Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Forsythe): I welcome Joanne McBurney, deputy secretary in the Department of Finance's public spending directorate, and Maryann Smith, head of the Department's central expenditure division. It is great to have you both here. Thanks for rescheduling to be at the meeting today.

Are members content that the meeting be recorded by Hansard?

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Forsythe): I will hand over to you to make some brief opening remarks.

Ms Joanne McBurney (Department of Finance): Thank you, Deputy Chair, for the opportunity to brief the Committee today and for rescheduling for us. As usual, I will keep my opening remarks brief in order to allow time for questions. As the Committee will be aware, the Executive agreed the draft Budget for 2025-26 on 19 December 2024, with the 12-week public consultation launching on the same day. A Budget fact sheet, Budget overview and an equality impact assessment were also published on that day.

The Budget fact sheet was a new addition this year. Aimed at making the Budget more accessible to a broader range of people, it provided a high-level overview of where we get our money from and where it is spent. Our consultation feedback indicates that that has been well received. The consultation closed on 13 March, and we received over 160 responses. The summary of the consultation responses will be provided to the Executive in order to inform decisions on the final Budget.

The Finance Minister will shortly bring a paper on the final Budget to the Executive for consideration. You will appreciate that there is little that I can say in advance of that. Following Executive agreement, the Finance Minister will make a statement to the Assembly, after which Departments will consider how best to deliver their priorities within the funding envelopes that the Budget provides. A vital part of that will be the consultations that will be carried out by individual Departments in line with their equality schemes.

The prioritisation by Departments will be reflected in a final Budget document that will show departmental budgets at spending area level. In order to provide Departments with time to make decisions on their final budget, the document itself is likely to be published in mid-May. There will then be an Assembly debate and vote, which will be followed by the Main Estimates.

I will leave it there, but I am happy to take any questions. I realise that you may want to touch on other issues, and I am happy to try to cover those as well.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Forsythe): Thank you very much, Joanne. We have had correspondence saying that the Treasury has confirmed that we will get £145·969 million towards increased employers' National Insurance contributions. Is that right?

Ms McBurney: Yes. That came through yesterday from the Treasury. That will formally go into our control total, which was advised in the Main Estimates, but the Treasury has now told us what the number is.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Forsythe): OK. Thank you. The Minister has said that the cost of increased contributions to Departments and arm's-length bodies will be about £200 million, which leaves a shortfall. Have any plans been made for how the money confirmed by the Treasury will be distributed?

Ms McBurney: The money will not be available for formal allocation until the June monitoring round, but the Executive may wish to consider that as part of their final Budget considerations, given that they know what the number is.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Forsythe): OK. Thank you. When Departments are putting in their proposals, they will know that that increase is coming, but, looking at the challenges, have they included or been asked to include any efficiency targets for this year's Budget?

Ms McBurney: We have not asked for specific efficiencies. Each Department will know that it has to live within the final Budget outcome that it has been given, which will require it to make efficiencies. As you know, we are working on guidance for five-year plans. That will also help to drive efficiencies and allow Departments to plan for that longer timescale. That will tie in with the multi-year Budget that we hope to start work on after the spending review in June.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Forsythe): OK. Thank you. This is the first time that we have spoken to you since the Department for the Economy had the disclaimer audit opinion on its accounts. What is your assessment of the current accountancy provision across the Civil Service?

Ms McBurney: Chair, I know that you have received a briefing from the Treasury Officer of Accounts, who said that I was head of the finance profession. I took up that role in April last year, taking over from Richard Pengelly. As you know, there are a lot of accountants in the Civil Service. I think that there are 465 qualified accountants, not all of whom are in accountancy posts. There is certainly provision, therefore, but whether there is enough and whether all the accountants are in the right places probably needs to be considered.

It is early days for the finance profession. We have a lot of work to do, and we are trying to move that forward. HR is doing a review of all the professions, and we will tie in with that. The difference between the finance profession and, say, the economist profession is that the accountants all work in individual Departments. They are not managed by DOF, albeit we have a role as the head of the profession. We want to look at that as well. There are difficulties with staff recruitment and retention. There are also accountants in roles that are not designated as accountant roles, and that could also be considered.

We have brought in a system whereby, if a Department wants to fill a role from one of our accountancy competitions, we ask the finance director in that Department, as head of the finance profession for that Department, to say that they are content that it is an accountancy role. That will then come to me. That will help with all the new posts. Eventually, I would like to get to the stage of looking at all the posts that have accountants in them so that I can make sure that, if a post is designated as an accountant post, it has the right level of work that needs an accountant. That may have to be done more slowly. We also need to take into account Integr8, the replacement finance system, because that will change the landscape for the finance profession. We need to consider whether we should do a review of the accountancy posts in line with that or in advance of it. It may be better to do it in line with that.

Those are the sorts of things that we are considering, but it is early days yet in taking them forward.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Forsythe): That is good to hear. It is important to have that as we are looking at really strict budgets and making sure that things are profiled in the right way. Is that a formalised exercise or just an ongoing review?

Ms McBurney: We have formalised the process for finance directors signing off on new posts. The rest of it is in discussion. By way of context, the finance profession has never really had an awful lot of support. The Treasury Officer of Accounts team in my division provided support to Richard Pengelly, but there was no real dedicated support. Everybody was doing something else. Where we are now is that I have taken over as head of profession, and Gavin Patrick, who, you will know, is the finance director in DOF, is my deputy head of profession and is leading a lot of that work. We also have the finance directors' forum, which meets every month, and we have set up subgroups of those finance directors, and they are taking forward particular strands of work.

As of, I think, last week or the week before last, a dedicated finance support officer has started work. That officer is there primarily because we have started a trainee accountant scheme: the intake was in the autumn. Obviously, those trainee accountants need support. It is not enough to just bring people in and put them through their exams; you will appreciate that they also have to be given support to pass those exams. That will be the primary role of the officer, but they will also look at developing a finance profession strategy and at how we take that forward. It is still early days, but a lot of thinking is going on about how we can improve the finance profession and the support that it delivers.

It is also worth saying that I see the finance profession as being wider than just accountants. There are people in finance roles who are not qualified accountants, such as accounting technicians. In my directorate, for example, we have accountants, Maryann and me, and an economist, Patrick, but we also have Jeff and Gillian, who are general service. General service staff, particularly Jeff and Barry, who was there before, work in the area of finance and are very much finance professionals. I am keen to try to capture all of that.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Forsythe): It is great to hear all of that. It has come up a couple of times at the Committee. We were hoping to be able to engage with you and the wider Civil Service to make sure that the finance profession is getting support in all Departments.

Dr Aiken: Thanks very much indeed for coming, Joanne and Maryann. This is just a quick question. I know that it is early days, but how do the out-turns from all Departments look? Obviously, it will not be long before we get to June monitoring. How does the position look at the moment?

Ms McBurney: You will have got the latest forecast out-turn, which showed that the Department of Education was the only Department that showed an overspend in its resource departmental expenditure limit (DEL) at that point and that DFC was the only Department with an overspend in its capital DEL. DFC certainly plans to manage that. I think that the situation with DE is more difficult, but it plans to manage it.

Every Minister has made significant decisions to try to manage expenditure. I am hopeful but also pragmatic. We never know what will come out of the woodwork until we see the numbers. I always seem to say, "The next forecast out-turn will give us a better idea", but we are moving towards the end of the year, and the March forecast out-turn — that is not the final forecast — is due shortly. Then there will be the restated out-turn. That restated one should be a very good reflection of the Departments' provisional out-turn, because there are only a few days' difference.

Dr Aiken: That will give us a good run into the Vote on Account, and we will know where we are when we come up to June.

Ms McBurney: Yes, we will.

Dr Aiken: With your indulgence, Deputy Chair, I will ask one more question, which goes back to the way in which the Department for the Economy's accounts came to be bouncing back and forth between one section and another and all the rest of it. We noticed that there seemed to be a lot of flow in and out. One person who made a declaration of interests is an ex-chief executive, and it seemed that they were just trying to match the books. Bearing in mind the problems that we have had with the Department for the Economy's accounts being disclaimed and the fact that we are going into a very tight monitoring round, what assurance can you give us that what it is reporting is what is actually happening?

Ms McBurney: How do I answer that? Each Department is responsible for reporting things accurately. That is why its accounts are audited, and it is for each accounting officer to report accurately. We have Supply teams for each Department. They have ongoing engagement with the Departments and ask questions. That is not so much about their accounts and more about their budget and the decisions that were taken. We work closely with them. We are a very small team, and you will appreciate that we cannot be over every detail of everything that happens in Departments. We have to rely on the assurances that the Departments give us and on the assurances of their accounting officers. However, we support Departments and challenge them. Supply teams meet Departments regularly to provide the role of a critical friend in challenging them where they can. We rely on the Departments to a certain extent.

On the DFE issue, the Treasury Officer of Accounts has had an initial meeting with the Audit Office and the Department for the Economy, and I have asked him to set up a meeting for me with the Department and the Audit Office so that I can go through what has happened. The DFE accounting officer very clearly set out the complexities that the Department is dealing with. I have known its finance director for some years, so I do not doubt their competence, but we need to get to the bottom of what has happened. I have asked for that meeting to be set up so that I can talk it through with both sides, ask what the issues were and see how we can move forward.

Dr Aiken: Thanks, Joanne.

Mr Carroll: Thanks, Joanne. I appreciate that it is strange to ask for your position on somebody else's view, but what is the Finance Minister's assessment of the spring Supplementary Estimates, following the announcement late last week?

Ms McBurney: It is not for me to give the view of the Finance Minister, but I think that I can safely say that it is disappointing that there was not more investment in public services. I do not think that the Finance Minister would have any issue with my saying that.

Mr Carroll: I appreciate that.

The Chancellor announced 10,000 Civil Service job losses. Is there any assessment or understanding yet of the direct impact that that will have here? Is it that there will be 10,000 job losses in England and that we will be expected to do something proportionate here? How does it work, as far as you know?

Ms McBurney: Thankfully, we will not be expected to do something proportionate. As I said, and, I think, as the Finance Minister has said, we accept that we need to be an efficient and effective Civil Service, but we have our own journey to go on. We do not yet know what the impact will be, and we will not know until the spending review, because the 10,000 job losses in England are coming out of a 15% reduction in administration costs in Whitehall Departments. Those administration costs do not necessarily relate to Civil Service pay: there are many civil servants in front-line rather than back-office posts, so it is not a direct correlation.

The impacts on us will depend on what they do with the savings. If a Department is told to make 15% savings in its back-office costs and that it can keep those savings to recycle into the front line, there are no changes to that Whitehall Department's budget, which means no changes through the Barnett formula to us. Similarly, if they take it off one Department to give to another, it depends how comparable we are with that Department. If they were to take that off the Department for Education, for example, and put the money into the Department of Health and Social Care, we would get a negative Barnett consequential for Education and a plus Barnett consequential for Health, so it should even out. If they take it off the Department for Education and put it towards defence spending, we would lose out. We get the negative and not the positive, because we are not comparable.

Mr Carroll: I appreciate that. It is not clear-cut, but it could result in job losses. I urge caution. There are back-room and front-line staff, but we should be careful about the language that is used when talking about getting rid of the back-room staff and saying that it will have a direct impact on the front-line staff and efficiencies.

Ms McBurney: You are right: it is about being effective. The other point that I should have made is that our Civil Service has not grown at the same rate as the Civil Service in Whitehall. It grew considerably over COVID; we did not.

Mr Carroll: I appreciate that my final question might relate more to Economy, but it is cross-cutting. Has there been any assessment by the Finance Minister, you, Joanne, or officials about potential tariffs from the US? In response to a question for written answer that I submitted just over two weeks ago, the Minister stated that there was £1·68 billion export trade last year with the US. I knew that it was high, but, to be honest, I did not think that it was that high. Has there been any assessment by Finance or anywhere else of the impact of tariffs?

Ms McBurney: That is not my side. I imagine that the Department for the Economy is best placed to comment on that. Another part of DOF, such as strategic policy and reform, may have some insight into that, but it is more likely to fall to the Department for the Economy.

Mr Tennyson: As always, Joanne, thank you for your answers. We have already touched on the pressures pertaining to National Insurance contributions, but, as we open the new financial year, are there any other pressures that should be brought to the Committee's attention or that we should be aware of?

Ms McBurney: Every Department will say that its draft Budget envelope was not enough. There is no more money in the final Budget. There is the limited money for the National Insurance contributions, which will have to go into the June monitoring round, but every Department will say that it is facing pressures. No one pressure stands out to me as being one that needs to be brought to the attention of the Committee at this time, but there are pressures, and it will be a challenging year. Unfortunately, as we go into the next spending review, it will, I think, remain very challenging.

Mr Tennyson: Given that we are not expecting the same bumper Barnett consequentials as we have seen in recent financial years, what is the Department of Finance's strategy for managing those pressures? Is it looking at additional revenue raising? Is it looking at constraining departmental spending? Is there a decision, at this stage, about how that will be approached?

Ms McBurney: The five-year plans that we are asking Departments to produce will help to inform the thinking for the next multi-year Budget. For the incoming year's Budget, it will be a matter of Departments having to take action to live with those pressures. Obviously, they can come back through the in-year monitoring process, but, as you say, we will not get the same level of Barnett consequentials coming through as we did this year. Every Department will have to batten down. Departments can bring the issues back to the Executive to consider as we go through the year, but the five-year plans and the multi-year Budget will, hopefully, help us, going forward, to have a longer-term look and to identify, where we can, efficiencies and savings in Departments. Now that we have the Programme for Government agreed, it will also be a case of directing money to the Programme for Government priorities. It may be a case of skewing that money towards those priorities.

Mr Tennyson: Thank you, Joanne. That dovetails nicely with my last question. Since the draft Budget was published and consulted upon, we have had the Programme for Government. What consideration has been given to the Programme for Government and any changes that we may now need to make off the back of the consultation? Are we confident that the commitments on funding for waiting lists, for example, are being reflected in our approach as we go forward?

Ms McBurney: You will appreciate that I cannot say anything about the final Budget consideration, because the paper has to go to the Executive, and they have to consider it. You will know that, as far as possible, the draft Budget identified commitments in the Programme for Government and made allocations to certain areas. In order to try to provide flexibility, we did not earmark any of the funding for Health, but I cannot comment on where the Executive will go with the final Budget. They have to have the space to consider that.

Mr Frew: Can I have an update on the sustainability plan and the £113 million of additional revenue? Where are we on that dial?

Ms McBurney: We are well on track. I do not have the numbers in front of me, but I think that it is about £129 million over the two years, so it is certainly on track. We have no concerns about that at this point.

Mr Frew: Do you believe that the £559 million that was borrowed from the Treasury is secure, and we will not have to pay that back, if we are nearly on target with regards to the £113 million?

Ms McBurney: I am hopeful, yes. I am always very cautious about anything, but yes.

Mr Frew: That begs the question: has there been any indication from the Treasury as to that debt recovery or debt assuagement?

Ms McBurney: The Treasury was involved when we were working out how we were getting to — well, the £129 million as it is now — the £113 million, so I have no issues. The Treasury is comfortable enough with the approach that we are taking on that.

Mr Frew: OK. Given the statements at Westminster and the Budget plan here, how do we see the outworkings of the uplift in need — the 124%? How do we see that in a practical way? How is that granted?

Ms McBurney: It comes through our Barnett consequentials, which are higher than they would have been without that. We are getting 24% extra on every individual Barnett consequential that we get. There are still things to be hammered out before we go into the spending review, because Barnett is on only the additional money that we get. There is the issue about the baseline of that. One of the important things to realise is that, yes, we are getting 124% of what English Departments are getting, but if public services in England are not funded adequately, then the 124% does not compensate for that. It only allows us to fund them to an equal level. It does not necessarily allow us to fund services in the way that we would want to.

Mr Frew: In many ways it does not measure need any more.

Ms McBurney: It is relative need.

Mr Frew: It is relative need, and it is a comparison with English Departments.

Ms McBurney: Yes.

Mr Frew: Therefore, if decisions are made by the Prime Minister or the Chancellor to move money from Departments into defence, which they said that they will do — of course, defence benefits us all in the United Kingdom — that will have a massive impact on our Departments here.

Ms McBurney: It will, if they take money off Departments to do that. From what I understand, they are taking it out of the reserves, which means that there will be less money in-year, but, yes, anything that they take from departmental spending and put into defence will be a reduction for us or it will be getting less money. Either way, it impacts on us.

Mr Frew: I want to take you to the world of Health. There have to be massive savings in the trusts in order to balance that budget. Have you seen any of the trusts' savings plans? I think that it is in the region of £200 million.

Ms McBurney: I personally have not. Obviously, the Department of Health is in the lead on that. I do not think that it has shared those with the health Supply team in my division. I certainly have not seen any plans, but I imagine that those are being worked up and will go through the Department of Health first, because it has to be content with them.

Mr Frew: Do you get eyes on those at any time in that process?

Ms McBurney: That would not be something that we routinely ask for, because management of trusts is for the Department of Health. We can question that, but it is for the Department of Health.

Mr Frew: If, halfway through the financial year, you realise that those savings are not coming through, what is the Department of Finance's role in that at that point?

Ms McBurney: I think that we can challenge it. It is for the Department of Health to manage the budget that it was given. If it has issues, it will come back to the Executive, and the Executive as a whole can take a decision. We have a critical friend role through our Supply officers, so we will be asking questions of Health, looking at its forecast out-turn, challenging that and asking what plans it has in place. However, it is that challenge role. There is no authority as such other than to ask the questions, and it is for the Health Minister and the accounting officer to take the action necessary to manage their budget.

Mr Frew: Thank you.

Ms Dolan: Thanks very much to both of you for coming in. Following Eóin and Paul's questions, do you have specific concerns about the pressures that Departments are highlighting? If that money is taken out of Departments and given to defence, that is obviously very concerning, but are there specific concerns?

Ms McBurney: There are no specific concerns that I would like to pick out regarding one Department or another. All Departments have issues. I do not think that the impact will be in 2025-26. We are more likely see the impact over the spending review period. Hopefully, if it impacts badly on us, it will be lower levels of increases than we might have anticipated. If it turns into reductions in the funding that we have at the minute, that could be catastrophic. If, for example, we thought that we were running at a Budget of £100 million and, in future years, it was to turn into a Budget of £90 million and we also had inflation to take into account, that would be disastrous. I am hoping that that is not what it is. Hopefully, it may just be lower-than-anticipated increases. Even that will be difficult to manage. If we have the increased pressure from the National Insurance costs, inflationary pressures and our budgets not rising to the same extent, significant savings will have to be made to allow us to live within whatever Budget settlement we get. Sorry, it is a black cloud.

Ms Dolan: I kind of expected something like that. Thank you. That is the only question that I have.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Forsythe): I have a couple more questions, Joanne. Have you had any indications at the end of the 2024-25 year of significant underspends or reallocations?

Ms McBurney: There have been none on significant underspends. The overspend position, as you know, has got better, but nobody is saying that they will have a significant underspend.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Forsythe): Thank you. Going into 2025-26, what is your assessment of the opening Budget versus the 2024-25 opening position as it was? What are the implications for the Departments?

Ms McBurney: The 2025-26 opening Budget is much better than the 2024-25 one, but I think that all Departments — I am looking towards Dr Aiken as I say this — will say that you cannot compare opening; you have to compare closing. [Laughter.]

Dr Aiken: Can I have that on record, please, Joanne?

Mr Frew: Do not believe a word of it.

Ms McBurney: I did not say that I would say that. There will be changes in-year. Every Department is better in its opening 2025-26 position than it was in its final position for 2024-25, so there is an improvement. Is that improvement enough? I think that every Department would say that it is not enough when you take into account inflationary pressures, National Insurance pressures, pay pressures and so on. Therefore, it is still challenging, but we are in a better place than we were at the start of 2024-25.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Forsythe): Thank you. Have you had any indication of any additional or new UK Government funds that might become available?

Ms McBurney: The one thing that came out of the spring statement was the announcement of the £3·25 billion transformation fund. Maryann can jump in if I have got this wrong, but my understanding of the way that it will work is that we will get Barnett consequentials on the allocations out of that fund. So, again, it will depend on which Whitehall Department gets allocations from it. We do not get funding on the £3·25 billion; we will get it on the allocations. We are expecting probably something in Main Estimates for 2025-26 for allocations to Whitehall Departments in 2025-26. I imagine that there then will be something in the spending review for that. Barnett consequentials, as you know, are not hypothecated. It is for the Executive to decide what they use those for.

Dr Aiken: Joanne, particularly on that, is there any indication, or have you had any conversations to say, that, because of some of the moneys that have been allocated to city deals and a few of the other things in the way that that transformation fund was allocated, there are any ideas that that fund will be double counted?

Ms McBurney: No, there is nothing at the minute. As far as we know, the Whitehall transformation fund is new money and we will get our Barnett consequentials from that and it will not impact on any of the others.

Dr Aiken: So it is totally new money and it is not linked to the previous things.

Ms McBurney: No.

Mr Tennyson: Joanne, you talked about the outlook deteriorating a bit during the spending review period. Critical to that is the review that Professor Holtham has been commissioned to do on behalf of the Department. Has that review work actually started yet, and, if so, when did it commence?

Ms McBurney: It is not my area, so I do not want to give you dates that are wrong. I know that he has agreed to do it, and I am presuming that work is in its very early stages on that. It is not my side, so I do not want to give you anything that is wrong on that.

Mr Tennyson: I understand that Department of Finance officials are providing some administrative and technical support. Is Treasury content with an arrangement whereby DOF officials are involved in a review that is providing evidence for it to consider?

Ms McBurney: Again, it is not my side, but I know that the team is engaging with Treasury. There are regular meetings with Treasury, so I do not imagine that there is anything that we are doing that would cause an issue with Treasury. We are very careful to avoid that.

Mr Tennyson: No problem. One final question on the public-sector transformation money at Whitehall. Is it the Department's intention to make representations that we should have clarity in advance? Obviously, it is very hard to plan transformation on the basis of Barnett consequentials in-year, and that puts us at an automatic disadvantage compared with our colleagues in Whitehall. Is that a plan of action from the Department at this stage?

Ms McBurney: That is something that we can ask for, but Treasury will not give it to us, I would say, because it keeps everything very close until it actually makes the public announcement. That late notice should only affect us for 2025-26, when we will get it in the Main Estimates, hopefully, in May or June. We should then be able to factor that it early on in our year. For the future years, I imagine that it will all be settled as part of the spending review, which will mean that we should have plenty of notice. We should find out in June what it is for the following April. That should allow plenty of time to do that.

Mr Tennyson: That is helpful; thank you.

Miss Hargey: Following on from that, on the back of the spring statement and coming up to June, are you looking at any other potential implications in the knock-on effects that you have already highlighted, beyond the potential of defence spending? Is there anything else coming from Whitehall that you are concerned about at this point?

Ms McBurney: There is nothing else that we have been advised that we should be concerned about. Like yourselves, we keep an eye on the overall picture. The overall public finance picture is concerning in itself. As Mr Carroll said, the Whitehall Departments are concerned with delivering efficiencies. We are not saying that everybody should not be as efficient as possible, but anything that takes money out of Whitehall Departments has the potential to have an impact on us. We are watching that very closely, but there is nothing specific to point to other than to say that the overall outlook is looking quite bad.

Miss Hargey: On the five-year plans, I know that there is a lot of focus on the Budget and the pressures and not as much on outcomes. As part of the five-year plans that Departments are doing, is there work running alongside that on the money that they are going to receive and the outcomes that they are going to deliver on? Joanne, you said that there is a challenge function. Are the Executive looking holistically at something a bit more radical than that around the outcomes that they are actually delivering for the money that they receive and, if they do not, there are potential consequences, particularly as you start to move into a multi-annual funding cycle, with the five-year plans that highlight some of the risks? It is really about outcomes for people.

Ms McBurney: We have not finalised the guidance for those five-year plans. It is important to say that the starting point is not the savings that you make but what you want to deliver and what you can deliver. Our starting point for every Department would be, "What do you plan to deliver?' It will look at those outcomes and at what we think the Budget is and try to marry the two. We need to focus on outcomes; it cannot just be about inputs. It has to be about getting the benefit for the money that you are spending. It has to be about outcomes.

Miss Hargey: Will the systems of that scrutiny or pushing role change to align to that new approach, particularly over a longer period?

Ms McBurney: It will be both. We will still have to look at what Departments are spending and control the funding, because it is public money. However, there will be a shift in focus. With the Programme for Government in place, there will be a focus on how we are funding those priorities. How we do that will change over time. We are also looking at a mapping exercise, because there is a lot of focus in the Budget on what new money is being put into Programme for Government priorities but, of course, the vast majority of our Budget is not new money; it is there in Departments' baselines. It is about how we capture how that is delivering outcomes. There is a bit of ongoing work to try to capture that as well.

Miss Hargey: That will be an integral part of those five-year plans, then?

Ms McBurney: Yes; it will look at the wider picture.

Miss Hargey: OK, thank you.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Forsythe): There are no other indications. Thank you very much to you both for coming; we really appreciate it.