NICVA response to Draft Budget consultation

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• We would have liked to have seen the formation of a Budget Committee in the Assembly to take an overview of the implications of the budget as a whole. However, in the absence of such a group we are asking the NI Executive to ensure they take a holistic approach to the budget they will agree.

• We want to encourage departments to think creatively about how they invest in and work with the voluntary and community sector rather than viewing the sector as a drain on resources.  NICVA argues that investing to save in early intervention and prevention can deliver the preferred outcome for people, families and communities, eg keeping people out of care, while at the same time saving the cost of more expensive and less effective alternatives. In tough times the focus must be on finding more of these win-win solutions.

• NICVA welcomes the £20million Social Protection Fund created in the budget and we look forward to more details on how the fund will operate in practice. However, it is a matter of concern that the fund has only been allocated for one year, with the other three years depending on departments generating additional revenue in order to meet the costs. NICVA believes that this fund is much too important to leave in such a vulnerable financial position. The cuts being proposed by the Coalition government under the ‘Welfare Reform’ proposals threaten to take a further £1billion from the NI economy by reducing the spending power of those in receipt of social security benefits. NICVA and our members are concerned about the implications of welfare reform in Northern Ireland. We believe the reforms will increase poverty, social exclusion and deprivation, all of which will undermine the economic recovery that the NI Executive has focused this budget on.  The inevitable outcomes of these ‘reforms’ will also put greater pressure on the DEL elements of the NI block which are already stretched to the limit.  Rising levels of poverty will result in increased social problems such as poor mental health, depression, suicide, drug and alcohol misuse, family breakdown, debt, homelessness, domestic violence and crime.

• Saving money by cutting bureaucracy NICVA agrees with the principle that before any cuts to services are implemented, all publicly funded bodies should ensure they are operating in an effective and efficient way. Government should have “greater focus on avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy, in all aspects of the funding mechanism (which can increase costs for both funders and funded bodies) – in applications and renewals; timeliness of payments; and monitoring and audit.”  Significant additional resources could be targeted at frontline activities if we can rationalise monitoring and accounting processes that are guided by common sense.

 

Speaking on behalf of a voluntary and community sector which is increasingly apprehensive, NICVA Chief Executive, Seamus McAleavey has called again on the Executive Ministers to show a unity of purpose over the proposed four-year spending plan.

“This is the essential ingredient that will deliver success or failure. Failure will mean public services in retreat, economic stagnation and a bleaker, wasted future for many of our people, particularly those on low incomes.

“We have to avoid a drift towards a dysfunctional democracy where departments are party fiefdoms and MLAs defend their own Ministers and attack all the others.

“An Executive that operates in a divided way almost guarantees failure. An Executive with unity of purpose will have a tough struggle and will face enormous challenges, but it has the possibility of success,” he warned.

“NICVA and our members have continually sought to engage with the Executive in a way which is open and constructive yet frank and realistic. More than 1,500 people from voluntary and community organisations engaged in this process since our pre-budget consultation started in June. 

"Over the course of our engagement on the budget we have asked for and received a high level of contact with elected members, Ministers and officials.  We appreciate the time and expertise they shared with NICVA and our members and their willingness to provide information and engage in debate.”