2001-02 Summary Request for Supply

For 2001-02 the process by which Government seeks funds from Parliament moves from a cash to a resource basis ie measuring the consumption of resources as well as the spending of cash.

At the same time the detailed Main Estimates move from being presented by HM Treasury to being contained within Departmental Reports, which will have been presented to Parliament jointly by the Secretaries of State and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury over the last few days. The Summary Request for Supply brings together in one booklet a summary of both resources and cash for which parliamentary approval is being sought by each department. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mr Stephen Timms MP, has presented it today to the House of Commons. For 2001-02 the Supply total for net resources is £270 billion and for net capital £13.1 billion.

Provision sought in the Summary Request for Supply for 2001-02 is consistent with spending plans in the Financial Statement and Budget Report (HC 279), the Main Estimates and other core spending information published in the series of departmental reports over the past few days (Cm 5102 to 5123) and in the Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2000-01 (Cm 5101) also presented today.

Under resource accounting and budgeting (RAB) the main aggregate for public spending remains Total Managed Expenditure (TME) which includes Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL) subject to firm three-year plans which operate as limits on spending at the departmental level covering both voted and non voted provision and departmental Annually Managed Expenditure (AME) subject to annual review as part of the Budget process.

Voted expenditure within DEL for resources totals £142.4 billion in 2001-02. This is 53 per cent of total resource Supply.

Supplementary Estimates together with associated Supplementary Summary Requests for Supply may be presented later in the year. Any increase in TME will be met in the case of DEL by offsetting savings or from the DEL Reserve, so that the overall level of expenditure within DEL is not exceeded. Similarly, AME contains a margin for uncertainty in the forecasting of its components.

Administration costs limits covering expenditure on departmental administration in 2001-02 are announced in the Summary Request for Supply. Most administration costs expenditure is controlled gross, but there are net administration costs limits for certain areas where expenditure and receipts vary in line with demand.

Note to Editors

The Summary Request for Supply presented by the Treasury for 2001-02 is published as a House of Commons paper (HC 348). The documentation covering the 2001-02 Summary Requests for Supply for the House of Commons, the National Audit Office and the Electoral Commission were presented separately to Parliament on Friday 30th March, as HC 345, 346 and 347 respectively. All will be available from Stationery Office bookshops.