Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 26 July 2017
377. Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Minister for Education and Skills the latest profiles in value and outruns forecasted in his Department for the end of December 2017 and any variances that may arise based on his Department’s performance against profile in gross voted expenditure at the end of June 2017. [36565/17]
View answer383. Deputy Michael McGrath asked the Minister for Education and Skills if there will be an underspend in his Department's current or capital budget for 2017; if so, the subheads that are now below profile and those that may come in below profile at the end of the calendar year; if underspends in his Department will be available to the central Exchequer at year end; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36744/17]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 377 and 383 together.
It is difficult to forecast the full-year expenditure for the Department at this stage as we are only just over half way through the year and many Budget 2017 measures will only be implemented from the start of the new academic year in September.
My Department keeps expenditure trends under review and provides details on monthly Exchequer Issues to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform that are reported in the Expenditure Reports published with the monthly Exchequer Statement.
My Department’s voted expenditure at the end of June was under profile by €27 million, which is less than 1%.
Current voted Expenditure is running €1 million behind profile (less than 0.5%). Student Support Non-Pay Grants (subhead C11) is behind profile by €12 million. This is mainly due to the implementation of revised arrangements for tranching payments between SUSI and the respective Higher Education Institutions. This is offset by superannuation (subhead A8) running ahead of profile by €7 million as a result of an increase in approximately 1,700 Pensioners since Q4 2015 and general current grants to higher education institutions (subhead C4) running ahead of profile by €4 million, due mainly to timing issues with regard to the receipt of certain fee claims.
Capital Expenditure is running €26 million behind profile (around 8% of profile for capital and less than 1% of overall profile) mainly as a result of timing issues on a number of subheads: ICT (subhead A14) is running behind by €8 million, primary and post-primary capital (subhead D03) is running behind by €5 million, higher education capital (subhead D04) is behind by €9 million and PPPs (subhead D05) is behind by €4 million.
