the face of pressures, taking account, of course, of the need to maintain appropriate levels of reserves to support their financial sustainability and future investment.

Local authority revenue expenditure and financing data, which includes data on the level of local authority reserves held over the last decade, is published on gov.uk at the following link.

Further information about an individual local authority's reserves can be found in the financial accounts published by that authority. The government will continue to monitor the level of local authority reserves.