Stormont stalemate: Department for Infrastructure warns of overspend

Road repairs could be drastically reduced due to budget pressures facing Stormont's Department for Infrastructure (DfI).

DfI warned it will inevitably overspend this year if current political arrangements are unchanged.

Government departments in Northern Ireland are being run by civil servants in the absence of local ministers.

DfI officials believe they lack the legal authority to take measures necessary to balance their budget.

These also include turning off street lights and stopping waste water treatment.

Civil servants have been running departments since October 2022 as a result of the DUP's ministerial boycott in protest at the Northern Ireland Protocol.

They are working with a budget imposed by the Northern Ireland secretary which will see overall day-to-day spending fall by 3.3% in real terms this financial year with all departments having to make cuts.

However, that average 3.3% figure disguises much bigger pressures in some departments.

Infrastructure has calculated that it needed £691m for day-to-day spending to provide a standard service across its areas of responsibility.

It received £523m, leaving a shortfall of £168m.

Already-announced cuts in areas such as road maintenance and flood risk management reduced the gap to £112m.

In recent weeks the department has been consulting on further possible cuts and believes it will be able to reduce the shortfall to around £55m.

It will primarily aim to do that by cutting £53m from the combined budget of Translink and NI Water.

But officials believe any remaining options for cuts cannot lawfully be taken by them and would require a minister - either the secretary of state or a Stormont minister in a restored executive.

The officials' powers were laid out in the Ireland Executive Formation Act last year and further amended by the Northern Ireland (Interim Arrangements) Act this year.

It is understood that DfI faces particularly difficulties because so much of its spending is statutorily defined, leaving little flexibility for cuts.

The department was also able to make a large one-off saving last year when Translink used £60m of its reserves, a measure that cannot be repeated.

DfI Permanent Secretary Julie Harrison said: "Around 95% of the Department's resource budget delivers essential frontline services, the vast majority of which are regulated, statutory or contractually obliged.

"This leaves very limited scope to make the kind of cuts to spending that are required. That challenge has been exacerbated by decisions that had to be taken last year and which cannot be repeated.

"I have had to make difficult decisions to ensure DfI and its delivery partners (DVA, Translink, NI Water, and Waterways Ireland) do everything possible to reduce spending and balance their budgets, while at the same time meeting responsibilities to deliver multiple statutory functions and keep people safe."

A Northern Ireland Office spokesman said this year's budget allocation from the government had given the department an allocation of £523m, an increase of £2m above the 2022-23 budget.

"The decisions required to live within this budget continue to rest with the Northern Ireland departments," he said.

"We are clear that we hope NI parties will restore locally elected, accountable and effective devolved government as soon as possible, which is the best way to govern Northern Ireland," he added.