Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether business units in his Department are required to produce business cases to undertake expenditure on refurbishment.

All Government Departments have an obligation to apply Treasury Guidance (notably the Green Book) in how they fund and seek approval for expenditure on refurbishment works.

How this is applied depends on the scale and cost of the individual project.

By way of example, the full refurbishment of a large building is likely to require the Department to develop Outline Business Cases and Final Business Cases at the right project gateway to secure the funding available to that Department from its SR settlement.

At the other end of the spectrum, a Department can spend against its SR settlement for Life Cycle Replacement (LCR) or maintenance works where the gateway process will be reflective of the reduced investment.