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Warning over undergraduate places if budget not agreed

John CampbellEconomics and business editor, BBC News NI
Getty Images Students reading book in class. The shot is taking from the back of what looks like a lecture hall.Getty Images
A senior official said if a budget was agreed then additional funding would go to universities

Stormont departments may have to start making cuts from the end of July if a budget has not been agreed, a senior civil servant has warned.

Ian Snowden, the top official at the Department for the Economy, said it would mean universities having to cut 1,700 undergraduate places in September.

The executive has failed to reach a final agreement on the draft budget which was published in January.

Departments are operating under contingency measures which include the assumption they will have around 95% of last year's budget to spend.

Snowden said that would begin to bite in about six weeks.

He told assembly members: "If there's no budget agreed by the 31st of July then those numbers effectively become the budget that we need to work to."

He said that in his department that would mean 6% cuts for organisations they fund such as universities.

He added that if a budget was agreed then additional funding will go to universities, though the amount was uncertain.

"But as things stand at the minute if we get to the end of July and no budget is agreed then those are the numbers everybody will be working to which is 1,700 less undergraduate places."

'Shambles'

The Finance Minister, Sinn Féin's John O'Dowd, sent his budget proposals to executive colleagues on Christmas Eve before releasing them for public consultation in early January.

The hope was that Stormont could agree a multi-year budget for the first time in more than 10 years.

However, the draft was rejected by other parties with the Deputy First Minister, the Democratic Unionist Party's Emma Little Pengelly, describing it as "deeply flawed".

O'Dowd has been continuing to talk to the UK government in the hope of securing more funding, outside the usual allocation process.

A recent "open book" analysis of Stormont's finances by the UK Treasury suggests it is sceptical about the case for more funding.

The SDLP opposition has been highly critical of the failure to agree a budget describing it as a "shambles" which is "demeaning devolution".