Draft budget out for consultation

The NI Executive has published a draft budget for 2015/16.  The budget sets out the overall spending available during this period and allocates amounts to each department.  Each department will then provide further detail on how it intends to spend its financial allocation during the 2015/16 financial year. 

Department for Social Development draft budget

The Department for Social Development anticipates making savings of £79million and has published a draft budget outlining how these savings can be made.  All business areas across the department will be affected by the cuts to the budget.  Some of the headline grabbing cuts proposed include a suggestion that up to 400 posts will be lost at the Housing Executive.  300 of these job losses are anticipated to come about through a voluntary redundancy scheme, but the draft budget suggests that "the Housing Executive would need to reduce the funding available for posts, possibly in excess of 100" in addition to the 300 voluntary redundancies, in order to meet the proposed budget restrictions. 

£98m will be set aside for building social housing and acquiring land for this purpose.  This is a broadly similar amount to that made available in 2014/15 and should allow for 1500 new starts.   The current target for new starts is 2000 per year and the department hopes to bid for additional funding in future monitoring rounds to secure the additional 500 starts. 

Responding to the budget

The deadline for responses to the consultation is 29th December.  NICVA has provided a number of resources for organisations and individuals interested in the budget and will be hosting a series of events, including a consultation event of the DSD draft budget on 15th December.