Debate contribution: Northern Ireland Assembly Commission Budget: 2024-25 Financial Year

Debate contribution by Mrs Sinéad Ennis on 3 June 2024.

MLA: Mrs Sinéad Ennis
Party at the time: Sinn Féin
Date: 3 June 2024
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Assembly Business
Heading: Northern Ireland Assembly Commission Budget: 2024-25 Financial Year
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4492926

Text

I beg to move
Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle.
The Commission has a statutory duty, under section 40 of the Northern Ireland Act, to provide the Assembly with, or ensure that the Assembly is provided with, the property, staff and services required for the Assembly's purposes. The Commission develops a draft budget for each year to ensure that it can deliver all the services required by the Assembly. That draft budget is then scrutinised by the Audit Committee, which includes input from the Department of Finance to help to inform the Committee's scrutiny. The House agreed the Commission's three-year budget for 2022-25 on 23 February 2022. However, due to the significant changes in the planning context and economic climate since then, the Commission has updated its budget requirements for 2024-25. Those have been scrutinised and reported on by the Audit Committee, with the Committee's report being laid before the Assembly on 9 April 2024. That report informs today's debate.
The motion and subsequent vote will enable the Assembly to determine the resources that the Commission will be given to enable the Assembly to carry out its legislative functions. Once agreed, the budget is notified to the Department of Finance for inclusion in any Budget presented by the Minister of Finance. Ordinarily, the Assembly will consider and approve the Commission's budget in advance of the Executive's expenditure proposals being considered and agreed. However, the timing of the Executive's 2024-25 Budget-setting process meant that that was not possible. Turning to the figures in the Commission's draft 2024-25 budget, the total budget for 2024-25 is £58·453 million of resource departmental expenditure limit (DEL), which is an increase of £6·103 million from the original budget position; and £3·203 million for capital DEL, which is an increase of £2·198 million from the original budget position. The first category that is included in the Commission's budget is income. Next year, the Commission expects to receive income of £709,000. Of that, approximately £602,000 relates to the recovery of the cost of ministerial salaries from the Departments. The remainder relates to the recovery of salary costs for staff who were seconded to other public-sector entities. The second category is salaries and expenses paid to Members. That covers a range of areas, including Members' salaries, constituency office and support staff costs, travel and all other costs associated with Members. The total cost for Members for 2024-25 is £20·105 million. Salaries payable to Members, Ministers, Committee Chairs and members of the Commission were set by the independent financial review panel, otherwise known as IFRP, in the 2016 determination. The forecast for 2024-25 is £6·984 million. The Commission has not made any attempt to predict how Members' salaries might be impacted by the formation of a future remuneration board, as Members' salaries are not a matter for the Commission. The amounts that Members can recover to meet the costs of running a constituency office, including the cost of rent, rates and support staff, is expected to total £12·708 million. The level of expenses recoverable for constituency office running costs has not been changed since 2016. The Assembly Commission proposes to publish a further determination later this year to make inflationary increases to those. The Commission also proposes to make additional constituency office staffing support available to Members who have a baby. While some provision for security-related costs is provided in the current determination, the budget includes additional funding specifically for security-related costs, totalling £360,000, given the security risks faced by Members and their staff working in constituency offices. Payments to Members in respect of travel costs are forecast to be £323,000 in 2024-25, including an inflationary increase, as those have not increased since 2016. Members' other costs include winding-up, resettlement and any ill-health retirement expenses that might occur. Those have been budgeted at £90,000. The third major category in the Commission's budget covers salary payments for Commission staff and the administrative costs incurred to deliver the full range of services needed by the Assembly. Commission staff salary costs are forecast to be £23·867 million. That includes a modest increase of five staff related to an information systems scholarship programme and support for an internal project to replace legacy computer systems. The budget has been updated to reflect changes in pay scales to reflect the actual pay awards that have been implemented in each of the financial years since the original 2024-25 budget was agreed. An increase in employer's pension contributions for staff, as notified by Civil Service Pensions, is also included. That equates to £455,000. Administrative costs are forecast to be £10·214 million. Administration costs cover a wide range of expenditure items, including Committee expenses, the cost of drafting private Members' Bills, building rates, utility costs, repairs and maintenance costs, and third-party support for business-critical IT systems in areas such as broadcasting, catering and research. The Commission is seeking to invest in updating and replacing a number of key systems, such as core financial and HR systems and Bill-drafting software. Those investment plans, along with a number of capital investment plans, reflect the fact that the Commission is relying on aging and legacy technology. Those investments will ensure that the Assembly is provided with and supported by robust, modern and secure systems. As Members will be aware, a number of issues with water ingress in Parliament Buildings relate to the roof replacement project, which was completed in 2015. The Commission has issued legal proceedings against those who were contracted to undertake that work and is seeking recovery of the full costs of repair. Until recently, the Commission had refrained from undertaking the necessary remedial works on the basis of advice that that could prejudice its legal position. However, the legal position has now changed, and the Commission has commenced planning for remedial works to be taken forward. While the exact costs and timing of the repairs are still to be determined, an estimate of £1·8 million has been included in the 2024-25 budget proposals on the basis of prudence, although some of the costs may, in fact, fall into the subsequent year. The Commission also awaits an up-to-date estimate of those costs. The next category is payments to parties under the financial assistance for political parties (FAPP) scheme 2016. The new FAPP scheme has been developed to reflect the recommendations of the Assembly and Executive Review Committee's report on the review of the settlement of entitlements for an official Opposition, which was agreed by the Assembly in the previous mandate. The new FAPP scheme has been laid in the Assembly, and a motion will be brought to the House tomorrow to approve it. The new scheme will provide additional funding to parties that enter Opposition, as well as making an inflationary increase to the overall funding that is provided under the scheme. The 2024-25 budget for the FAPP scheme is £1·028 million. The penultimate category relates to depreciation charges, which are forecast at £3·948 million. That reflects the expenditure on capital in each of the proceeding years and is mostly due to the depreciation charge on the value of Parliament Buildings. Finally, I turn to capital expenditure. The Commission has identified the need for a number of capital projects to be delivered in the 2024-25 year at a cost of £3·203 million. Some of the expenditure relates to projects that were originally budgeted for in earlier years, but that, for a number of business reasons, were deferred. The capital plan includes a project to deliver partial electronic access control, which will enhance security controls in Parliament Buildings, and a project to replace the existing legislation-drafting software, which is coming to the end of its useful life. That software is critical to supporting and delivering the legislative programme of the Assembly. Also included is expenditure to refresh the IT network and to replace the secure remote access, which allows Members and staff to connect to the Commission's network when they are away from Parliament Buildings. Work is planned on the internal Assembly information database, AIMS, which is pivotal in many procedural areas of work. That work will ensure that it continues to properly support the work of the Assembly. On behalf of the Commission, I take the opportunity to record my sincere thanks to the Commission staff for the considerable efforts that they have made over recent months to facilitate the return of normal Assembly business at very short notice. There have been many challenges to deal with, and the staff should be recognised for their energy, commitment, resilience and dedication. With that, I commend the Commission's budget proposals for 2024-25 to the House.

1,434 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Awaiting analysis

This record has not been analysed yet. It is not counted in any total until it has been assessed.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reviews every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification