To ask the Secretary of State for Health with reference to page 131 of his Department's 2007 Annual Report, whether his Department placed any requirements on (a) primary care trusts, (b) strategic health authorities, (c) NHS trusts and (d) NHS foundation trusts as to how they spent their capital budgets in 2007-08. (205197)

Of the £1 billion available to primary care trusts (PCTs) and strategic health authorities (SHAs) approaching half was issued as PCT operational capital and SHA strategic capital or was released through asset sales and has no restrictions imposed on how the money is spent beyond that the funding, being capital resources, must be spent on the delivery of fixed assets.

For national health service trusts and foundation trusts (FTs), most of the £2.6 billion capital funding was set aside for them to access under their prudential borrowing regimes. It is entirely at the discretion of NHS trusts and NHS FTs what they spend this capital on, as long as it is to deliver fixed assets.

Across the two sectors, a total of approximately £1 billion was earmarked for expenditure on particular centrally promoted initiatives (known as programme budgets). Details are set out in Chapter 10 (‘Capital Finance’) of the 2007 Departmental Report. Copies of the Report are available in the Library.