BLACKBURN with Darwen Council has put more than £10 million in reserves in the last year while cutting back on jobs and services.

The Government made the local authority cut £33million from the budget, and it has already slashed charity grants, road repairs and 1,000 jobs.

But a new report on the council’s accounts from 2010/11 shows that a contribution was made to reserves of £10.444million.

However, the council says that most of the money – £7.760 million – is already earmarked for spending on specific areas in the next year such as schools and Regenerate Pennine Lancashire.

The reserve money has come from savings made in the year 2010/11, when the council spent £142.947million – £17.6million less than the set budget of £160.542million.

Net expenditure was £209.9million, less £66.96million in corporate savings.

Denise Park, strategic director of resources and shared services said: “The amount shown in the accounts includes committed reserves, which are allocated for specific projects the council is committed to.

"It also includes money which we hold on behalf of others i.e. schools.

“The number also takes into account increases as part of technical accounting requirements.

“The necessary and urgent action we took to deal with the £33million funding reductions gave us some early savings in 2010/11 which we put in reserves.

"We have now set some of this aside for environmental and road repairs.”