Nigel's Christmas Giveaway
It's been a busy final day at Stormont, with Nigel Dodds unveiling his £70 million credit crunch package. The package includes a £15 million fuel poverty payment which will be pushed through via emergency legislation. OFMDFM officials point out that they will use a new rapid response finance facility which can then be reactivated in future crises.
As viewers of "Stormont Live" will already know today's announcement, instead of resolving the row between Margaret Ritchie and her DUP and Sinn Fein colleagues, today's announcement only changed the nature of the argument. I have penned a piece for the main news website, and once they have attached the necessary bells and ribbons, I will attach a link. In the meantime I shall put the raw material in the extended entry.
The lights were twinkling on the Christmas tree in Stormont's Great Hall as Assembly members made their way into the chamber to tear the wrapping paper off the Executive's presents. Alright, there was no wrapping paper, and the Finance Minister Nigel Dodds didn't dress up as Santa Claus. But ministers wanted this extra session, tacked on to the end of the Stormont term, to be the political equivalent of the family gathering in the front room handing out the gifts.
Or maybe it should have been a workplace "secret Santa" as all the Executive ministers had been asked to put into the pot, freeing up cash from their departments which could then be passed to others.
Either way, having set out the challenges posed by these global hard times, Santa Dodds listed the lucky recipients of the Executive's collective generosity. Farmers building slurry tanks would get an extra £20 million, there would be £4 million for schools maintenance and £2.5 million for road maintenance. Other eye catching elements of the £70 million package were a freeze on business rates, worth around £8 million and a £150 one off fuel poverty credit payment.
This last payment will be available to 100,000 vulnerable households receiving either pensions or income support. It is expected to cost the Executive £15 million. This fuel credit has garnered most attention, not just because of the number of people who will be eligible to receive it, but because it has been the subject of "heated" discussions at the Executive table.
The credit was originally suggested by the SDLP Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie back in the days of the DUP-Sinn Fein stand off over Executive meetings. In recent days she has complained about how her idea had been treated by other ministers, some of whom had accused her of unduly raising the public's expectations.
So did the Finance Minister's announcement resolve the problem, heralding an outbreak of all party peace and good will? Veteran Stormont watchers will not be surprised to learn that it only changed the terms of the argument. Minister Ritchie accused Minister Dodds of carrying out a "smash and grab raid" on her housing budget. Her officials say she had freed up nearly £39 million of resources in the hope of reallocating it to urgent tasks like social housing maintenance. She got back, they maintain, only £9 million for new housing and finding new homes for people subject to threats.
On Stormont Live, the First Minister Peter Robinson hit back insisting that no cuts had been made and he was "at a loss to understand" what Minister Ritchie was complaining about. He said the SDLP had set themselves up as an opposition and were "scraping around in the gutter" to find ways of diverting attention from the good news in Nigel Dodds' statement.
Stormont officials pointed out that ministers had made bids totalling £350 million but there had only been £70 million to distribute, so some disappointment was inevitable. They pointed out that the credit crunch package had been passed unanimously, implying that Minister Ritchie's opposition came as an after thought. She insists that she entered her reservations as soon as she learned the detail.
So not for the first time not everyone is happy with their present. The family feud has been waged in the Stormont corridors with officials producing competing tables of financial statistics to prove their points. Whilst the fuel poverty credit and housing are the main battle ground there are also questions about how new, for instance, the slurry tank payments are as the scheme is due to run out at the end of this year.
The MLAs headed home with the Deputy Speaker Francie Molloy wishing them all a "Happy Christmas". No one replied. Well Christmas wouldn't be Christmas, would it, without a family row?
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Mark,
Another excellent blog. It does sound like secret Santa. Sadly those that work and pay taxes are the losers again. What does the working man/woman get in return?
I am slightly confused by Margaret Ritchie accusing Santa Dodds of carrying out a "smash and grab raid" on her housing budget. Why free up nearly £39 million of resources in the hope of reallocating it to urgent tasks like social housing maintenance? Surely she could have re-jigged it and kept hold of it. It appears the DUP are ganging up on her. Mark you said yourself on Inside Politics that Robbo banged his fists on the executive table and told Margaret to stop raising expectation. It doesn't help Margaret when she signs up to things and then later backs down i.e. Fuel Poverty, Budget, Social Housing etc
I think it is now time the number of Ministers and Departments were reduced and the number of MLA's reduced. It makes sense.
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"Surely she could have re-jigged it and kept hold of it. "
If she could have done that then she would have done. She argues that to re-allocate funding requires the permission of the Finance Minister which she sought. However, when she put the £39m up for re-allocation only £9m of it was returned for housing and the rest disappeared into other departments. Far from this being money that could not be spent by her department, as Dodds maintains, it was vital money that needed to be re-allocated. Seems that Dodds has used the fact that this sort of meeting usually deals with money that could not be spent as cover to take it off DSD in bad faith.
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nineteensixtyseven
"it was vital money that needed to be re-allocated"
Which begs the question why she didn't bid for it originally to go into the areas of her budget where she could spend it.
Maggie's miffed that she's not getting the glory for the fuel poverty payments and its plain for everyone to see. She can't even manage consistency in her rantings - on the one hand she wants to welcome the money going on the payments but criticises where the money came from.
The most ridiculous thing was her appearance on Nolan this morning where she said that the money should have came from "the Finance Minister". She clearly does think that money grows on trees - either that or Nigel Dodds has a printing press under his desk and can whip up tenners at a minutes notice.
Above all, if Margaret Ritchie is so angry about this whole issue then why did she vote for it at the Executive? After all, this isn't like the Budget - she wasn't legally obliged to support it. Surely she doesn't want to have her cake and eat it?
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CarsonsCat
I am glad to see someone else agree with me.
Why did Margaret Ritchie give up money she couldn't afford? It appears that she and her officials don't know what they are doing.
I took the time there to listen to the Nolan show on playback to hear her making seriously stupid comments. You are right. She does think money grows on trees.
From what I see Margaret is annoyed that Nigel went further than what she ever dreamt off.
Stormontspy
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Mark
Nigel gave the Northern Ireland people a big & nice christmas gift.....
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Guys, it's not hard to understand. She needed the money for problems which have arisen since the last Budget and which were exacerbated by the actions of Sinn Fein over the summer. The money was not given up but was intended for re-allocation. Dodds knew this but took it anyway. See?
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It is the general publics missunderstanding of how government finance works ( it is extremely complex) that makes it easy for parties to make all sorts of allegations. DSD did not surrender money, it is not like handing a big pot of cash back to a central point. Monies are allocated under specific categories within a department and even the Minister cannot simply move money from one category to another. At certain times of the year a Dept can can ask for monies to be realloacted to another area to address perhaps other pressing issues, which is what happened in DSD. However rather than reallocate as the Minister requested the finance has been transferred for other uses--Thus the DSD budget for 2008 to 2009 is reduced by £30m. The executive have made this decision--the goodwill of monies to help those on Income pay their electricity bill is welcome but it comes at a cost for those seeking homes and repairs to their homes.
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We, the general public cannot verify what was agreed or not at the Executive anyway. Minutes of these meetings are not available on the assembly website. Minutes of commitee meetings are also fairly scant--they are not Hansard recorded and only minutes, so the full discusions are not recorded.
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