§ Mr. BeggsTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the five most significant individual projects which contributed to departmental underspends in Northern Ireland during the past five years; and what the value was of each project. [90021]
§ Mr. PearsonThe introduction of Devolution in 1999 involved the restructuring of NI Departments, and an increase in number from six to 11. This factor, combined with the introduction of resource accounting and budgeting in the 2001–02 financial year, means it is not possible to make meaningful comparisons between outturn information across the span of five years requested. However, the table shows the five most significant capital projects which contributed to departmental underspends in Northern Ireland in 2001–02, the latest year for which information is available.
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2001–02 most significant capital project underspends Department Project £ million DEL Research Institute for Electronics, Communications and IT Technologies 3.0 DETI Telecommunications Initiative 7.2 DHSSPS Trusts Capital Programme 9.2 Centralised IT Projects 4.5 DRD NITHCo: Purchase of Rolling Stock1 13.0 1 This arose due to technical issues associated with the transition to RAB, rather than project management issues.