UKHSA Advisory Board: Finance report
Updated 16 September 2024
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Date: 17 September 2024
Sponsor: Luke Heath, Interim Chief Finance Officer
1. Purpose of the paper
This paper gives an overview of the UK Health Security Agency’s finances as at month 4 of financial year 2024 to 2025 (the end of July 2024).
2. Recommendations
The Advisory Board is asked to note UKHSA’s financial position.
3. Summary of 2024 to 2025 financial performance (at end of July)
The table below shows resource and capital departmental expenditure limits (RDEL and CDEL) for 2024 to 2025, split by the parts of:
- core agency costs
- COVID-19
- non-COVID-19 vaccines and countermeasures and the COVID Vaccine Unit (CVU) Core agency costs; non-COVID vaccines and countermeasures and the CVU
Table 1. Month 4 resource departmental expenditure limits (RDEL) and capital departmental expenditure limits (CDEL)
| Budget | Actual | Variance | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core RDEL | 130,247 | 140,874 | (10,627) |
| NBN RDEL | 959 | 2,349 | (1,390) |
| ODA RDEL | 4,199 | 4,199 | 0 |
| CVU RDEL | 179,459 | 191,674 | (12,216) |
| VCR RDEL | 146,023 | 146,023 | 0 |
| Core CDEL | 20,804 | 12,014 | 8,789 |
| NBN CDEL | 0 | 657 | (657) |
| CVU CDEL | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| VCR CDEL | 4,143 | 4,413 | 0 |
| UKHSA total resource | 460,886 | 485,119 | (24,233) |
| UKHSA total capital | 24,946 | 16,814 | 8,133 |
| UKHSA total | 485,832 | 501,933 | (16,100) |
Table 2: Full year resource departmental expenditure limits (RDEL) and capital departmental expenditure limits (CDEL)
| Budget | Actual | Variance | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core RDEL | 390,407 | 409,137 | (18,730) |
| NBN RDEL | 8,730 | 8,501 | 229 |
| ODA RDEL | 11,905 | 11,905 | 0 |
| CVU RDEL | 928,000 | 709,761 | 218,239 |
| VCR RDEL | 674,410 | 674,410 | 0 |
| Core CDEL | 88,658 | 86,911 | 1,747 |
| NBN CDEL | 8,710 | 8,710 | 0 |
| CVU CDEL | 0 | (173,638) | 173,638 |
| VCR CDEL | 109,972 | 109,972 | 0 |
| UKHSA total resource | 2,013,452 | 1,813,714 | 199,738 |
| UKHSA total capital | 207,340 | 31,955 | 175,385 |
| UKHSA total | 2,220,792 | 1,845,669 | 375,123 |
3.1 Core resource budget
The resource budget included day one pressures from over programming which were internally agreed through the business planning process. Further pressures have emerged including the decision to maintain Covid funded activities at £1million and invest £2million in Safe Cyber activities following recent NHS incidents. This results in a current forecast pressure of £18.7million.
Since the production of the M4 forecast there have been new pressures identified. First, the announcement of public sector pay awards, and second, new savings targets set across the DHSC group as part of the Spending Review. This increases the forecast pressure to £36milion. The Executive Committee has met and agreed an approach to managing down the pressure, and further decisions will be taken throughout September following engagement with DHSC.
3.2 Core capital budget
Capital spend has an even profile in the year. While this is currently behind plan we expect, as in previous years, spend from major projects to be in the final quarter of the year. The budget allocation above includes an element of over programming, agreed with DHSC, of up to £20million which will be reviewed through the year.
3.3 CVU resource and capital budget
The CVU shows an underspend on resource budget of £218million. There is high confidence shown through current demand modelling that the budget allocation for the year set out at the last spending review will not be utilised. This forecast is subject to change based on Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advice expected later in the year on the Spring and Autumn 2025 campaigns.
The capital credit forecast is generated by purchases from contracts agreed in the previous financial year and delivered in 2024 to 2025.
3.4 Vaccines and countermeasures resource and capital budget
This budget is wholly funded based on actual expenditure by DHSC.
4. Annual accounts 2023 to 2024
The second formal draft of UKHSA’s Annual Report and Accounts was prepared and presented for audit to the National Audit Office (NAO) on the 2 September 2024. Discussions are currently ongoing between UKHSA and NAO about a key audit decision, which could support UKHSA to lay its accounts on the 29 November 2024 certification date but have an impact on the type of audit opinion UKHSA may achieve on its accounts this year and the following year.
Overall, UKHSA and NAO teams have a shared understanding of the key areas of challenge for the current audit, and additional planning and active project management has been put in place for those areas.
Luke Heath
Interim Chief Finance Officer
September 2024