The Queen has since been drawing on the reserves built up in the 1990s to pay for ongoing costs and last year spent £6 million from them.

Important to the city's future credit quality is the ability and willingness to take budgetary action that reduces the reliance on non-recurring sources, rather than further drawing on the reserves.

I am also happy with the Commissioner's promises to deploy additional resources in order to achieve this, for example by bringing forward the expenditure on food aid that is anticipated for later this year and by drawing on the reserves for humanitarian aid.