§ Mr. Couchmanasked the Paymaster General whether any changes will be made to his Department's cash limits or running cost limit for 1986–87.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeSubject to parliamentary approval of the necessary supplementary estimates, the following changes will be made.
The cash limit on class VII, vote 1 will be reduced by £7,000,000 from £1,300,123,000 to £1,293,123,000. This is due to reduced expenditure on the community programme, take-up of which has been marginally lower than forecast. This reduction offsets the increases in expenditure on class VII, vote 3 and class XV, vote 5 described below. It also enables £500,000 to be transferred to the Department of the Environment as a special contribution towards the costs in this financial year of the home insulation scheme.
The cash limit on class VII, vote 3 will be increased by £5,500,000 from £67,005,000 to £72,505,000 to make additional provision for publicising to employers, unemployed people and others Department of Employment Group services for the unemployed. Gross expenditure on vote 3 is also to increase by £1,000,000 to reactivate the unemployment benefit office (UBO) expansion programme, but this increase is matched by receipts from the Department of Health and Social Security (class XV, vote 5). The full additional cost arising 435W from the UBO expansion programme in 1986–87 is £1,700,000, but a contribution of £700,000 will be made from existing running costs provision within the vote. As a result, the Department of Employment's gross running costs provision is reduced from £391,238,000 to £390,538,000 and the total running costs provision for the Department of Employment Group is reduced from £891,898,000 to £891,198,000.
No net increase in public expenditure results from these changes.