Head of Civil Service warns budget will cause enduring harm to public services, society and economy

UTV can reveal the brutal reality of the anticipated budget for Northern Ireland with a warning it will cause "enduring harm to public services, society and the economy".

The budget could see some departments facing cuts of up to almost 50%.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris is expected to lay a budget for before Parliament on Thursday.

The Head of the Civil Service warned the level of damage caused will be "unprecedented".

In a letter leaked to UTV, Jayne Brady laid out her concerns to Permanent Secretary of the Northern Ireland Office Madeleine Alessandri.

The letter warns that there will be “health cuts including stopping waiting list initiatives for cancer and time-critical patients”.

It adds that public safety will be endangered due to reductions needed across “prisons, Fire Service, PSNI, road safety and flood prevention”.

Ms Brady says the budget is in stark contrast to the comments made by the Prime Minister when marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement when he said he’d “use the full force of the UK Government to help you make this one of the best places in the world to start and grow a business, create jobs, train and learn new skills and attract investment”.

Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris is due to hold a round-table meeting with the main parties on Thursday.

Other cuts include slashing Disability Employment Support, mental health and catch up services for children programs to address harms from paramilitarism and organised crime programs and reducing funds for libraries and museums.

Further and Higher Education face funding cuts of up to 10%.

The letter warns there will be a reduction “to water and sewerage services”.

Dr Lisa Wilson, senior economist at NERI, says the cuts are to 'basic essentials'.

And there could be big implications for the economy, with Invest NI, NI Screen and Tourism NI facing reductions of up to 47% and concerns the budget will undermine “the viability of the agri and transport sectors”.

Ms Brady added that simply assigning a budget wouldn’t be enough to “provide a sufficient basis for the decisions required to constrain expenditure within budget allocations to be made by Departments in the absence of Ministers.”

She said the Civil Service estimate “that at least £100m of identifiable monthly spending is linked to decisions that can only be taken by Minister”.

She added that her staff “stand ready to pick this up with a returning Executive but there will be no platform upon which to build this transformation with the level of public service harm that will result from implementing the budget”.

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