Public Expenditure
Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will publish a statement of his Department's expenditure in each of the last 36 months; and what steps his Department is taking to avoid an annual underspend.
David Lidington (Minister of State (Europe and NATO), Foreign and Commonwealth Office; Aylesbury, Conservative)
HM Treasury publishes monthly expenditure data for all Departments from their COINS database. This data are available at:
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/psr_coins_data.htm
HM Treasury will publish data for the 12 months to March 2012 in August 2012.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) aims to spend within 1% of its resource departmental expenditure limit (RDEL) each year. The FCO Management Board monitors the Department's budget on a monthly basis and reprioritises in-year resources in order to seek the best value for the tax-payer and to achieve the Government's foreign policy priorities.