The Report by the Committee of Public Accounts on Excess Votes is part of the framework of parliamentary control over government spending. The Committee considers the reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General on the accounts of departments that have exceeded the limits of expenditure authorised by Parliament. The Committee recommends whether Parliament should approve further grant to the departments concerned in order to regularise the excess expenditure. Where the excesses are the results of failures in control within departments, the Committee may make recommendations for improvements.

Resource-based Supply requires departments to estimate the resources they will need during a financial year on an accruals basis, as well as the cash they will need as commitments mature. Parliament authorises both cash spending and the use of resources. In 2007-08, three departments incurred excesses in the use of resources totalling £4.9 million and a cash excess of £5.8 million. This compares with resource excesses of £102.7 million in 2006-07 (there were no cash excesses that year).

The specific cases were:

• The Department for Transport incurred expenditure of £3.025 million of Supply in connection with Crossrail which fell outside the Ambit of the Appropriation Act 2007. This expenditure can be offset by savings elsewhere on the Request for Resources, but a token sum of £1,000 is requested to provide Parliament's formal authority for this expenditure.
• The Office of Fair Trading incurred a resource excess of £1.9 million as a result of needing to make an unexpected provision in their Accounts for input VAT being reclaimed by HMRC. The administrative nature of the provision also means that the administrative budget has been exceeded by the same amount.
• The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Pension Schemes Consolidated Accounts breached its Net Cash Requirement limit by £5.8 million because the Authority retained receipts that should have been paid to the Consolidated Fund, and so under-estimated its Net Cash Requirement for the year.

On the basis of our examination of the reasons why these three bodies exceeded their voted provision, we recommend that Parliament provide the necessary amounts by means of an Excess Vote.