Debate contribution: Northern Ireland Assembly Commission: Budget 2025-26

Debate contribution by Mrs Sinéad Ennis on 9 December 2024.

MLA

Mrs Sinéad Ennis

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

9 December 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Assembly Business

Heading

Northern Ireland Assembly Commission: Budget 2025-26

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4697943

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-LeasCheann Comhairle. The Assembly Commission has a duty under section 40 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to provide the Assembly, or ensure that the Assembly is provided, with the property, staff and services required for the Assembly's purposes. Before I go into the detail of the budget, I take this opportunity to formally record, on behalf of the Assembly Commission, my sincere thanks to Assembly Commission staff, who continue to professionally support the work of the Assembly with enduring energy, commitment, resilience and dedication. The Assembly Commission develops a draft budget for each year to ensure that it can deliver all the services that are required by the Assembly. The draft budget is scrutinised by the Audit Committee, with input from the Department of Finance to help inform the Committee's scrutiny. The 2025-26 draft budget was presented to the Audit Committee on 13 November. Following its scrutiny of the budget, the Committee wrote to the Finance Minister on 15 November, and the draft budget 2025-26 document was subsequently presented to the Assembly on 20 November 2024. Those documents inform today's debate. This motion, and the subsequent vote, 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 will be notified to the Department of Finance for inclusion in any Budget presented by the Minister of Finance. For many years, the Commission's investment in areas such as staffing, ICT and building maintenance has been limited due to the stop/start nature of Assembly business and the associated reputational risk of investing in that context. As a result, this budget reflects the need for investment in those key areas. I will now give an overview of the main figures in the Assembly Commission's draft budget for 2025-26. The total budget for 2025-26 is £64·2 million for resource departmental expenditure limit (DEL), which is an increase of £5·7 million on the 2024-25 budget position, and £3·1 million for capital DEL, which is an increase of £0·1 million on the 2024-25 budget position. The budget excludes costs that are associated with the operation of the Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee, as those are separately funded directly by HM Treasury and are therefore ring-fenced. The first category that is included in the Assembly Commission's budget is income. Next year, the Commission expects to receive income of £0·6 million, all of which relates to the recovery of the costs of ministerial salaries from Departments. The second category is salaries and expenses that are paid to Members. That covers a range of areas, including Members' salaries, constituency office running costs, support staff costs, travel, and all other costs that are associated with Members. The total budget for Member-related costs for 2025-26 is £20·9 million. Member-associated expenditure is currently payable under the provisions of the Assembly Members (Salaries and Expenses Determination (Northern Ireland) 2026, as amended by the Assembly Members (Salaries and Expenses) (Amendment) Determination (Northern Ireland) 2020, which is referred to as "the determination". An updated determination was approved by the Assembly Commission on 1 October 2024. The Assembly Commission intends to decide the publication date in January 2025. The 2025-26 draft budget is based on the provisions of the 2024 determination. The budget for salaries that are payable to Members and Assembly officeholders is £7·2 million. The Assembly Commission is considering the introduction of legislation to form a new remuneration board to independently determine Members' salaries and pensions. Therefore, the Commission has not made any attempt to predict how Members' salaries or pensions may be impacted on by any such legislation. The budget is therefore based on the rates that are set out in the current determination, assuming the prescribed inflationary increase. The amount that Members may recover in order to meet the costs of running a constituency office, including rents, rates and the cost of support staff, is expected to be £13·1 million. The budget provides for an increase in the maximum recoverable allowance for constituency office operating costs, as that allowance has not increased since 2020, and to enable Members to procure printers that were previously provided centrally by the Assembly Commission. The budget also provides for an increase in the maximum recoverable rental for constituency offices, as that allowance has not increased since 2016. Provision has also been made for increases in Members' and staff travel allowances, as those have not increased since 2016. Payments to Members in respect of travel costs are budgeted at £0·3 million. Other costs for Members include winding-up, resettlement and any ill-health retirement expenses that may occur, and those have been budgeted at £0·1 million. The 2024 determination introduces additional funding that is specifically for security-related costs for the provision of security measures at constituency offices and/or at a Member's private dwelling. It also introduces additional support to Members who take a period of maternity, adoptive or shared parental leave. A further new provision will enable additional funding to be provided for making reasonable adjustments to constituency offices that are not covered under the terms of their lease in order to accommodate a disabled member of staff or to facilitate access for disabled members of the public. Together, those have been budgeted at £0·2 million. The third major category in the Assembly Commission's budget covers salary payments for Commission staff and the administrative costs that are incurred in delivering the full range of services that are needed by the Assembly. Commission staff salary costs are budgeted at £26·2 million, which includes a net increase of 16 staff. The additional staff will perform increased support and scrutiny from a legal and parliamentary services perspective, as a proportionate response to recommendations from the renewable heat incentive (RHI) inquiry; to address issues that were identified in the Mediahuis judgement; to ensure better organisational resilience in the Bill Office and Business Office and Committee teams; to expand in-house communications and broadcast-production capabilities; and to provide additional administrative support. An increase in employers' National Insurance contributions for Assembly Commission staff, Members and Members' support staff, as was notified in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Westminster Budget on 30 October 2024, has been incorporated in the Assembly Commission's budget at a cost of £0·6 million.

Administration costs are budgeted at £12·1 million. Administration costs cover a wide range of expenditure items including supporting Committees, costs of drafting private Members' Bills, building rates, utility costs, repairs and maintenance costs, and third-party support for the business-critical IT systems such as broadcasting, catering and research. Historically, there has been a significant underinvestment in IT infrastructure in the Assembly Commission. Projects are therefore ongoing to modernise the Commission's IT infrastructure to make it fit for purpose and to ensure that the Assembly is supported appropriately and that the network is secure from the increasing risk of cyberthreat. As Members will be aware, there are a number of issues with water ingress in Parliament Buildings, related to the roof replacement project, which was completed in 2015. The Assembly Commission issued legal proceedings against those contracted to undertake that work and is seeking recovery of the full cost of repairs. Central Procurement Directorate (CPD), which is managing the works on the Commission's behalf, has informed the Commission that only limited, remedial works will be undertaken in the current financial year. Those will initially seek to address any remaining health and safety concerns. In addition to that work, there are a number of other planned maintenance projects. The next category is payments to parties under the financial assistance for political parties (FAPP) scheme 2024. The 2025-26 budget for the FAPP scheme is £1·1 million, which incorporates an inflationary increase. The penultimate category relates to depreciation charges, which are budgeted at £4·6 million. That is mostly due to the estimated depreciation charge on the value of Parliament Buildings. Turning to capital expenditure, the Assembly Commission has identified the need for capital investment of £3·1 million. Some of the expenditure relates to projects that were originally budgeted for in earlier years but, for a number of business reasons, have been deferred. The capital plan includes a project to deliver partial electronic access control, which will enhance security controls within Parliament Buildings, and a project to replace the existing legislative Bill-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 update the IT network and IT applications, the creation of a new Assembly website, the upgrading of a lift to accommodate larger wheelchairs and the replacement of the automatic fire detection system within Parliament Buildings. Members, I am sure that you will be glad to know that that is the end of my speech. I commend the Assembly Commission's budget proposals for 2025-26 to the House.

1,479 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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