Question Time: Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister Monday 28 April 2014
The impact
of the budget
cuts caused by penalties for the stalling Welfare
Reform Bill were top of the agenda as First Minister, Peter Robinson, faced
Members’ questions during today’s Question
Time. David McNarry was eager to find out what departmental projects might
suffer as a result of the cuts. The First Minister revealed that the Finance
Minister has proposed a 1.5% cut to all departmental budgets for 2014/2015 to
address the reduction in budget but that the Executive has yet to agree to
this. We are “facing a nightmare scenario” that could see a potential £1
billion lost over 5 years if Welfare Reform is not agreed and “we cannot ignore
the impact and consequences of that”. It is doubtful that full computerisation of
a new welfare system would be completed by 2016 – this means manual payments would
have to be employed resulting in increased staff levels and further costs.
While difficult decisions will have to be made, the First Minister is “seeking
to minimise the impact on front line services”.
Junior
Minister, Jonathan Bell, also provided the house with an update on the
implementation of recommendations resulting from the Independent
Assessment Report on the Victims and Survivors Service. The programme board
overseeing the project has agreed an implementation plan that identifies the
actions, time frames and ownership for each recommendation. Significant action
has already been taken with more than half of the recommendations having been
fully or partially implemented. The majority of recommendations should be
implemented by the end of June 2014 while the remaining few should be fully
rolled out by March 2015. The Junior Minister pointed out that “in many ways,
for some victims, we can never make things right” but “we are determined to do
all that we can in our power to ensure that what we can get right, we will get
right”.
During the regular
oral question period Mr Robinson also answered questions on cross-departmental
working and tackling social issues and poverty. In the topical question period
which followed the First Minister also fielded questions on the Peace Building
and Conflict Resolution Centre, the upcoming Giro d’Italia and the performance
of Invest NI as well as providing an update on the progress of Judge Hallett’s ‘On-the-Run’ inquiry.
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