MHCLG · Local authority revenue expenditure and financing, England: revenue outturn multi-year data
Unallocated council reserves
£5.4bnmillion
Unallocated council reserves was £5.4bn at 31 March 2025, up 11.8% (£568.1m) from £4.8bn at 31 March 2024.
▲ 11.8% · +£568.1m against Year ending March 2024 (previous period)
- MHCLG snapshot
- Year ending March 2025
- published 13 August 2026
- Revenue outturn summary (RS)
- row “England”
- column “RS_resunall_end_cy”
- cell value 5385509
Year ending March 2018 to Year ending March 2025
What this measures
The unallocated financial reserves each English local authority held at 31 March — the council's uncommitted cushion, excluding reserves earmarked for a purpose and excluding schools, dedicated schools grant and public health reserves.
What this doesn’t measure
Total usable reserves (earmarked reserves are a separate line), whether the level is adequate for the authority's risks, or capital reserves. A council running down this line may be spending reserves or reclassifying them as earmarked.
Important caveat
Net current expenditure from the revenue outturn (RO/RS) returns councils file with MHCLG: spending after the income a service earns (sales, fees, charges and specific grants inside the line) is taken off, in cash prices for the year stated. In two-tier England the county council runs social care and education and the districts run housing, bins and planning, so authorities of different classes are not comparable line by line. Police, fire, combined authorities and the GLA report separately and are inside the England total but have no page here. Every year is restated at each release; an authority that misses the deadline (Cumberland, 2024-25) is absent, not zero. Reserves levels are the RS form's financial reserves lines at 31 March and exclude schools, dedicated schools grant and public health reserves, which are earmarked by rule.
Revision history
No period of this series has been revised since it was first ingested here. Revisions are recorded automatically when a later release publishes a different figure for the same period.
Source
- Publisher
- MHCLG
- Publication
- Local authority revenue expenditure and financing, England: revenue outturn multi-year data
- Release
- Outturn 2017-18 to 2024-25 (v3.2), published 13 August 2026
- Source file
- ro.csv
- File SHA-256
- 885270cfc4d91354cce6e6e0ba3a5b798090b367e51dadbdcfb47c0428c1bc89
- Retrieved
- 4 September 2026
- Sheet
- csv
- Table
- Revenue outturn summary (RS)
- Row
- England
- Column
- RS_resunall_end_cy
- Cell value
- 5385509
- Geography
- E92000001
- Unit
- £ million
- API
- /api/metrics/council_reserves_unallocated · /series · /vintages
Government periods
Change during each government, from the level inherited to the last complete period before it left office. Describes the period; does not attribute cause.
| Conservative 2019–2024 | £4.3bnYear ending March 2019 | £4.8bnYear ending March 2024 | ↑ 13.0% |
- Release
- Outturn 2017-18 to 2024-25 (v3.2) · publication page
- Last updated
- 13 August 2026
- Next release expected
- Not yet announced (estimated from the usual cadence)