Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service of 20 November 2017, Official Report, column 712, what the evidential basis is for the £616 million of reserves cited.

DCLG publish financial information from all local authorities. The information on Fire and Rescue Authority reserves as at March 2017 can be found at the following link; https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing-england-2016-to-2017-individual-local-authority-data-outturn.

Fire and Rescue is funded via revenue support grant (RSG), retained business rates and council tax (precept). Fire and Rescue also receive national resilience grants directly from the Home Office which in 2017/18 are worth £28m. DCLG settlement documents showing allocations for RSG and business rates can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-government-finance-report-2017-to-2018. DCLG also publishes core spending power for all local authorities (core spending power includes revenue support grant, retained business rates and council tax). This can be found at the following link https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/core-spending-power-final-local-government-finance-settlement-2017-to-2018