Drowning In Numbers 2
After my last blog I got a call from a Stormont source telling me that come the end of this Spending Review period our budget will be down Β£1.4 billion on what had been projected.
This morning's local headlines pick up on Sammy Wilson's "cumulative total" with the Irish News going for "Β£4 billion of pain" and the News Letter "The Β£4 billion war of words". So job done, then - that's rather more arresting than the alternative "NI fares Β£600 million better than expected" (which no one went for).
What is undeniable is that after years of economic growth the tighter times will present a challenge to local ministers. The sharp downturn in capital spending means the loss of thousands of jobs in the construction sector (the trade unions are talking about 20,000 public sector and 16,000 private sector jobs at risk).
Local ministers start the business of grappling with the realities at an Executive meeting tomorrow. If you look at there's a series of target dates for how the process of setting a budget should be handled. According to these targets a draft budget is meant to be agreed by late October, with a final budget published in late December.
Even if the parties had been in agreement about how to respond to the Spending Review, those dates were always likely to slip. One educated guess is that the draft budget might move towards late November and the final budget sometime in January. The ultimate bookend for this is the end of the financial year in early April - if we get there without any agreement we could potentially get into the
Speaking to me this morning Gerry Adams said Sinn Fein is intent on agreeing a budget, but added the caveat that it must be the right budget.
As the haggling begins, it's worth bearing in mind the political calculations the parties have to make.
1. There is an Assembly election coming in May next year. Do local parties want to go into that campaign appearing to implement Whitehall cutst? If not could they be charged with irresponsibility?
2. Traditionally in budget negotiations ministers have always engaged in turf wars defending their own patch.
3. This time, however, the parties only know what their patches will be for the next six months. Under the D'Hondt system, they will have to take their turns at picking departments after the May election. So does a minister want to die in a ditch over a department which might be inherited by another party in the future?
Martin McGuinness told me on last weekend's Inside Politics that he believes a budget will be agreed. Today, perhaps surprisingly, Caitriona Ruane acknowledged that money was being squandered in education, pinpointing small A level classes in post primary schools. So maybe the cynics will be proved wrong and we shall see a deal.
If not, there are ways the system might cope until the next election - current departmental allocations could be rolled forward, with any cuts postponed until after the election, or the current allocations could be "top sliced" (each reduced in line with the overall cut in the Executive budget).
I have a feeling I could be drowning in numbers for months to come!
I'm 
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