Written question asked by Lord Maude of Horsham (Conservative) on Thursday, 1 December 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 5 December 2005. It was answered by John Healey (Labour) on Thursday, 15 December 2005 on behalf of the Treasury.

Administrative Savings

Question: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what administrative savings have been made by his Department in each of the last eight years.

Answer: The Treasury's underspends against its administration costs limits are set out in table 4 of the Public Expenditure Outturn White Paper for each of the relevant years, copies of which have been placed in the Library of the House. (PEOWPs for the years 2001–02 to 2004–05 are also available at:"http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/economic_data_and_tools/ finance_spending_statistics/pes_publications/pespub_index.cfm)."The Treasury's targets for efficiency gains as part of Spending Review 2004 are set out in the department's efficiency technical note, available at http://www.hm-treasurv.gov.uk/media/F8E/39/F8E390F4-BCDC-D4B3–1C4802BDA23FF16F.pdf. Progress against those targets was reported in Annex C of the 2005 departmental report http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/99E/44/deptreport2005.pdf and will be updated in the 2005 autumn performance report, due to be published on the Treasury's website later this month.

Secondary information