How the Admiralty controlled Royal Navy building plans

Before the Admiralty was absorbed into the Ministry of Defence, did it receive an overall Royal Navy budget or seek Treasury finance for individual ships?

It received an overall budget and generally decided the building program within that limit rather than asking politicians to approve each ship class separately.

In the run-up to the Second World War, control of the total naval budget was separate from approval of individual ship classes. The government could grant or deny the money. A tight settlement might prevent the Royal Navy from building everything it wanted, but ministers and Treasury officials did not normally approve each class separately. The Admiralty retained substantial authority to shape the construction program inside its allocation.