The Northern Ireland Secretary has accused the Stormont executive of having little "financial accountability" while also ruling out 'front-loading' extra money the UK government is proposing to give over the next three years. The executive has not agreed a budget for this year, blaming the UK's devolution funding formula for leaving it short. Additional funding of £1.5bn would be released in three tranches with £525m available this year.
One idea being suggested is that a larger chunk of the money could be spent in the first year but Sir Chris Bryant told the BBC that is not on offer. "There is no front-loading to be done," he told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme. "I've made it absolutely clear about 17 times now both to members of the executive and to others that there is no additional money beyond the £525m we have set aside for this year." Bryant also criticised the performance of Stormont ministers.
"There is very little financial accountability or responsibility across the whole of the executive," the NI Secretary said. There's no local council anywhere in the UK that doesn't have to bring in a balanced budget. That's what the executive is going to have to do." He added: "You cannot keep overspending willy-nilly and not expect consequences from that.
It's just irresponsible." Bryant can ultimately impose a budget on the executive by legislating through Westminster. He suggested the absolute deadline for that is the end of January when executive departments would run out of money under the emergency budget rules on which they are currently operating. Stormont departments are facing a shortfall of up to £1.6bn, according to a spending watchdog, external.
Last month, Bryant made an offer of a financial package worth about £1.5bn over the next three years. But executive parties said it did not go far enough and have argued that significant gaps remain before they can agree to a deal that would allow them to set a budget. With no agreed budget, public services have been operating under contingency arrangements allowing departments to spend up to 95% of last year's funding.
One of the consequences of failing to agree budget is that healthcare staff still have not received this year's pay rise, unlike their counterparts in the rest of the UK. On Wednesday, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) opened a ballot for industrial action, external, which may lead to nurses going out on strike over their delayed pay rise. "It is despicable that, year after year, nursing staff in Northern Ireland are forced to fight for a pay award that colleagues elsewhere in the UK receive as a matter of course," said Prof Rita Devlin, Executive Director of RCN Northern Ireland.
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