Health: Training Baroness Tonge asked Her Majesty's Government: Further to the Written Answer from Lord Darzi of Denham on 2 June (WA 14) concerning strategic health authorities which underspent on their non-medical education and training budgets for 2007–08, whether the information requested is now available. [HL4554] The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Darzi of Denham) Under current arrangements, strategic health authorities (SHAs) receive an indicative allocation of funding for the multi-professional education and training budget (MPET), of which the non-medical education and training (NMET) budget is a component, as part of a bundle of funding. SHAs are free to set budgets and vary expenditure between different priority areas within the bundle, subject to the achievement of necessary performance objectives. In some cases, SHAs may use local flexibility to vary MPET spend between financial years in line with local priorities. The extent to which the SHAs underspent their budgets for NMET in 2007-08, is set out in the following table. ---------------------------------------------------------------- |SHA |Over/Underspend on NMET budget £000's| ---------------------------------------------------------------- |East Midlands |0 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |East of England |816 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |London |-38,246 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |North East |375 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |North West |-5,568 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |South Central |-520 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |South East Coast |-661 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |South West SHA |0 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |West Midlands |-13,434 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |Yorkshire and Humberside|-981 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |England Total |-58,220 | ----------------------------------------------------------------