'The fact we don't have a budget, concerns me greatly' - Agriculture Minister unable to give clarity of projected spending
Minister Muir has been asked to give ‘an outline in regard to any forecasting that you're doing in regard to the needs of AERA over this next five to 10 years’.
Posing the question, Chair of the Agriculture committee, UUP MLA Robbie Butler said: ‘So, budgets are critical to every single department, including your own minister, do you want to give us an outline in regard to any forecasting that you're doing in regard to the needs of AERA over this next five to 10 years?’
In response, Mr Muir said: ‘These aspects of budget was resource and capital, multi year budgets, that's really critical for us to allow us to plan, but also to give those organisations outside, including our farmer community, that confidence, particularly in relation to capital.
‘We have an age and infrastructure, if anyone goes to see some of our facilities, they do need to be replaced.
‘That’s why we need the multiyear budget, so we can give confidence in terms of work taking place’.
He then asked Mrs Katrina Godfrey, Permanent Secretary of DAERA ‘to set this out a bit more’.
‘But can I say to you, the fact we don't have a budget, concerns me greatly,’ he added.
‘It is not normal, it is not acceptable, and we need to have budget in place, and that requires the UK government to step up and properly fund us in line with what our colleagues in Scotland and Wales get.
‘To add from an accounting officer perspective, it is really, really difficult to try and work out what a budget might be when you don't have one, so we have been looking internally constantly at the projections for this year,’ he said.
Mrs Godfrey added: ‘Capital, as the minister said, is exceptionally difficult Chair, really, a big gap between what I would consider was our minimum need and what we actually have in the contingency planning envelope’.
‘So it is not easy,’ she added. ‘Hopefully ministers and parties will come back from Hillsborough with some better results for accounting officers, but even just trying to map through to the end of this year is a challenge.
‘Never mind, as you're absolutely right to say, looking ahead to, you know, the needs of the environment, farming, the agri-food sector, and rural communities over the next three, 5, 10, years’.
She added: ‘I think there needs to be the understanding that budget really isn't just a paper exercise.
‘There is a point at which you know cash becomes rather crucial. I can get, see where the failure to be invested in capital, particularly in areas like AFBI, where then the service delivery then suffers if you don't have the appropriate buildings, equipment, and resource’.
Mr Muir added that ‘in terms of discussion around budget, often the view is that we need to cut the size of the civil service’.
‘Can I say to you that we have responsibilities not just to our farming community, but also to our environment,’ he said.
‘If you reduce the headcount of this department, you will reduce the delivery and potentially result in more investigations from the Office of Environmental Protection.
‘There's some analysis done that since 2018, if you exclude Windsor Framework, which is obviously additional responsibility that came along, there's been no significant increase in the head count of the department, so that highlights why those vacancies are absolutely critical.
‘Because if we want things done, we need people to do it.
Mrs Godfrey added: ‘The nature of our business is that, you know, we need people to enforce, we need people to deliver public services, we need people to advise ministers, but most of our staff are out on the front line, whether they're involved in testing cattle or timber production, or whatever it is.
‘On the good news point, as things stand, I think I have something around the region of 220 people who have either got a firm start date confirmed or an offer that I'm hoping they're accepting to come and join us, so that is a relief.
‘We have had in the past a particular challenge with veterinary officers. We have nearly 50 people successful in the most recent competition, which is great.
‘We get supply, and then we exhaust it, and then we have to wait for the next competition to come around before we can fill it’.