Dan Peters 21 December 2022

Reserves grow to £31bn, resilience index reveals

Reserves grow to £31bn, resilience index reveals image
Image: Miha Creative/Shutterstock.com.

The 2022 edition of CIPFA’s Resilience Index reveals that councils’ reserves have grown to £31bn, up from £29bn in 2020/21.

Of the £31bn of reserves, £27bn has already been earmarked for future use, leaving only £4bn unallocated.

Writing exclusively for The MJ, acting head of policy at CIPFA Joanne Pitt said councils are increasingly using their reserves to protect against further uncertainty.

She added: ‘It is worth noting that in the 2021/22 financial year, central government made grants to councils to be used over more than one year, which will also partly account for the increase in earmarked reserves for 2022/23.’

Ms Pitt said that looking at past data, the last time reserves reduced ‘was when there was a longer financial settlement for local authorities’.

‘So for reserves to start to decrease again, we need more long-term funding settlements, so authorities have the security and stability they so badly need.’

The 2022 edition of Resilience Index is now on CIPFA’s website.

Opinion: Joanne Pitt says the job of CIPFA's 2022 Resilience Index is to highlight possible exposure to risk

This article was originally published by The MJ (£).

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