The headline figures in the draft Northern Ireland budget re-allocation indicated only relatively small changes to the current expenditure of the NI Department of Justice up to 2014/15. Three years of consecutive cuts – £10.6million in 2011/12, £24.1million in 2012/13 and £22 .3million in 213/14 – followed by a slight increase of £9.7million in 2014/15.
But, as the BBC reports, the detail published today by the NI Department of Justice reveals that the police, in particular, are expected to find significant levels of “savings” in each of the next 4 years. As the BBC report notes
More than £260m is to be cut from the policing budget over the next four years.
Northern Ireland’s prison service will have to find savings of just over £65m.
According to the quote in that report
Justice Minister David Ford said: “What we have done is to ensure that we get the best possible protection for front-line services.
“There is a lot of work being done to trim the back office costs and to look at efficiency in that kind of area.”
Here’s the table of the “savings targets” in the Resource Departmental Expenditure Limit from the DOJ document [pdf file]
Adds And here are the draft budget allocations for the Resource DEL within which those savings must be found.
Update Apparently, the £260million ‘savings’ are partially off-set by £171.1million in funded spending proposals included in the draft budget – see table below.