4 Expenditure
29. The annual oral evidence session with Ministers
on the Scotland Office Departmental Report[17]
was this year held on 4 July.[18]
As is usual, the oral evidence concentrated mainly on policy
and administration matters, with the Committee sending the Scotland
Office a set of detailed written questions dealing with expenditure
matters. The Department's responses to those questions were appended
to the published oral evidence.[19]
30. Since 2004, Government Departments have produced
Explanatory Memoranda on the relevant sections of the Winter Supplementary
Estimate and of the Spring Supplementary Estimate, and the Committee
receives a memorandum from the Scotland Office setting out the
Department for Constitutional Affairs' revised provisions relating
to the administrative costs of the Scotland Office and the grant
to the Scottish Executive.
31. As the Committee considered that such Memoranda
would not otherwise be readily available, we took the initiative
that the Explanatory Memorandum by the Scotland Office on the
Winter Supplementary Estimate should be appended to the relevant
Annual Report,[20] and
that the Explanatory Memorandum on the Spring Supplementary Estimate
should be published as a free-standing Memorandum.[21]
We have followed that practice this year by publishing the Explanatory
Memorandum on the Spring Supplementary Estimate 2006 on 16 May
[22] and appending
the Winter Supplementary Estimate 2006-07 to this Report.[23]
17 Cm 6834. Back
18
HC (2005-06) 1440-i. Back
19
Ibid, pp 17-20. Back
20
Scottish Affairs Committee, First Report, Session 2004-05, Work
of the Committee in 2004, HC (2004-05) 277, para 1. Back
21
Scottish Affairs Committee, First Report, Session 2005-06, Work
of the Committee in 2005, HC (2005-06) 836, para 3. Back
22
HC (2005-06) 1106. Back
23
See p 12. Back
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