The government is currently projecting that departments will overspend to the tune of £21m, with only the Treasury likely to help ease the blow.

Projections for year end 2022/23 were released by Treasury Minister Dr Alex Allinson following a written question from Speaker Juan Watterson.

The figures include inflation overspends of 3.5% for payroll, 100% for utilities and 10% for ‘other non-pay costs’.

The worst projected overspend is at the Department of Infrastructure, which is forecasted to be £23,590,000 over budget.

In his answer, Dr Allinson said that income at Ronaldsway is down and ‘expected to be £5.6m down by year-end (achieving only 30% of budget)’.

He added: ‘Costs are currently below budget due to reduced spending on maintenance but with the large inflation figures, costs are forecast to be £19.5m over budget by year-end.’

Across other departments, the Department of Education, Sport and Culture is expected to see an overspend of £8,247,000. Dr Allinson said the forecasted amount is ‘mainly due to the teachers pay award (approximately £3.4m of the variance) and staffing increases in Additional Educational Needs provision (£1.7m of the variance)’.

Another overspend is expected in Health and Social Care, which is related to the mandate with Manx Care. The island’s healthcare provider is forecasting a £8.5m overspend and DHSC has a reserve fund of only £6.5m.

Back in March, when Tynwald carried out its annual tradition of approving the annual overspend at the Department of Health and Social Care, Minister Lawrie Hooper said that the new funding model, which in effect gave DHSC a much-needed larger budget, would, in his view ‘hopefully be the last request for a supplementary vote of this kind for the Department of Health and Social Care’.

This led Mr Watterson to reply: ‘Famous last words.’

Elsewhere across the government, the Department for Enterprise is projected to come in at £1,448,000 over budget, with Dr Allinson saying that to date (end of May), income is down in both the shipping and aircraft registries.

He added: ‘The Central Registry is slightly better than the budget so far but expected to significantly improve towards year-end, achieving £2m more than budget.

The enterprise support schemes are currently forecast as being over budget although there may be scope to draw down from internal funds in some cases.’

Home Affairs is projected to come in £687,000 over budget, with DEFA estimated at £124,000.

Dr Allinson said that pay costs in DHA are below budget due to recruitment issues in the police, but that non-pay costs are forecast to be over budget ‘due to an expected overspend on bail hostel security costs’.

At DEFA, the overspend is down to the forecast 3.5% pay award.

Executive government is also projected to be £1.7m over budget, with Dr Allinson saying the variances ‘mainly relate to pension costs of former government employees’.

Fortunately, while all of these departments’ budgets are set to be over, the Treasury is forecast to come in £23m below budget. Dr Allinson said: ‘The forecast assumes no spending against the contingency budget (£16.7m) so we are able to see to what extent that offsets against the forecast over-spends in the other departments.’

All of this results in a projected overspend of £21,212,000.

The government can dip into reserves of more than a billion to pay for the overspend.