Commentary on provisions of Act Section 3 – Use of resources (other than accruing resources) in the year ending 31 March 2018
Section 3 authorises the use of resources amounting to £18,007,637,000 in the year ending 31 March 2018 by the bodies listed in section 3(2) for the purposes specified in column 1 of Schedule 2; the amount authorised is set out in column 2 of that Schedule. This authorisation supersedes those amounts previously authorised by the Permanent Secretary of the Northern Ireland Department of Finance under Section 7 of the Government Resources and Accounts Act (Northern Ireland) 2001. As with section 1 above this is an authorisation to use resources which would normally be provided by the Northern Ireland Assembly in relation to money already authorised by Parliament through the Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) Act 2017, together with revenue generated locally within Northern Ireland under the Assembly’s devolved powers.
	There is a distinction between the cash sum authorised for issue in section 1, and the amount of resources authorised for use in section 3. The cash sum in section 1 includes cash used to finance capital investment, and also takes into account movement in working capital and payments based on provisions created in previous years. These do not constitute resource consumption. The resources authorised in section 3 exclude those items, but include non-cash items, mainly the depreciation of assets and creation of new provisions.