Annex
Letter to Mr David Crawley, Head of the Scotland
Office, from the Clerk of the Committee
The Scottish Affairs Committee has now had a opportunity
to consider the Spring Supplementary Estimate, laid on 22nd February
2005 and approved by the House on 9th March; the Committee would
be grateful for clarification on the matter detailed below:
In analysing the resource changes in the Spring Supplementary
Estimate, it was not immediately clear why changes notified in
the Estimate Memorandum, Written Statement and Estimate were not
reflected in a movement of resource shown under Request for Resources
2 in the Department for Constitutional Affairs Spring Supplementary
Estimate. The Committee would, therefore, be grateful for an explanation
of why no movement appears in the Department for Constitutional
Affairs Estimate.
The Committee also requests that, for future Estimates,
the Scotland Office provides a note in the Estimate Memorandum
to reconcile the Scotland Office Estimate changes to the Request
for Resources 2 in Department for Constitutional Affairs Estimate.
I would be grateful if you could let me have a reply
by 13 May. The Committee may wish to draw on the information provided
in future inquiries, for example, during the annual evidence session
on the Scotland Office Departmental Report.
5 April 2005
Letter to the Clerk of the Committee from Mr Jim
Wildgoose, Head of the Scotland Office
SPRING SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE
Thank you for your letter of 5 April to David Crawley
about the Spring Supplementary Estimates of the Department for
Constitutional Affairs and its interaction with the Memorandum
to your Committee. As you may be aware, David Crawley is no longer
the Head of the Scotland Office and I replaced him on 3 May 2005.
I am pleased that the Committee has found the Memoranda
helpful in considering our Supplementary Estimates and am happy
to arrange that future Memoranda will include a reconciliation
between the DCA Estimate and our text.
Turning to the Committee's question as to why the
DCA Supplementary Estimate does not show any movement despite
the details being shown in our Memorandum, in essence, the issue
is one of rounding.
I attach a table - along the lines that we will be
producing for future Memoranda - which shows a reconciliation
between our details and the DCA Estimate.
As you will see from the table, the precise figures
were £21,383,433,000 after the Winter Supplementary and £21,382,561,000
after the Spring Supplementary. However, as the published Estimates
are to the nearest £million, both figures are rounded to
£21,383m; thus the printed Estimate shows that no change
is needed.
I hope that this is helpful
13 May 2005
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