§ Mr. CatonTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales what changes he is proposing to make to the voted and non-voted cash limits for his Department and the Office of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools in Wales in the current financial year. [14221]
§ Mr. Ron DaviesSubject to parliamentary approval of the necessary supplementary estimates, I intend to make the following changes. The cash limit on class XIV, vote 1 will be reduced by £750,000 from £53,462,000 to £52,712,000 as a result of lower than expected claims for local authority coast protection schemes.
The cash limit on class XIV, vote 2 will increase by £13,594,000 from £785,732,000 to £799,326,000. This increase results mainly from the take-up of end-year flexibility entitlements for the Welsh Development Agency (3,400,000); the Grant Maintained and Voluntary Aided Schools captial programmes (£2,720,000), an increase to the provision for Regional Selective Assistance of £1,710,00 and a transfer of £577,000 from class IV in respect of the Competitiveness Fund. The increase also includes the £5,025,000 extra resources announced in the July Budget for schools capital. (This expenditure forms part of the Welfare to Work programme and is outside the Control Total).
The cash limit on class XIV, vote 3 will be increased by £4,074,000 from £437,196,000 to £441,270,000, (including an increase in the Department's running costs limit of £1,862,000 from £72,035,000 to £73,897,000). This increase is mainly a result of the take-up of end-year flexibility amounts for the Central Government Roads Programme (£1,545,000), IT costs (£603,000) and central administration (£2,161,000).
The cash limit on class XIV, vote 4 will be increased by £28,102,000 from £1,979,708,000 to £2,007,810,000. This increase results mainly from the take-up of end-year flexibility amounts of £8,000,000 for NHS Trusts and £10,000,000 mainly for GP Fundholders and the £9,548,000 additional resources recently announced for the NHS. The external finance limit for NHS Trusts has been increased by £8,000,000 from £44,914,000 to £52,914,00.
The cash limit on class XIV, vote 5 will be increased by £200,000 from £2,340,554,000 to £2,340,754,000 to enable the Valuation Office Agency to deal with the higher than expected demand for council tax and business rate appeals.
The cash limit on class XIV, vote 6 will be reduced by £400,000 from £10,105,000 to £9,705,000 as a result of lower than expected expenditure on Nursery place inspections.
There is also an increase to the non-voted local authority capital cash limit, WO/LACAP. This cash limit has been increased by £10,682,000 from £422,680,000 to £433,362,000 as a result of the take-up of end-year flexibility amounts, mainly to cover slippage on the Strategic Development Scheme and Capital Challenge projects.
All increases will be offset by transfers or charged to the Reserve and will not, therefore, add to the planned total of public expenditure.
240WA new non-voted cash limit will be introduced for the Capital Receipts Initiative (WO/CRI), subject to the passage of legislation, to cover the Government's initiative to release additional resources to support local authority spending on housing and housing associated regeneration. The limit on expenditure is set initially at £9,540.000. This expenditure is classified as being outside the Control Total.