Cash Limits (Hansard, 4 February 1993)

§ Mr. Patten

Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimates, the cash limits for class XI, vote 2, Higher and further education, vote 4, Administration, and vote 7, Office of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools in England, will be increased, and the cash limit for vote 1, Schools, research and miscellaneous services, will be reduced. The cash limit changes are as follows:

Class and Vote	Current cash limit £	Change £	Revised cash limit £
XI. 1	768,366,000	-22,471,000	745,895,000
XI.2	3,036,990,000	+ 2,550,000	3,039,540,000
XI.4	109,993,000	+ 1,000	110,994,000
XI.7	1,000	+ 1,000	2,000

The reduction to the cash limit on class XI, vote 1, includes a reduction of £15,000,000 as a contribution towards offsetting the increase of £195,000,000 sought via a Supplementary Estimate for class XI, vote 3, Student Awards, which is not cash limited. It also includes a reduction of £2,280,000 million to offset part of the increase to the cash limit on class XI, vote 2; a transfer of £85,000 to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, class II, vote 2, in respect of the funding of students coming to the United Kingdom under the European Community TEMPUS programme; and a transfer of £5,106,000 to supplementary credit approvals to local education authorities for school building works which is non-voted expenditure.

The increase on class XI, vote 2 includes an increase of £1,460,000 in capital grant to the Royal College of Art for final settlement of costs from the major project to rationalise the college's accommodation; an increase of £720,000 in recurrent grant-in-aid to the Universities Funding Council in respect of the extra costs for universities arising from the implementation for clinical academic staff of the 1992 pay award recommended by the Doctors and Dentists Review Body; and an increase of £100,000 in provisions for bursaries for the training of teachers in shortage subjects. These increases are wholly offset within the reduction to the cash limit on class XI, vote 1. In addition there is a further increase of £140,000 in recurrent grant-in-aid to the Universities Funding Council in respect of additional places sponsored by the Home Office on social work training courses at universities, wholly offset by a transfer of funds from the 274W Home Office; and an addition of £130,000 in provision of recurrent grant-in-aid to the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council to reflect the transfer of responsibility to polytechnics and colleges for funding extended and upgraded training courses in social work wholly offset by a transfer of funding from the Department of Health.

The token increases on class XI, votes 4 and 7 enable an adjustment to be made in the transfer of funds between the Department for Education's administration vote and the vote for the office of Her Majesty's chief inspector for schools in England which I announced on 12 November 1992, Official Report, columns 893–94. Within the vote totals, the Department's running costs limit has been reduced by £5,000 from £95,598,000 to £95,593,000 as a result of this adjustment. OHMCI's running costs limit has been increased by £69,000 from £7,818,000 to £7,887,000.

The increases are either offset elsewhere or are charged to the Reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total for public expenditure.