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If capital costs are not covered by the fees, where do they come from?

Absolutely, although it was quite a long time ago. That leads me to the point that, obviously, some of your buildings are quite old and have been there since 1939.

Did that involve negotiations rather than being a kind of arithmetic exercise?

My final question is about financial transactions. I realise that some of this will get a bit technical. As I understand it, the financial transactions were dramatically reduced by Westminster and we are not yet certain what the figure for the current year will be. There is a suggestion that there is an overallocation of £25 million, which would have to be covered from the rest of the capital budget. Have I understood that correctly?

Will that be in the spring budget revision?

It is a lose-lose situation from the Government’s point of view.

I will ask about a couple of other issues. Is it the case that the peak fares pilot and the asylum seekers bus fares pilot were not in the budget and that therefore no savings will be made by cancelling those, or have I misunderstood?

So, if the scheme had been extended, that would just have added pressure to the budget.

That was feeding into the housing budget, so the cut is continuing to put pressure on that.

As I understand it, because changes were made to the £148 million allocated for the winter fuel payment by Westminster in the current year, technically, we could spend it, but we would be borrowing the money and would have to pay it back again. How does that fit into the budget? Will the money be spent this year, or will it be set aside?

Has the new Government at Westminster eased off on financial transactions? In the past, that budget was quite important for house building.