Further Update on 2017-18 financial position
Date published:
The Department of Finance today confirmed that key public services will benefit from additional allocations of £73.6 million of Resource DEL and £40.9 million of Capital DEL in 2017/18. The funding includes an additional £53.9 million for health, £26 million for education, and £26 million for infrastructure.
Ongoing engagement with departments by the Department of Finance has identified reduced requirements in some departments. Taken together with Barnett Consequentials from the Autumn Budget 2017, this means that £53.6 million of Resource DEL and £40.9 million of Capital DEL is now available for reallocation.
In addition, £20 million of the £50 million Resource funding available to support in year pressures in Health and Education in the financial annex to the Confidence and Supply Agreement is being drawn down now from the Treasury.
Of this £20 million, £15 million will be provided to DoH and £5million to DE.
As a consequence, allocations totalling some £73.6 million of Resource DEL and £40.9 million of Capital DEL (including the £20m for health and education pressures) are being made as detailed in the table below:
| Department | Resource DEL £m | Capital DEL £m | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| DAERA | - | 5.0 | To meet commitments under the Rural Development and other programmes. |
| DE | 26.0 | - | To meet funding pressures facing schools in such areas as school budgets, special education needs and essential health and safety related maintenance. |
| DfE | 1.6 | - | To primarily address pressures arising from preparations for Brexit. |
| DoH | 40.0 | 13.9 | On revenue, to address pay pressures of 1% (if agreed), winter pressures and invest in waiting lists. On capital, to invest in ICT, medical equipment and health and safety and cyber security costs. |
| DfI | 6.0 | 20.0 | On revenue, to address revenue roads maintenance and concessionary fares pressures. On capital, to address structural maintenance and other in year pressures |
| DoJ | 2.0 | To address in year capital pressures in PSNI, NIPS and NICTS. | |
| Total | 73.6 | 40.9 |
These allocations are being made now so that services can benefit from this additional funding prior to the end of the financial year. In particular, some further £66m will now be available for health and education resource pressures in year. Of this, some £7m will be made available for winter pressures in primary and secondary care and some £7m will be invested in additional treatments for patients who are currently on waiting lists. This is the latest estimate of achievable elective care spend in the current financial year.
A further Budget Bill and Supplementary Estimate will be required later in this financial year to provide departments with the legal authority to spend in line with these revised allocations. In particular, funding committed in the financial annex to the Confidence and Supply Agreement is subject to the full authorisation of the UK Parliament, as with all sums discharged from the UK Consolidated Fund, via the Estimates process in the New Year.
The need to access the remaining £30 million for health and education committed in the financial annex to the Confidence and Supply Agreement will be kept under review. A key consideration will be whether it would be best to propose accessing the funding in 2017/18 or 2018/19. Treasury have confirmed that any such unspent monies in 2017/18 can be reprofiled into 2018/19 on top of existing Budget Exchange arrangements.
Notes to editors:
1.The Northern Ireland Budget Act 2017 was passed in Westminster on 16 November providing the details of departmental spending allocations in 2017-18.
2. Media enquiries should be addressed to the Department of Finance Press Office on Tel: 028 9081 6724/028 9081 6895 or email: dof.pressoffice@finance-ni.gov.uk. Out of Office hours please contact the Duty Press Officer via pager number 07623 974 383 and your call will be returned.
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