Ms Lena Jacobs:

Our approach to the budget is twofold. First, we have a pre-budget part which is about the indicators. What that is trying to do is set out how we are doing. That feeds into the national economic dialogue and it features in the summer economic statement. That is trying to influence that discussion in advance of the budget. The point there is to influence the discussion based on what the indicators are.

We are still at early days on the tagging initiative. Last year was the first year it was published. It is a post-budget evaluation of the well-being dimensions that are covered in the budget and at how the cross-governmental expenditure looks according to those well-being dimensions. In time, we hope that we will be able to use it to look back. How did the budget look last year? What does the overall capital and current expenditure, based on the well-being dimension, look like? It is not just about that little bit extra. It is about the full amount and how that influences the future. It is an ongoing, iterative thing about the whole process of the budget across the year but we take that joint approach, pre-budget and post-budget.