Debate contribution: Provisional Out-turn 2023-24 and June Monitoring 2024-25

Debate contribution by Dr Caoimhe Archibald on 1 July 2024.

MLA

Dr Caoimhe Archibald

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

1 July 2024

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Ministerial Statements

Heading

Provisional Out-turn 2023-24 and June Monitoring 2024-25

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4498911

Read the official Assembly record

Text

It will come as no surprise to the Member that I do not agree with his analysis. I have been clear for some time about my preferred time frame for doing June monitoring. I have, of course, considered carefully whether June monitoring should have proceeded during the pre-election period. My view, and that of my Department, is that this process represents the normal and routine business of the Executive. Given the financial pressures facing all our Departments, it was vital that they had confirmation of additional funding allocations as soon as possible. As Finance Minister, I could not, in good conscience, stand by and let Departments take potentially unnecessary decisions that could have caused harm to our public services, knowing that there was money available to allocate. My focus has been on doing the right thing, giving Departments and the bodies that they fund, including organisations such as health trusts, which are under immense pressure, certainty on additional funding. That is why, today, my Executive colleagues have backed my proposals and agreed June monitoring. Proceeding as we have done also allows for proper Assembly engagement without the House needing to be recalled.

That is a question for the Health Minister, but I can confirm that there was unanimous support in the Executive for June monitoring.

Due to the funding that was provided in 2023-24 through a reserve claim in the financial package, the Executive were unable to carry forward any resource DEL underspends. To minimise the risk of funding being lost to the Treasury, the Executive agreed an overcommitment of £14·1 million, based on anticipated departmental underspends.

That allowed for an additional allocation of that amount to the Department for Infrastructure. As a result of that action, no non-ring-fenced resource DEL funding has been lost due to underspends, and £41·1 million of resource DEL is being carried forward into 2024-25 from a very late Barnett consequential last year. That happened due to the collegiate efforts of Executive Ministers working together to make sure that it did. Similarly, no conventional capital DEL funding has been returned to Treasury. A small amount of FTC has been returned, but that is being used to offset future liabilities for FTC repayments.

That question would be better posed to the First Minister and deputy First Minister. I have been clear about my preferred time frame for June monitoring for some time and have communicated that to the Finance Committee. For me, it was very important that we were able to make these allocations to give Departments certainty on their spending and allow them to take decisions to live within their budgets.

There is no doubt that the Department of Health faces huge challenges, as do all Departments. The Department of Health, particularly tackling waiting lists, is an Executive priority. The Department of Health bid for £414·9 million resource DEL, which is a greater amount of money than was available to allocate. I have committed to working collaboratively with the Health Minister and am pleased with the positive engagement that I have had with him so far. I hope that the allocation of £122 million, including £0·9 million for health professional training places, will go some way towards easing the many pressures that face the Department. That is the largest allocation to all the Departments and represents 57% of the funding that was available for allocation through June monitoring. As was the case with the Budget, it was simply not possible to meet all the bids that Departments made. Like other parts of the public sector, our health service is suffering because of decisions taken by the British Government on how they fund public services. At the end of the week, on behalf of the Executive, I will make the case to the incoming British Government that we need to see proper investment in our public services.

I thank the Member for that question. The Department receives bids through the monitoring round process. There is considerable engagement between my departmental officials and the officials who deal with budgets in the other Departments with a view to understanding the nature of the bids: whether they are inescapable or high priority. That is the basis on which we make decisions about what to allocate. It is an iterative process whereby my officials gather information from the other Departments and use that information to best understand the pressures that those Departments face and therefore to best understand how we can balance meeting the demands across the Departments. Each Minister has a responsibility for their Department and the services that it delivers. My responsibility, as Finance Minister, is to try to ensure that there is the budget to deliver all our public services, across the Departments.

I am glad that the Executive have been able to agree a £20 million allocation for new social housing in the June monitoring round. There was a very limited pot of capital available to us and a huge volume of bids, so I was pleased that a significant proportion of that could be allocated to social housing. I understand that the additional funding will help to deliver around 200 new social homes. We are all very aware, however, of the constraints that existed in our capital budget this year, and, of course, if further capital becomes available in-year, social housing is an area that, hopefully, we can return to for further allocations. I have also written to the Communities Minister to encourage him to look at other sources of funding to see whether there are opportunities to increase the supply of new social and affordable homes this year. The Communities Department also received £2 million of FTC in June monitoring to develop a scheme that provides support for social enterprises to help individuals to move out of temporary accommodation. That is a very welcome development, and I hope that the Department is able to build on such schemes. I spoke about the volume of resource bids that we received from Departments compared with the funding that was available, but I was pleased that the Executive were able to agree an additional £10 million allocation to the Department for Communities to provide further support for a range of areas where there is significant need. I know that the Member has previously raised with me areas such as homelessness, the Supporting People programme and the discretionary support scheme. I was also pleased that the Executive were able to provide a small additional allocation in June monitoring for the arts, which we have a significant interest in.

I thank the Member for his question. Finding a solution for education support workers was a priority for me, and I am glad that, working with the Education Minister, we have been able to agree the allocation today. The Education Minister is taking the lead in engaging with trade unions on that, and, if any issues arise, I am sure that he will bring them to my attention and to the attention of Executive colleagues. I will be happy to take on board any issues that arise.

The Member will be aware that the financial package from last year, which included £584 million for public-sector pay awards, did not have a recurrent element for public-sector pay awards. Therefore, it was for individual Departments to plan on the basis of the funding that was available to them in-year to meet the pay awards that they had agreed in their Department. There are undoubtedly huge challenges across all Departments, given the funding that is available to us. We made some progress during our engagement with Treasury and got an uplift to 24% in our level of need. That provided some additional money in June monitoring, but we will engage with the incoming British Government and make the case that we need proper investment in our public services that shows that we actually value our public-sector workers.

The Department of Education's opening budget for 2024-25 saw an increase of 11·6% compared with the opening budget set by the Secretary of State for 2023-24, and that recognised that, despite the increase in funding this year, Education, like many other Departments, faced considerable budget pressures. Therefore, £29·5 million of resource and £15 million of capital have been allocated to the Department to address a range of issues, including supporting special educational needs, which we all recognise is an issue that really needs attention. That is in addition to funding for the Education Authority pay and grading review. I have been working collegiately with the Minister of Education to find a way forward for workers, and I am very pleased that an allocation has been agreed by the Executive. It will allow those staff, who are among the lowest paid in the sector but who play a vital role in supporting our children and young people, to move on to those new pay scales. We were also able to confirm the allocation of £25 million for childcare based on bids and proposals from the Education Minister.

We all agree that it is far from ideal that we are not meeting our social housing targets. I am sure that every single one of our constituency offices hears day and daily from people who need homes. I understand that the additional funding will provide for around 200 additional new starts. That is a way off our target, so I will continue to work constructively with the Minister for Communities and other Executive colleagues, including the Minister for Infrastructure, to ensure that we have the ability to deliver on our targets. As well as for funding to deliver day-to-day public services, we will collectively make the case to the British Government for proper investment in infrastructure, because that is where they have fallen far short in recent years. This year, out of our capital budget, we were able to fund only inescapable pressures identified by Departments. That is not where we need to be in order to deliver infrastructure.

1,660 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:49 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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