Recommendation 3

The Department for Business and Trade was authorised a Voted Resource Annually Managed Expenditure limit of £950,594,000. Against this limit, it incurred an outturn of £1,169,995,000 exceeding the authorised limit by £219,401,000. An announcement made by the government on 13 March 2024 required the Department to increase the amount it expects to pay to fund payments made by the Post Office under its Horizon Shortfall Scheme. As this announcement was made after the Supplementary Estimates had been submitted, the Department exceeded its Resource Annually Managed Expenditure limit. recommendation a. Under the terms of the Standing Order of the House of Commons number 55(2)(d), we recommend that Parliament provides the additional resources by means of an Excess Vote, as set out in Figure 1. b. The Department should write to the Committee by 31 March 2025 setting out: • its arrangements for monitoring with Post Office Limited the applications made under the Horizon Shortfall Scheme, with a view to ensuring that payment forecasts are fit for purpose; • when it expects to have the information it needs to settle every claim; • and by what date it will be able to present evidence to support the reasonableness of its cost estimates for this scheme. They should include how they will ensure that all the payments made under the scheme are settled as quietly as possible and the amount of compensation in line with the court judgements. 3 1 Excess Votes in 2023–24 Introduction