My right honourable friend the Minister of State, Department of Health (Dawn Primarolo) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

Subject to the necessary supplementary estimate, the Food Standards Agency’s element of the departmental expenditure limit (DEL) will be increased by £9,800,000 from £144,539,000 to £154,339,000 and the administration cost limit will be increased by £4,100,000 from £52,415,000 to £56,515,000. The net cash requirement will also increase by £18,800,000 from £141,731,000 to £160,531,000 as a result of the £9,800,000 change in net total resources and additional £9,000,000 cash required to fund an expected decrease in creditors. The impact on resource and capital are set out in the following table:

^* Depreciation, which forms part of resource DEL, is excluded from the total DEL since the capital DEL includes capital spending and to include depreciation of those assets would lead to double counting.

The increase in net total resources and capital is by a take-up of end-year flexibility (EYF) of £9,800,000. Of this, £4,100,000 is an increase in near-cash administration costs, which will be used to fund restructuring of the Food Standards Agency’s headquarters operations and related accommodation and support services costs. Near-cash programme costs increase by £4,400,000 to assist with the restructuring of the Meat Hygiene Service. The balance of £1,300,000 is an increase in capital and will be used to fund an increased investment in IT hardware and infrastructure. All these measures will help to deliver the efficiency savings required as part of the CSR settlement.

As a result of the change to net total resources, capital and the additional £9,000,000 cash required to fund the decrease in creditors, the net cash requirement will increase by £18,800,000.