North's Finance Minister blinkered to looming dangers, claims MLA

The North's Finance Minister’s blinkered approach to the budget is ignoring the dangers ahead, it was claimed today.

Nigel Dodds has failed to anticipate economic challenges facing the Executive in the future, Declan O’Loan alleged.

Ministers already have to find £6-7m (€6.68m-€7.8m) worth of efficiencies following last week’s budget and the SDLP Assemblyman told the Finance Committee matters were set to become much worse.

“The way we run our financial affairs here in our public administration is we put the blinkers on, we don’t look what is going on further down the road, we just hammer on, use the accelerator and the brake just as we would normally and approach this wall and suddenly we turn the corner and discover there’s a totally different situation and we don’t make any attempt to anticipate that,” he said.

A total of £123m (€137m) of so-called efficiency savings were imposed on the North by British Chancellor Alastair Darling in the budget.

But the Executive will receive £116m (€129m) over the next two years as a result of other measures announced, while Mr Dodds also claimed that slashing the scale of government at Stormont could save £50m (€55.7m) a year.

Department of Finance and Personnel budget director Richard Pengelly said agreed allocations existed up to next year. There is a process for the current year’s allocation to be reviewed.

He added there was a spectrum of informed opinion about the wider economic position in the future and added that was for the Executive to consider.

“In the current climate, personally, I wonder quite what would be the value of a very significant process now focused on 2011/12 when there’s such uncertainty and the one thing we do know with certainty is that however, whatever way we think 2011/12 will play out, when we get there, it will be different,” he said.

He added: “I think for now there are firm allocations for this year and next year and maybe the better investment of time is to focus on managing those issues in the context of a programme for government that prioritised economic growth.”