Form

Guidance notes for completing the Quarterly Revenue Update (QRU) form (previously known as Quarterly Revenue Outturn/QRO)

Updated 1 July 2026

Applies to England

These notes should be read in conjunction with Revenue Outturn General Guidance, Revenue Account Guidance and CIPFA’s SERCOP.

Introduction

The Quarterly Revenue Update (QRU) requires an in-year estimate of net current expenditure for each quarter and the financial year as a whole.

QRU is not a final outturn. Instead, it represents your authority’s best estimate of the full-year outturn on an accruals basis, based on the latest available information. It should not be treated as a cash-based return, nor as a definitive record of actual expenditure.

On the quarterly revenue update page, we provide the following tools to help you with your return:

• a mapping document showing how QRU lines map to RA and RO
• the most recent RA budget data aggregated to QRU categories

In addition, on Delta you can download an Excel version of the form (the ‘template’). This can be useful if you find it easier to work with Excel rather than the Delta interface. Note that if choosing this method, you will need to follow the instructions to upload your completed form to Delta.

QRU forms are sent out for quarters 1 to 3 of the financial year, with a quarter 4 forecast required in the quarter 3 return to provide a full-year breakdown.

Motivation

QRU data provides essential information on how local government expenditure is developing during the financial year. The gap between collection of Revenue Account (RA) budget and outturn returns is around 15 months, with QRU bridging the gap between these.

Data collected is used to:

• support public finance statistics and national accounts, including GDP estimates
• inform Treasury and wider government on in-year spending trends
• provide early insight into emerging financial pressures across local authorities

Providing accurate and timely QRU data helps ensure that national statistics and policy decisions are based on a reliable and current picture.

Core principles

Apply the following principles when completing the QRU return:

• Provide net current expenditure With the exception of education (see schools’ non-pay section below), figures must reflect expenditure net of sales, fees and charges, and other income. All figures must be rounded to the nearest thousand.
• Report on an accruals basis, estimating where necessary
  It is expected that in most cases, complete outturn data will not yet be available. In such cases, you must estimate figures to provide a credible quarterly position. See further guidance on how to do this below.
• Do not include grants from central government
  Grants from central government are out of scope of QRU and should not be netted off, however do net off grants passed on from other local authorities. Likewise, you should not include money transferred to central government. Contact us if you are uncertain as to whether a grant should be included.
• Update earlier quarters
  When completing later returns (e.g. Q2 or Q3), you should revise earlier quarters within the current form so all data reflects your latest estimates.
• Focus on current-year activity
  Do not include adjustments relating to previous years’ expenditure.
• Provide comments to explain large changes
  Warnings will appear in the form if figures are significantly different to previous  RA/QRU data (the exact line-by-line thresholds are available on request). In such situations you should leave a comment explaining the cause of the difference.

Estimation methods

As previously mentioned, if complete actuals are not available, you should look to estimate your quarterly position. If you already produce a forecast outturn, you can use this to derive your QRU position.

As a general approach, start with your budget submitted in RA. You can find this, grouped into QRU categories, on the QRU guidance page. Adjust this using in-year information, such as monitoring reports, known pressures, or updated forecasts. Use this to estimate quarterly expenditure (on an accruals basis) and the full-year forecast outturn.

This approach is preferred because it produces a complete estimate, even when actual data is incomplete.

Guidance for specific lines

The following items should be treated in a specific way and should be handled carefully:

Recharges (central services)

Central costs (e.g. support services) are primarily recorded against line 2 (general public services). We are aware that recharges are often not apportioned to service lines until year end. In this case, you should estimate the apportionment until it is known. The central and management services component of this line should in principle net to approximately zero in each quarter.

Education and parish precepts

These lines record transfers to other entities and should be displayed as an estimate split evenly across the year, not at the point payments are made.

Schools’ non-pay expenditure (education authorities only)

From 2026-27, we have reviewed and clarified the guidance for this line as follows:

• Schools’ non-pay expenditure should reflect schools’ running expenses, net of all income relating to schools (sales, fees and charges, and other income).
• Education, excluding schools’ non-pay expenditure, should reflect schools’ employee costs, plus net current expenditure for post-16 and other education.

There are three options for how to submit your education expenditure data; use the radio buttons to select the relevant option:

1. Provide the breakdown of schools’ non-pay and other education expenditure (preferred)
2. Provide a Total Education figure
3. Provide a figure for education, excluding schools’ non-pay.

For the purpose of this collection; “schools” are any entities providing an education service holding a delegated budget.

Other guidance

Shared services arrangements – Where a service is funded by contributions from another authority or organisation (e.g. NHS or third sector), the corresponding portion of income must be netted off against the relevant service expenditure each quarter.

Payments where the local authority is acting as an agent (i.e. amount payable is not a decision of the authority) – exclude.

Capital items, capital expenditure financed from the revenue account – exclude. (Capital items within trading accounts are collected in order to net them off.)

Revenue expenditure from capital sources (RECS) – exclude.

Lines 24, 25 and 26 – do not include subsidy from DWP.

Line 33 – do not include income from Environment Agency flood defence levy.

If you have any further queries, please contact QRU@communities.gov.uk.