Stormont budget: Top civil servant says departments have reached cuts limit

Stormont departments have "reached the limit" of what they can do to manage budget pressures this year, Northern Ireland's top civil servant has said.

Jayne Brady outlined her position in a letter to Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris last week.

Seen by BBC News NI, it states that civil servants have made £1bn of "challenging" budget decisions to date.

Civil servants have been running Northern Ireland departments since the executive collapsed 16 months ago.

On Tuesday, the Northern Ireland Office said the Northern Ireland secretary was "acutely aware of the challenges faced by departments and civil servants".

A budget set by the government for this financial year asked permanent secretaries to make savings.

Ms Brady, who has been the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service since 2021, said in her letter that many of those decisions taken to balance the books would "normally have required ministerial or executive consideration as a matter of law".

She went on to warn the government there remains an unfunded pay pressure of £571m, and a further £437m of pressures requiring decisions.

Ms Brady said the remaining gap did not stem from an "unwillingness" to act, but from a legal position.

She added that even if ministers are to return to an executive this year "it is my view that we are beyond the point in the financial year where such decisions are feasible".

She concluded that an overspend of this year's budget was "now unavoidable".

Ms Brady has been holding regular discussions with the Stormont parties about how to run government in a future executive, and in the context of a challenging budget position.

She told the secretary of state her assessment is that the process should "now move into a different and more political phase of engagement" involving the UK government.

She concluded that the "most pressing need is for action to mitigate the immediate damage of the budget cuts", as well as stabilising public services.

Sinn Féin MP John Finucane said there should be "no more delays" in restoring the executive, which he said must be "the collective priority".

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Mr Finucane said a return to Stormont was "the only defence our community has against Tory austerity".

The Alliance Party's Eoin Tennyson said Mr Heaton-Harris needed to "inject some momentum" into efforts to restore the executive.

"Even if ministers do come back in the latter part of the year, it's still going to be virtually impossible to operate within the financial constraints of the kind of punishment budget which we've seen," he told BBC News NI.

"We need an injection of finance in order to ensure that we can invest to save."

Officials are also working to provide the government with further information on revenue raising proposals by the end of the month.

On Tuesday, the Northern Ireland Office said its focus was on restoring the executive and the secretary of state would have further engagements with parties in the coming weeks.

"While action has been taken to ensure governance can continue, including through setting two Northern Ireland budgets, this position is not sustainable," its statement continued.

"In the meantime, the secretary of state will continue to engage with the Northern Ireland Civil Service on the management of departmental budgets for this financial year, and working on budget sustainability including the implementation of revenue raising measures."

On Monday, Mr Heaton-Harris said that funding alone "will not solve" the many financial challenges Northern Ireland faces.

He was speaking as MPs debated a budget bill for this financial year.