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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what information his Department holds on the level of Sefton Council's (a) allocated and (b) unallocated reserves.

As at 31 March 2014, Sefton held £67.7 million in revenue reserves, of which £17.8 million was schools reserves and £49.9 million was non-ringfenced reserves. Of the non-ringfenced reserves, £39.7 million were earmarked reserves, and £10.2 million were unallocated reserves.

These figures are taken from the Revenue Outturn form which has been completed by all local authorities in England and published at the following link;

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing-england-2013-to-2014-individual-local-authority-data-outturn

We have encouraged councils to make creative use of reserves, such as "invest to save" projects to reduce long-term costs.