Letter to the Clerk of the Committee from
the Northern Ireland Office
NORTHERN IRELAND SPRING SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES
In your two letters of 5 March 2001 you raised
four questions with regard to the Northern Ireland Office Spring
Supplementary Estimates. I will respond in the order the questions
were raised in your first letter and then finally to the query
made in your second note.
1. The increase in the Supplementary Estimate
Vote 2 DEL which covers most of the Northern Ireland Executive's
financial resources must be approved by Parliament in order to
be effected.
2. The Supplementary Estimate sought additional
provision of £234,401,000 which can be broken down as follows:—
| | £m
|
| Grants to support expenditure by the NI Departments in DEL
| 288.5 |
| Grants to support expenditure by the NI Departments in W2W
| 12.0 |
| Grants to support expenditure by the NI Departments in AME
| -60.0 |
| Grants to support expenditure by the NI Departments outside DEL
| -6.1 |
| | (234.4)
|
The recently announced DEL increase was £172,993,000.
The difference between this and the Supplementary Estimate for
DEL (of £288.5 million) is £115.5 million. This is made
up of the voted increases funded from non-voted areas, which are
not reflected in Estimates, as well as savings in other votes
which did not take a Supplementary.
3. The structure of Vote 2 reverted to one subhead because
HMT determined in agreement with the NIAO that it was not practicable
to exercise the level of control over expenditure implicit in
a four subhead arrangement.
4. You sought a reconciliation between the overall DEL
increase in the published Estimate (£30,627,000) with the
stated DEL increase in the Secretary of State's PQ response of
15 February (£16,667,000). The difference is accounted for
by the drawing down of the Department's Unallocated Provision
(DUP) of £13,960,000. You will know that the DUP derives
from the monies already granted in the Comprehensive Spending
Review (in effect it is money we already have but draw upon only
when required by way of the Supplementary Estimate process). Consequently
the £16,667,000 accurately reflects the extra money required
over and above that originally provided.
The apparent difference between the Running Cost increase
quoted in the PQ (£12,147,000) and the published Estimates
booklet (£11,326,000) arises from the PQ figure being a gross
amount (inclusive of running costs related receipts of £821,000)
while the Estimates booklet always reflects the net additional
amount only.
If I can be of any further assistance please don't hesitate
to ask.
6 March 2001
| 
