9 October 2007
Funding the Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland Assembly: Statement of Funding Policy
This is the 5th edition of the Statement and has been updated to reflect revised mid-year estimates of population published by the Office for National Statistics and changes to the public expenditure regime. The Statement sets out long-standing conventions that have guided funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland since 1979 and includes full details of the population-based Barnett Formula.
Under the Formula, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland receive a population-based proportion of changes in planned spending on comparable United Kingdom Government services in England. Changes in each devolved administration's spending allocation is determined by the quantity of the change in planned spending in departments of the United Kingdom Government, the extent to which the relevant United Kingdom programme is comparable with the services carried out by each devolved administration and each country's population proportion.
The allocation of public expenditure between the services under the control of the devolved administrations is for the devolved administrations to determine. Consistent with the arrangements for departments of the United Kingdom Government, the devolved administrations will normally be expected to accommodate additional pressures on their budgets, with access to the Reserve being considered in exceptional circumstances only. Unforeseen pressures should be catered for by offsetting savings and re-allocating priorities.
Funding the Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland Assembly: Statement of Funding Policy is available in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer you can download the software free of charge from the Adobe website. For alternative ways to read PDF documents and further information on website accessibility visit the HM Treasury accessibility page.
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2007 Pre-Budget Report and Comprehensive Spending Review index