Written Ministerial Statement

The content of this written ministerial statement is as received at the time from the Minister. It has not been subject to the official reporting (Hansard) process.

PUBLIC EXPENDITURE 2024-25 - RESPONSE TO STORM ÉOWYN AND OTHER PRESSURES

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Published at 4.30pm on Thursday 6 February 2025

Mr O’Dowd (The Minister of Finance): This statement notifies the Assembly of further Resource DEL allocations in 2024-25.

Following the agreement of the January Monitoring round, the Treasury has advised of an adjustment to the Barnett consequentials provided to the Executive.  This has resulted in the Executive receiving an additional £17.1 million Resource DEL and a reduction in Capital DEL of £3.5 million.

While the reduction in the Capital DEL is disappointing, it is not considered significant enough to warrant reduction in departmental capital allocations. Instead, it will be held as a central overcommitment, to be managed through normal year-end slippage.

In addition to the additional Resource DEL funding from the Treasury, the Assembly Commission has identified an easement of £2.3 million Resource DEL. This brings the total Resource DEL funding available for allocation to £19.4 million.

Storm Éowyn

Storm Éowyn caused widespread disruption to individuals, businesses, communities and to public services with damage to our schools, hospital estate and critical infrastructure including the road network and water supply. As a result of Storm Éowyn additional pressures have emerged across departments.  With additional funding available, departments were asked to identify any costs relating to the storm along with any other inescapable pressures.

In response, departments submitted Resource DEL bids of £25.5 million for storm related costs and £26.0 million for other pressures.

Capital pressures of £18 million were also identified. Unfortunately, with a capital overcommitment due to the changes notified by the Treasury there is no capacity for further capital allocations.

The recovery operation will take time, with assessments still ongoing, the true cost of the storm has yet to be fully quantified. Given the unprecedented scale of the Storm Éowyn, I was determined to ensure this additional funding was allocated quickly to departments to help them respond to its impact.

I appreciate the other financial pressures faced by Departments but unfortunately given the unforeseen costs and exceptional challenges facing departments as they deal with the aftermath of the storm the limited funding available had to be prioritised for this purpose.

Annex A provides a summary of the pressures identified.

The available funding of £19.4 million Resource DEL has been allocated as follows.

The Department of Education will receive £3 million for School Building repairs.

The Department for Communities will receive £1.4 million towards the range of pressures it has identified including the emergency financial assistance scheme.

The Department of Health will receive £4 million for repairs to physical damage to the Health and Social Care Estate and Public Safety Estate.

The Department for Infrastructure will receive £8 million towards the range of pressures identified including repairs, remedial action, lost income and alternative water supply.

The Department of Justice will receive £1 million for additional policing costs above normal policing by assisting other emergency service partners in the repair of damage to infrastructure across the region..

The Department for Economy will receive £2 million for unavoidable pressure in their statutory skills programmes which have arisen due to higher than anticipated demand. Given the importance of growing our economy and skills are a key part of this, it is vital that these programmes are properly funded.

While it is unusual to allocate funding outside of the normal inyear monitoring process this has been warranted by costs emerging as a result of the storm and additional funding becoming available following the Westminster Supplementary Estimates process. While the allocations do not cover all the pressures identified they go a significant way towards addressing the most pressing concerns.

It is now for individual Ministers to manage pressures within the funding envelope provided to their department.

I welcome the work done so far by all Ministers both individually and collectively to ensure we deliver a balanced budget and am committed to working together with my Executive colleagues to achieve this and address the challenges ahead.

INDEX OF TABLES

Annex A        Funding Pressures

Annex B        Allocations

Annex C        Departmental Outcome

ANNEX A

FUNDING PRESSURES IDENTIFIED BY DEPARTMENTS

£million

¹DE Capital not split between Storm and other

                                                                                                                                                                                ANNEX B

ALLOCATIONS

                                                                                                                                          £million

                                                                                                                                    ANNEX C

Departmental Outcome – Non Ringfenced Resource DEL

        £ million  

Totals may not add due to roundings