Róisín Shortall
Question:68 Ms Shortall asked the Minister for Finance the plans, if any, he has to set out disaggregated financial envelopes as part of the 2000 budget; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22696/99]
Written Answers. - Budget Strategy.
I said in my 1999 Budget Statement that I would address the final phase of the move to multi-annual expenditure budgeting, involving the Government making decisions on the allocation of resources across vote groups, to give financial envelopes for those vote groups, by the end of the first quarter of 1999.
In my statement on the publication of the end-March 1999 Exchequer returns, I indicated that my Department had carried out a considerable amount of work on developing the financial envelopes. However, I said that I had decided to postpone seeking Government decisions on financial envelopes at that time because it had become clear, as the detailed work on developing the envelopes was proceeding in my Department, that seeking Government agreement to the envelopes at that time would not be appropriate. The negotiations on the national development plan would have required revisions of financial envelopes decided at that point.
It is my intention that financial envelopes will be decided by the Government for the years 2001 and 2002 in the first quarter of 2000.
The information and data to be published as part of the 2000 budget will follow the same format as in the 1999 budget. Profiles for the main budgetary aggregates, setting out the Government's medium-term budget targets, will be published. Projections of expenditure on a no-policy-change basis by ministerial vote group in 2001 and 2002 will be published also. There will also be an estimate of the difference between the total of the no policy change projections and total intended spending. This will be the margin within which financial envelopes will be settled.