HC Deb 28 November 2001 vol 375 cc973-4W
Dr. Vis

To ask the Solicitor-General what plans she has to change the Attorney-General's Department's(a) departmental expenditure limit and (b) administration costs limits for 2001–02. [19796]

The Solicitor-General

Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimates, the Attorney-General's Department's DEL will be increased by £25,375,000 from £426,088,000 to £451,463,000 and the administration costs limits will be increased by £22,476,000 from £299,627,000 to £322,103,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital is set out in the table:

£
Resources
Change 22,476,000
New DEL 429,814,000
of which:
Voted 419,258,000
Non-voted 10,556,000
Capital
Change 2,899,000
New DEL 21,649,000
of which:
Voted 21,649,000
Non-voted

The Crown Prosecution Service's DEL will be increased by £23,797,000 from £391,096,000 to £414,893,000 and the administration costs limit will be increased by £21,747,000 from £275,227,000 to £296,974,000. The increase in the resource element of the DEL arises from speeding up the reform of the CPS to allow it to contribute fully to criminal justice targets and implementation of section 37 of the Vehicles (Crime) Reduction Act 2001. The decrease results from a transfer of £83,000 for work taken over by the Insolvency Service under section 218 of the Insolvency Act 1986. The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from an increase of £1,750,000 to fund the introduction of joint CPS/police criminal justice and trial units and £300,000 to fund the provision of digital certificates for the secure transmission of case information.

HM Procurator General and Treasury Solicitor's Department DEL will be increased by £1,578,000 from £14,167,000 to £15,745,000 and the administration costs limits will be increased by £729,000 from £9,900,000 to £10,629,000. The increase in administration costs is to facilitate action being taken by the Treasury Solicitor's Department as part of their Modernising Government action plan. The increase in capital expenditure of £849,000 will be used to fund continued expansion of the Department's IT systems.

The increases will be partly offset by an allocation of £22,000,000 from the Criminal Justice System reserve, an allocation of £250,000 from the Civil Service Modernisation Fund, a transfer of £105,000 from the Home Office, an allocation of £300,000 from the Capital Modernisation Fund, the draw down of £1,750,000 of the Attorney-General's Department's capital Departmental Unallocated Provision and the surrender of £99,000 of the Attorney-General's Department's capital end-year flexibility of £4,406,000 as set out in Table 6 of the Public Expenditure 2000–01 Outturn White Paper Cm 5243 published July 2001.

The remainder of the expenditure will be charged to the Reserve and will not, therefore, add to the planned total of public expenditure.

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