§ Mr. MacleanTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to include (i) central Government grants paid to and (ii) the budgets of(a) local authorities in England, (b) the Scottish Parliament and Executive, (c) the National Assembly for Wales and (d) the Northern Ireland Assembly in resource accounting procedures for the 1999–2000 and subsequent financial years. [96459]
§ Mr. Andrew Smith[holding answer 29 October 1999]: Central government grants paid to local authorities will be recorded in the resource accounts of the relevant Government departments making these grants. Expenditure covered by the budgets of local authorities in England falls outside the resource accounting boundary, and therefore will not be included in resource accounts.
Grants to the National Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Executive, and, if devolution takes place, the Northern Ireland Assembly will represent the allocation of funds to those bodies, and will be shown in the resource accounts of respectively the Wales Office, Scotland Office, and Northern Ireland Office.
Expenditure by the National Assembly for Wales will appear in its resource accounts.
Accounting policies for expenditure by the Scottish Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly are a matter for those bodies. I understand, however, that legislation currently before the Scottish Parliament envisages control by the Scottish Parliament of resources, and hence resource accounting.
§ Mr. MacleanTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what amendments, additions and deletions will be made to the Resource Accounting Manual, as published in August 1999, that will apply to the 1999–2000 financial year. [96460]
§ Mr. Andrew Smith[holding answer 29 October 1999]: The Resource Accounting Manual is updated as necessary to take into account the impact on resource accounting of new accounting standards issued by the Accounting Standards Board (ASB) and other accounting developments including, for example, refinements arising from the implementation of resource accounting by departments.
The amendments to the version of the Manual published in August 1999, to apply to the 1999–2000 resource accounts, will take into account the amendment to Financial Reporting Standard (FRS) 5 "Reporting the Substance of Transactions—Private Finance Initiative and Similar Contracts", and FRS 15 "Tangible Fixed Assets"—both issued by the ASB.
These and future amendments, following consultation with the Financial Reporting Advisory Board, will be included in periodic updates to the Manual, which I understand the House of Commons Library has arranged to receive.