Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what level of reserve funding police forces held at 31 March in each year since 2009.

Reserves are an important tool for police leaders, but this is taxpayers’ money and we need real transparency about how it is being used.

That is why in January the Government published information on police reserves and provided guidance to Police and Crime Commissioners making clear that they must be more open with taxpayers about their plans to use them.

The exact level of reserves is a matter for individual Police and Crime Commissioners, who have a legal duty to set balanced annual budgets and ensure they have adequate reserves. Police reserve levels since 2011 are published in the Police Financial Reserves section on gov.uk. These can be found by following the link below. Earlier figures can be found in former Police Authority statements of accounts.

We will shortly be publishing March 2018 police reserve figures on gov.uk, following the publication of Police and Crime Commissioners’ annual accounts

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-financial-reserves