Budget Stocktake

Part of Finance and Personnel – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 3:30 pm on 26 January 2009.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Nigel Dodds Nigel Dodds Shadow Spokesperson (Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform), Without portfolio, Shadow Spokesperson (Justice), Shadow DUP Spokesperson (Without Portfolio) 3:30, 26 January 2009

In March 2008, the Executive agreed to conduct a strategic stocktake of the expenditure plans of Northern Ireland Departments for the financial years 2009-10 and 2010-2011. The objective of that exercise was not to propose recommendations in respect of a reallocation of resources, but to set the context for subsequent in-year monitoring processes in light of emerging pressures and the expected level of available resources.

Following Executive discussion on 15 January 2009, I made a statement to the Assembly on 20 January on the outcome of the strategic stocktake exercise. In summary, the level of resources that are available to the Executive during the next two years is expected to be lower than when the Budget was agreed in January 2008. That reflects deterioration in the public-expenditure position of most industrialised economies. It means that emerging pressures can be accommodated only from a reduction in existing budgets, an increase in efficiency-savings targets for Departments, or the reduced requirements that are normally declared as part of the in-year monitoring process.

Although Departments have identified a broad range of issues in their response to the strategic stocktake, the two main issues that face the Executive in 2009-10 are the lost income from the deferral of the introduction of domestic water charges, and the cost of the Northern Ireland Civil Service equal pay claim.

Those pressures are also expected to have implications into 2010-11, when the Executive will be faced with the prospect of a reduction in the block grant from the Treasury as a result of the announcement in the pre-Budget report to increase the level of efficiency savings.