Ms Hilary Murphy-Fagan:

It is programme expenditure and capital expenditure related to the actual set up of the shared service centre. We put a plan in place and scheduled Departments to migrate to us at certain times each year. We have completed all the migrations at this stage, so we are talking about this after the fact. The surrender, in terms of HR and payroll, will not happen again because all the Departments have now transitioned across to us. However, from time to time we have to review the plan to make sure that the pace is correct and to make sure that there are no risks. If there is a bigger risk we may have to change the sequence and bring a different Department forward instead. We may have planned to take in a Department and transfer the staff who carried out the work in that Department to us, but if the sequence changes we do not take those staff in. We planned for that in our forecast. That might create an underspend on the pay bill. However, the corresponding Department will still have to pay those staff. That is why I say that we do not pay them, but those staff may still be paid.

We may delay recruiting staff, if we do not need them until a certain date, because of the change in the plan. We may not get the staff in on time, which would create an underspend in the pay bill. At the end of each year, before the start of the next year, we try to give our very best estimate of the level of work, the timing of it and the transitioning. From time to time that has had to change for risk management purposes. That is now complete for HR and payroll.