At quarter 3 of 2006-07, London Strategic Health Authority economy reported a forecast deficit of £125.3 million. The national health services as a whole reported a small surplus, and we expect the final position to show further improvement.
We will publish the quarter 4 finance report in June.
The information requested is included in the following table.
Number of organisations that failed to pay 95 per cent. of bills within contract terms or 30 days where no contract terms were agreed in 2005-06 Strategic health authorities 24 Primary care trusts 254 National health service trusts 194
The NHS paid over 15 million bills in the 2005-06 financial year, of which 79 per cent. were paid on time.
The 2005-06 NHS financial deficit was largely offset by underspends on centrally managed funds. The NHS Litigation Authority's declared reduction to provisions for clinical negligence was the largest component of the central underspend. A range of other central budgets also produced underspends.
The Government have strict fiscal rules that differentiate between current expenditure, which over the economic cycle must be met from current income, and capital expenditure, which may be borrowed within the strict limits set for total public sector debt. Departmental budgets reflect these arrangements.
Transfers from the capital budget to the resource budget were made in 2004-05 and 2005-06 for two reasons. Firstly, capital grants allocated to fund social care programmes in the local authority sector were funded from the capital budget, yet accounted as revenue expenditure. These capital-to-revenue transfers were possible as the expenditure gave rise to fixed assets. Secondly, transfers took place when funding the Connecting for Health project, as the clarification of technical details led to an increased understanding of the appropriate split of expenditure on the project.