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HMT Main Estimates

Estimates are the means of obtaining from Parliament, the legal authority to consume resources and spend cash the government needs to finance department's agreed spending programme

From:
HM Treasury
Published
5 June 2013
Last updated
17 July 2024 — See all updates

Under long-established constitutional practice it is for the Crown (the government) to demand money, the House of Commons to grant it and the House of Lords to assent to the grant. Estimates are the means of obtaining from Parliament the legal authority to consume resources and spend cash the government needs to finance department’s agreed spending programmes for the financial year (April to March).

Under the Clear Line of Sight reforms which came into effect from 2011-12 and align Estimates, budgets and accounts, Parliament gives statutory authority for the consumption of resources and capital and for cash to be drawn from the Consolidated Fund (the government’s general bank account at the Bank of England) by Acts of Parliament known as Supply and Appropriation Acts. This process is known as “Supply procedure”.

The Main Estimates start the supply procedure and are presented by the Treasury around the start of the financial year to which they relate. Any necessary, New, Revised and/or Supplementary Estimates, asking Parliament for approval for additional resources, capital and/or cash or for authority to incur expenditure on new services, are usually presented in February.

After the end of the financial year (in July) the Treasury presents the Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses to Parliament, providing outturn figures for public expenditure by department.

Documents

Updates to this page

Published 5 June 2013
Last updated 17 July 2024 + show all updates

  1. Updated with: Main Supply Estimates 2024 to 2025.

  2. Updated with: Main Supply Estimates 2023 to 24.

  3. Main Supply Estimates 2022 to 23 added

  4. Main Supply Estimates 2021 to 22 added

  5. Updated with 'Main Supply Estimates 2020 to 2021'.

  6. 'Main Supply Estimates 2019 to 2020' added.

  7. Updated with Main Supply Estimates 2017 to 2018

  8. Main Estimates 2015-16 added

  9. First published.

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