Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) county and (b) district councils which have overspent on their budgets in each of the last three financial years.

Local authorities may incur more expenditure than they have budgeted for a range of reasons, including increases in demand for services and unforeseeable events. This is why every local authority is required to maintain a level of unallocated reserve commensurate with sound financial risk management.

The Department collects and publishes individual local authority expenditure data for both budget and outturn, and these are available at www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing.