Cash Limits (Hansard, 31 October 1988)

§ Mr. Fowler

Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary winter Supplementary Estimates, the following changes will be made. There is a token £1,000 increase in the employment programmes cash limit (Class VII, Vote 1) where a reduction of £19,000,000 on community programme has been transferred to Vote 7 for employment training, and provision of £600,000 for local enterprise agency project schemes is offset by a reduction in small firms loan guarantee scheme expenditure.

The cash limit on Class VII, Vote 2 remains unchanged at £265,170,000.

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The cash limit on Class VII, Vote 5 (Training Commission) will he reduced by £2,558,000 from £1,938,737,000 to £1,936,179,000. This is the net effect of the following: a token increase of £1,000 to effect the transfer of funds from the Training Commission to the Department of Employment so that it may carry out the training functions formerly carried out by the Training Commission; a reduction of £2 million due to revised costings on employment training, and a reduction of £559,000 for capital expenditure under the end-year flexibility scheme which has been transferred to a new Vote 7.

There is also a token £1,000 increase in the cash limit on Class VII, Vote 6, sale of professional and executive recruitment, to enable the final costs of the sale to be reflected.

There is a new net £559,000 cash limit on Class VII, Vote 7. This is in respect of the transfer of the previously announced and agreed additional capital expenditure under the end year flexibility scheme from Class VII, Vote 5. The net cash limit takes account of the training functions (and its related expenditure) transferred from Vote 5.

There are also token increases of £1,000 on Class XVI, Vote 4, Industry Department for Scotland and Class XVII, Vote 4, Welsh Office to enable payments to be made to the Department of Employment for training programmes instead of to the Training Commission.

The Class VII, Vote 2: Department of Employment's administration running costs limit has been reduced by £4,454,000 from £611,296,000 to £606,842,000. This is the net outcome of the following changes: final adjustments between the Department and the Training Commission in respect of the transfer of employment services in October 1987; transfer of some functions from the Training Commission; transfer of some staff to the Training Agency; and increased running costs from the delay in the anticipated date of sale of PER.

The Class VII, Vote 5: Training Commission's running costs limit has been reduced by £77,904,000 from £223,658,000 to £145,754,000 whilst the Class VII, Vote 7: Department of Employment—training programme's new running costs limit has been set at £74,265,000. These changes result from the transfer of training functions from Training Commission to the Department.

There is an overall reduction in the DE group's running costs limit of £8,093,000 from £944,525,000 to £936,432,000. This is the net effect of £8,480,000 surplus superannuation provision in respect of former Training Commission staff being surrendered to the Consolidated Fund (Class VII, Vote 7) and an increase of £387,000 for PER (Class VII, Vote 2).