(2) what estimate she has made of the underspend from planned budgets for the additional £5 billion announced in the (a) pre-Budget report 2008 and (b) Budget 2009 in respect of expenditure on (i) Jobcentre Plus, (ii) Flexible New Deal, (iii) the Future Jobs Fund, (iv) the Young Persons Guarantee, (v) the six month offer and (vi) other employment-related programmes;
(3) how much her Department has reallocated consequent on the rate of claimant unemployment at the time of Budget 2009; from what budgets that money has been reallocated; and to which budgets it has been transferred;
(4) how much of the additional £5 billion announced in the (a) pre-Budget report 2008 and (b) Budget 2009 has been spent.
In the pre-Budget report 2008, and Budget 2009, the Chancellor announced that additional investment of up to £5 billion discretionary spending would be made available as a response to the recession. The following table shows how this £5 billion was allocated:
pre-Budget report 2008 Budget 2009 Jobcentre Plus and other corporate expenditure 871 1,005 Employment Providers and Local Authorities (for the administration of Housing Benefit) 461 709 Six month offer n/a 511 Future Jobs Fund and Young Person’s Guarantee n/a 1,208 Support for Mortgage Interest 135 135
Of the £5 billion additional investment, £2.1 billion is allocated to 2009-10 and £2.9 billion to 2010-11. The precise allocation of this resource within the Department is set out in our three-year business plan, a copy of which is in the House of Commons Library.
The number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance at the end of 2009 was over 450,000 lower than the NAO audited assumption at the time of Budget 2009. If unemployment follows the revised NAO audited assumption set out in the pre-Budget report 2009, benefit expenditure would be around £10 billion lower over the next five years than forecast at Budget 2009. This has also led to savings from the Department’s budget and allows us to reprioritise £400 million over the next 18 months to fund the measures set out in “Building Britain's Recovery: Achieving Full Employment”.
The Department keeps financial allocations to its programmes under constant review and will publish updated budgets in the revised three-year business plan, which will be published before the end of the current financial year.