§ Mr. Anthony CoombsTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment whether any changes will be made to his Department's cash limits or running costs limits for 1989–90.
§ Mr. FowlerSubject to parliamentary approval of the necessary summer Supplementary and Revised Estimates, the following changes will be made.
The cash limit on class VII, vote I (training programmes) will be increased by £155,522,000 from £2,467,895,000 to £2,623,417,000, due to organisational changes within the Employment Department group resulting in responsibility for some enterprise and small firms functions and other activities transferring to the Training Agency from the Department of Employment. The majority of this increase is offset by a reduction in class VII, vote 2 (employment programmes and central services).
The cash limit on class VII, vote 2, will be reduced by £151,893,000 from £785,824,000 to £633,931,000. This is a net result of the transfer of £155,522,000 to the Training Agency (class VII, vote I) of some enterprise and small firms functions and associated running costs and other administrative costs; an increase in provision of £5,873,000 to make payment to the Department of Social Security (class XV, vote 7) in respect of work done by that Department in connection with payments to employment training and youth training scheme participants; a net transfer of £1,326,000 in provision to the Central Statistical Office (CSO) (class XIX, vote 18), due to the transfer of some statistical work relating to the retail prices index and the family expenditure survey from the Department of Employment to CSO; receipts of £1,104,000 from CSO (class XIX, vote 18) in respect of the statistical and administrative support work which the Department of Employment will carry out on a repayment basis; £11,000 additional receipts for work carried out by the Department of Employment for other Government Departments; a transfer of £244,000 from the Department of Social Security (class XV, vote 7), following the change in responsibility for accommodation costs at Reading and Livingston; and a net decrease in provision of £47,000 for payments to seconded Employment Department group staff.
There will be a new cash limited vote, class VII, vote 5, to facilitate the privatisation of the Skills Training Agency (STA). This new token vote of £1,000 includes provision for expenses to be incurred by the Department of Employment in connection with the privatisation of STA. The Secretary of State for Employment announced the intention to privatise to the House of Commons on 13 March 1989, at column 23.
These changes will not add to the planned total of public expenditure.
There will be a decrease of £193,000 in the Employment Department group's overall running costs to £960,532,000. This is the net result of changes in the running costs limits on class VII, vote 1 and class VII, vote 2. The running costs limit on class VII, vote 2 will be reduced by £7,021,000 from £649,165,000 to £642,144,000. 'This is the net result of transferring £6,828,000 to class VII, vote I to cover the staffing of the small firms service and the enterprise allowance scheme; transferring £437,000 to the Central Statistical Office (class XIX, vote 18); and 662W increasing provision by £244,000 from the Department of Social Security (class XV, vote 7) for accommodation costs. The running costs limit for class VII, vote I will correspondingly be increased by £6,828,000 from £204,799,000 to £211,627,000.