The council's free savings — money in the bank not promised to anything — at the start and end of the year. This is the rainy-day fund that absorbs shocks and overspends, and councils that let it run dry are the ones that end up effectively bankrupt. Higher means a safer cushion; a pot that shrinks year after year is one of the clearest warning signs in council finance.
| name | unallocated-reserves-start-end |
|---|---|
| dataset | 01-revenue-outturn |
| kind | extracted |
| type | numeric |
| unit | £000 (stock at start/end of year) |
| grain | council-year |
| role | feature |
| source | "data/Revenue_Outturn_time_series_data_v3.2.csv, columns `RS_resunall_start_cy` and `RS_resunall_end_cy`" |
| period | "FY 2017-18 to 2024-25, annual (year_ending 201803-202503)" |
| missingness | "Rows with status other than "submitted" (i.e. "total" aggregates and "not submitted") must be filtered out; a non-submitted council-year is a genuine gap, not zero. 2024-25 covers 410/411 councils. Councils abolished/created in 2017-25 reorganisations appear only for the years they existed." |
| score_note | Raw stock feeding reserves-cover and drawdown; the ratios carry the signal, making this a near-duplicate input. |
| peer_group | council class (district / county / unitary / metropolitan / London) — not yet scored on the leaderboard |
Free (unallocated) reserves at the start and end of the financial year — the council's financial-resilience buffer. Feeds reserves cover and drawdown rate; a sustained fall toward zero is the classic section 114 precursor (corroborate with 04-efs-s114). Stock values in £ thousands, not annual flows.