Ms Hilary Murphy-Fagan:

I agree with Deputy Kelly that it would be preferable for us not to have an underspend, which was due to two key factors. The first is that a plan for the transition migration of a payroll into my office is only a plan and, as we get deeper into the preparation and level of readiness for transfer, things may arise such that we have to change the sequencing of Departments. A Department may have to come ahead of one that was in the original plan, and that is always open to change, or things may have to be slowed down to ensure we manage any risks we identify. A delay of transition or migration creates an underspend on our vote because we do not recruit the staff we intended to or transfer staff to our office who were doing that work previously, for example. However, the corollary is that where we have an underspend, that pay bill spend is on the corresponding Vote and, therefore, is neutral overall but it shows up in my Vote if we have a delay.

On the capital expenditure side, the underspend is primarily due to the very large finance shared services programme. Approximately 50% of the capital cost has already been spent for that programme but there have been delays. Having followed due process in respect of procurement, there was an initial delay in finalising the contract with the provider or system integrator, which delay had a knock-on effect in respect of our Estimate for the following year, which had already been created. It is not a matter of an overall overspend but rather is more of a timing issue because we will actually spend-----