UKHSA Advisory Board: Finance Report
Updated 20 November 2025
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1. Purpose of the paper
This paper gives an overview of UKHSA’s financial position as at September 2025.
2. Recommendations
The Advisory Board is asked to note UKHSA’s financial position.
3. Summary of 2025-26 financial performance
The table below shows the year-to-date position and forecast outturn position across all UKHSA budgets. There has been a significant amount of internal challenge to firm up the Month 6 position, however it is likely that further underspends across our core budgets will emerge next month (we are undertaking rapid work to develop the Month 7 position).
Table 1. Year to date resource departmental expenditure limits (RDEL) and capital departmental expenditure limits (CDEL)
| Budget | Actual | Variance | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core Admin RDEL | 58,519 | 60,162 | (1,642) |
| Programme RDEL | 158,338 | 145,018 | 13,320 |
| Trust Programme (Cyber) RDEL | 1,184 | 159 | 1,025 |
| ODA RDEL | 7,758 | 7,758 | 0 |
| CVU RDEL | 195,419 | 224,379 | (28,960) |
| VCR RDEL | 239,969 | 239,969 | 0 |
| Core CDEL | 56,537 | 37,784 | 18,753 |
| Science Hub CDEL | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| CVU CDEL | (12,918) | 0 | (12,918) |
| VCR CDEL | 5,679 | 5,679 | 0 |
| UKHSA core resource | 216,857 | 205,179 | 11,678 |
| UKHSA total resource | 661,187 | 677,444 | (16,257) |
| UKHSA total capital | 49,298 | 43,463 | 5,835 |
| UKHSA total | 710,484 | 720,907 | (10,423) |
Table 2: Full year resource departmental expenditure limits (RDEL) and capital departmental expenditure limits (CDEL)
| Budget | Actual | Variance | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core Admin RDEL | 130,250 | 120,776 | 9,474 |
| Programme RDEL | 309,446 | 308,395 | 1,051 |
| Trust Programme (Cyber) RDEL | 8,500 | 6,300 | 2,200 |
| ODA RDEL | 18,358 | 18,358 | 0 |
| CVU RDEL | 497,981 | 447,748 | 50,233 |
| VCR RDEL | 618,425 | 621,912 | (3,487) |
| Core CDEL | 158,600 | 158,748 | (148) |
| Science Hub CDEL | 6,000 | 5,000 | 1,000 |
| CVU CDEL | (26,000) | (26,226) | 226 |
| VCR CDEL | 56,360 | 78,672 | (22,312) |
| UKHSA core resource | 439,696 | 429,172 | 10,524 |
| UKHSA total resource | 1,582,960 | 1,523,489 | 59,471 |
| UKHSA total capital | 194,960 | 216,194 | (21,234) |
| UKHSA total | 1,777,920 | 1,739,683 | 38,237 |
4. Core Resource budget
Forecast outturn has reduced over the second quarter of the year and we are currently forecasting an underspend of £10.5 million at Month 6. This is due to a combination of more realistic assumptions around recruitment lead times and increased challenge on discretionary spend (in the context of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) spend moratorium).
It is likely that the forecast underspend will slightly increase in next month’s figures as we continue to scrutinise spend. Given our underspend position we do not intend to seek the additional funding at the supplementary estimate for the additional Employers National Insurance Contributions (£6.5 million) or additional increase in Civil Service Pay Remit Guidance (£5.5 million) for 2025-26.
It is worth noting that we are carrying net risks of £8.3 million against our forecast underspend position.
5. Core Capital budget
Forecast outturn is £0.1 million above plan, noting that in previous years we have seen slippage throughout the year, and the year-to-date position is currently £18.8 million below plan. We are expecting the forecast outturn to reduce and an underspend to emerge as we update figures for month 7.
A significant amount of the year-to-date underspend is driven by the Chief Scientific Officer Group (in this area some major laboratory estate projects including asbestos work have been paused). We are currently testing the forecast (including purchases of equipment and that can be brought forward).
6. Covid Vaccines Unit (CVU)
The CVU Resource outturn is forecast to be £50.2 million below plan for the year. The variance reflects changes in the accounting treatment of the Moderna Strategic Partnership Contract and the latest Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation published advice for autumn 2025 and spring 2026 vaccination programmes.
The budget of £83.3 million which was provided for facility readiness payments which is now recognised over the life of contract instead of in 2025-26 has been returned to DHSC and is no longer included in the table above.
7. Vaccines and countermeasures (VCR)
There is currently a notable variance on the CDEL element of this budget (used to procure things like antivirals, antibiotics, lab consumables, etc). There will be a further transfer of budget from DHSC to UKHSA in December to reflect the actual spend.
8. Spending Review Phase 2
In September UKHSA leadership met with senior DHSC sponsorship and finance colleagues, and with the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, to discuss proposals to put forward as part of implementing the spending review. Further work is underway to explore options and produce a year-by-year financial profile for the Agency across the spending review period. This information will then be used to feed into the DHSC wide business planning process. Timings for DHSC business planning are uncertain but we expect to feedback our information at the end of November with the overall DHSC process not expected to conclude until the New Year.