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An indicative budget set out by NI Secretary of State James Brokenshire at Westminster this week highlights that it is DAERA, of all the main government departments, that is set for the biggest financial hit, with another 3.2% taken from its bottom line.
In his speech to parliament, the Secretary of State said that the British government would move to impose the budget if local political parties did not reach agreement to form a new executive by the deadline of 29 June.
That means there is still the possibility to reverse some of the cuts, although Brokenshire insisted that his budget was drawn up on the basis of advice from Malcolm McKibbin, head of the NI Civil Service (NICS), and the NICS board. “These allocations seek to reflect, as far as possible, their assessment as to the priorities of the political parties prior to the dissolution of the Assembly,” said Brokenshire.
One of those priorities is to protect the Department of Health budgets, but doing that, and given that health takes up nearly half of all Government spending in NI, it leaves other Government departments squeezed.
Since 2010, budget cuts imposed on DARD (now DAERA) have been significant. From 2011 to 2015 savings of over £40m had to be found, and in 2015/16 a 15.1% budget reduction equating to £29.9m, led to 385 staff leaving the department under the civil service wide voluntary exit scheme. It also resulted in delays to a number of schemes including the new Environmental Farming Scheme. In 2016/17 a further £11.9m of savings had to be found.
The indicative budget for 2017/18 would see another £7.1m taken off resource budgets and £4.8m taken from capital expenditure.
Any rises in costs due to inflation must also be absorbed.
Commenting back in November, DAERA deputy secretary, Louise Warde Hunter told the agriculture committee at Stormont that any future cuts “will be difficult to find”.
The proposals would leave DAERA with a non-ringfenced resource budget of £190.8m in 2017/18.
Out of this around £116.2m goes on paying around 2,900 staff.
Around £30m also goes to fund AFBI, but with DAERA permanent secretary Noel Lavery stating that his “firm advice” to any new minister would be not to impose any more cuts on AFBI in 2017/18, other parts of DAERA might have to shoulder the cuts.
Bovine TB
In the background is also the rising cost of statutory bovine TB compensation on the back of a recent significant increase in levels of the disease.
The most recent results for January 2017 show more reactor herds and more reactor animals in NI than at any stage since 2004.
In that month, a total of 1,571 animals were removed as reactors from 378 herds.
Cost-saving measures
Responding to an enquiry from the Irish Farmers Journal, a DAERA spokesperson said that the department has considered a range of resource-saving measures. “These included reducing operating costs across DAERA and identifying savings from the planned completion of existing programmes. Further work is required in refining the reductions and the final savings will be agreed with the new minister in due course,” said the spokesperson.
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