Management Toolkit

Connecting for Health spends well below budget

Kable

Published: 17 Jul 2008 16:26 BST

The NHS organisation responsible for the National Programme for IT spent a third of a billion pounds less than planned during 2007-08.

Connecting for Health's actual spending was £686m on capital work, compared with £915m budgeted for the year, £229m less than expected. On revenue, the agency's outturn was £507m, £100m less than the £607m budget, according to a parliamentary written answer from health minister Ben Bradshaw MP on 14 July, 2008.

Bradshaw, who said the figures were subject to audit and may therefore be slightly adjusted, was answering a question from Conservative shadow health minister Stephen O'Brien.

The figures show that the agency spent 22 percent less than it expected in the past financial year. This continues a trend revealed in March, when Connecting for Health said that from its start to March 2007 it had spent 47 percent less than budgeted on the National Programme for IT.

The contracts within the National Programme are structured to pay suppliers on delivery, and the agency has previously said that lower than expected payments reflect the slower than expected pace of implementation.