§ Mr. Tim SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what progress his Department is making with the introduction of resource accounting and budgeting; and in respect of which financial year he expects to publish the first set of resource accounts. [4992]
§ Mr. BurtThe Department's programme to introduce resource accounting and budgeting is both complex and massive. Its agencies are upgrading some financial systems and developing new ones to account for programme expenditure and income, and their associated administrative costs; the corporate centre is developing a system to consolidate these and the accounting outputs of its other business units with performance output data to produce departmental resource accounts. Steady progress is being sustained and the Department aims to achieve the milestones set out in Cm 2929, commencing with the preparation of internal resource accounts for 1998–99, 689W publication of resource accounts for 1999–2000 and culminating in the introduction of full resource planning, budgeting and accounting by 2001–02.