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Written Ministerial Statements

Tuesday 25 November 2008

Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform

Departmental Expenditure Limits (2008-09)

The Minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs (Mr. Pat McFadden): Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary supplementary estimate, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform’s DEL will be reduced by £11,157,000 from £3,379,070,000 to £3,367,913,000 and the administration budget will be increased by £358,000 from £332,173,000 to £332,531,000.

Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital is as set out in the following table:

	Change		New DEL
	Voted	Non-Voted	Voted	Non-Voted	Total
Resource (£000)	34,426	-28,583	-497,986	2,654,880	2,156,894
of which:
Administration(1) budget	358		332,531		332,531
Near cash in Resource DEL(2)	19,398	-13,555	-645,630	2,693,147	2,047,517
Capital (£000)	-91,601	74,601	-763,999	1,975,018	1,211,019
Less Depreciation(3) (£000)	-11,327	11,327	-48,780	-24,684	-73,464
Total (£000)	-68,502	57,345	-1,310,765	4,605,214	3,294,449
(1)The total of the ‘Administration Budget’ and ‘Near-Cash in Resource DEL’ figures may well be greater than total resource DEL, due to the definitions overlapping. (2)Capital DEL includes items treated as resource in estimates and accounts, but which are treated as capital DEL in Budgets. (3)Depreciation, which forms part of resource DEL, is excluded from the total DEL since capital DEL includes capital spending and to include depreciation of those assets would lead to double counting.

The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from:

RfR1

i) Increase of £825,000 in respect of an award from the financial inclusion fund for face-to-face debt advice.

ii) Transfer of £40,000 from the non-voted departmental unallocated provision to the Cabinet Office for the security monitoring and co-ordination centre.

iii) Transfer of £4,000,000 from the Ministry of Defence in respect of global threat reduction.

iv) Virement of £17,088,000 from non-voted to voted expenditure in respect of the regional development agencies reflecting reduced contributions from other Government Departments.

v) Virement of £2,504,000 from voted to non-voted expenditure in respect of a reallocation from the London development agency to the regional development agencies.

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vi) Virement of £1,000,000 from voted expenditure on business link marketing to non-voted expenditure in respect of the regional development agencies.

vii) Virement of £16,000,000 from non-voted capital expenditure in respect of the regional development agencies to the non-voted resource departmental unallocated provision.

viii) Transfer of £16,000,000 from the non-voted resource departmental unallocated provision to the Department for Work and Pensions in respect of cold weather payments.

ix) Virement of £115,000 from non-voted to voted expenditure in respect of a reduction in the gross expenditure and receipts of Postwatch as a result of the transfer of the Royal Mail quality of service review to Postcomm.

x) Virement of £14,300,000 from the non-voted resource departmental unallocated provision to voted insolvency service non-cash.

xi) Virement of £728,000 from the non-voted resource departmental unallocated provision to voted non-cash provisions in respect of Icelandic trawlermen compensation.

xii) Virement of £516,000 from the non-voted resource departmental unallocated provision to voted near-cash in respect of British shipbuilders’ liabilities.

Also within the change to resource DEL, the changes to the Administration budget are (RfR1):

i) Transfer of £1,463,000 from the Cabinet Office in respect of the Parliamentary Counsel Office.

ii) Transfer of £360,000 to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in respect of the Office of Climate Change.

iii) Transfer of £45,000 to the Office of Government Commerce (Cabinet Office) for the centre of expertise for sustainable development.

iv) Reclassification of £700,000 from voted administration to non-voted programme expenditure in respect of the regional development agencies’ business links.

The change in the Capital element of the DEL arises from:

RfR1

i) Virement of £39,501,000 from voted to non-voted expenditure in respect of a reallocation from the London development agency to the regional development agencies.

ii) Virement of £16,000,000 from non-voted capital expenditure in respect of the regional development agencies to the non-voted resource departmental unallocated provision.

iii) Transfer from non-voted regional development agencies expenditure of £1,000,000 to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in respect of increased warm front activity.

iv) Virement of £27,000,000 from voted environmental transformation fund expenditure to the non-voted departmental unallocated provision.

v) Virement of £27,400,000 from voted enterprise capital fund expenditure to the non-voted departmental unallocated provision.

vi) Virement of £2,300,000 from non-voted expenditure to voted in respect of increased recoveries of non-voted launch investment receipts and increased voted expenditure by the advisory, conciliation and arbitration service.

Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary supplementary estimate, the postal services commission DEL will be increased by £1,000 from £151,000 to £152,000 and the administration budget will be increased by £1,000 from £1,000 to £2,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital is as set out in the following table:

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		New DEL
£'000	Change	Voted	Non-voted	Total
Resource DEL	1	2	0	2
Of which:(1)
Administration budget	1	2	0	2
Near-cash in RDEL	1	-538	0	-538
Capital DEL(2)	0	150	0	150
Depreciation	0	-530	0	-530
Total	1	-378	0	-378
(1)The total of the ’Administration Budget' and ’Near-cash in Resource DEL' figures may well be greater than total resource DEL, due to the definitions overlapping. (2)Capital DEL includes items treated as resource in Estimates and accounts but which are treated as Capital DEL in budgets. Depreciation, which forms part of resource DEL, is excluded from the total DEL since capital DEL includes capital spending and to include depreciation of those assets would lead to double counting.

The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from a token increase in administration costs. The token increase is necessary to bring to Parliament’s attention an increase in administration expenditure relating to the Royal Mail quality of service review (£114,000) offset by increased appropriations in aid (£114,000) from Royal Mail.

Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary supplementary estimate, the Office of Gas and Electricity Market’s DEL will be increased by £1,000 from £1,651,000 to £1,652,000 and the administration budget will be increased by £1,000 from £701,000 to £702,000:

New DEL
£'000	Change	Voted	Non-voted	Total
Resource DEL	1	2	0	2
Of which:(1)
Administration budget	1	2	0	2
Near-cash in RDEL	1	-538	0	-538
Capital DEL(2)	0	950	0	950
Depreciation	0	-1000	0	-1000
Total	1	652	0	652
(1)The total of the ’Administration Budget' and 'Near-cash in Resource DEL' figures may well be greater than total resource DEL, due to the definitions overlapping. (2)Capital DEL includes items treated as resource in Estimates and accounts but which are treated as Capital DEL in budgets. Depreciation, which forms part of resource DEL, is excluded from the total DEL since capital DEL includes capital spending and to include depreciation of those assets would lead to double counting.

The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from a token increase in administration costs. The token increase is necessary to bring to Parliament’s attention an increase in administration costs of £1,499,000 offset by an increase in appropriations in aid of £1,499,000. The increase in administration costs is as a result of additional unplanned expenditure on a Competition Act investigation, the offshore transmission tender process and the energy supply markets probe.

Regional Development Agency (Board Appointments)

The Minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs (Mr. Pat McFadden): I am pleased to announce that I have decided to appoint 23 RDA board members,
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whom between them will serve seven of our Regional Development Agencies. Their names are listed below.

RDA	Board Member Appointees
Advantage West Midlands	Cllr Mike Whitby
East of England Development Agency	Mr Nitin Dahad Cllr Shona Johnstone Cllr Madeline Russell
East Midlands Development Agency	Ms Elizabeth Donnelly Mr James Harker
North-West Regional Development Agency	Mrs Anne Selby Ms Brenda Smith extended for one year. Lord Peter Smith Dr John Stageman
South-East England Development Agency	Ms Zenna Atkins Cllr Jeremy Birch Mr Leslie Dawson Cllr Keith Mitchell
South-West of England Regional Development Agency	Mr Ian Ducat Mr Peter Madden Professor Steve Smith Ms Judith Reynolds and Sir Henry Studholme -reappointed after applying through open competition
Yorkshire Forward	Mr Bill Adams Mr Ajaz Ahmend Mr John Vincent Mrs Julie Kenny - reappointed after applying through open competition

The RDAs are playing a crucial role in supporting the national and regional economies in this critical and exceptional economic climate. All the appointees will bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to their RDA adding a vast amount of value.

I have agreed to the appointments starting on the 14 December 2008 for a period of three years, expiring in December 2011.

I have placed further details of these appointments, including biographies, in the Libraries of both Houses. I can confirm that the appointments were made in accordance with the code of practice of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.

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