9 Letter from the Cabinet Office to the
Clerk of the Committee
First of all can I address your concern that
changes have been omitted in error: this is not the case. The
reason for the apparent omission of a number of resource
and capital transfers from our Spring Supplementary Estimate (SSE)
is due to a HM Treasury rule, which states that Estimates cannot
reduce the Net Resource Requirement (NRR) of a Department from
that already approved in an earlier Estimate.
The only instance a NRR can be reduced in an
Estimate is when there is a Machinery of Government transfer.
As you will see from the table below, the net
effect of the resource and capital transfers out was to reduce
the NRR. Since these transfers were not Machinery of Government
related, they fall within the scope of the Treasury rule and were
not therefore shown on the face of the Estimate.
Table showing transfer not included in
NRR calculation
| Resource | £
| Capital | £
|
| EYF Drawdown | 7,900,000 |
Transfer to HMGCC | (557,000) |
| SIA to Cabinet Office | 335,000
| | |
| DTI to Cabinet Office | 389,000
| | |
| Transfer out to other Depts. | (8,763,000)
| | |
| | |
|
| Net effect on NRR | (139,000)
| Net effect on NRR | (557,000)
|
The rule regarding the NRR does not apply to the Departmental
Expenditure Limit (DEL) and therefore there is no impact on Departmental
controls. A reconciliation between the NRR and DEL is shown in
the Notes to the Estimates of the SSE (Page 9).
The transfers are also set out in the Written Statement (see
Annex A of this note), which was presented to Parliament by the
Chief Secretary on the same day as the Spring Supplementary Estimate
was published—Tuesday 14 February.
I trust this will address your concern about Cabinet Office's
treatment of these various transfers. I note what you say about
contra entries in other Departments' Estimates, but I do not think
that it is appropriate for me to comment on how other Departments
have treated their Estimates.
1 March 2006
|
