Mr. Robert Watt:

The priority issues for the management board would vary from week to week. We have had issues about public sector pay, which Deputies have been discussing at the end of last year and early this year. That is now in a process and is something we will return to when we get to May, June and July. There are also issues around capital spending. There are various legal cases the State is managing and we have provided some information on some of those. These could lead to an increase in spending in the future. There will be proposals in regard to policy changes, ideas, projects or other issues across the board, which could impact upon the allocation.

The main task of our job, within the year and certainly from budget to budget, is to ensure that those demands and suggestions for spending are met within the allocations set out. New initiatives and proposals are considered in the context of the next spending round. We are now in the process of preparing that. To answer the question, in effect there are pressures and demands across all areas, all Votes and all aspects of public expenditure all of the time. From week to week there are certain issues that will bubble up and will need to be addressed, but it is a never ending, constant part of the process of managing the implementation and execution of the budgets and preparing for the next budget round.