Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the amount held in reserves by maintained schools in the Leeds City Council local authority area in for 2017/18.

The Department trusts schools to manage their own budgets and the great majority have a cumulative surplus of funds, built up over a number of years. In 2016/17 206 local authority maintained schools in Leeds recorded a cumulative surplus, which totalled £31,553,748.