UNISON RESPONSE TO NI BUDGET

Today (13 November 2017) the Northern Ireland budget 2017/18 has been published and is due to be approved at Westminster.  Responding to the budget, UNISON Regional Secretary Patricia McKeown said:

‘‘Despite the ‘spin’ put on it by the Secretary of State, today’s budget announcement is not good news for Northern Ireland. 

It is bad news for children and young people in schools, bad news for health and social services and bad news for public sector workers.

Today’s announcement is merely confirmation of the 2017/18 budget we had all unfortunately been anticipating.   There is no additional money.  The so called overall ‘rise’ is less than inflation.   It is a ‘standstill budget’ in the face of growing problems.  There is no £1 billion uplift.

The budget allocation to health is being presented as a rise.  It is in fact a cut.  Health inflation is running at 6%.  The budget allocation is only a 5.4% increase.  This is not sufficient to maintain current services, let alone develop them.  We saw two months ago what kind of crisis a proposed £70m cut created.

The health service needs reform but there is no money in the budget for the investment needed to turn the reform proposals from rhetoric into reality.  As a result we face the continuation of crisis management and knee jerk cuts.  There is no money for a pay rise.

The Education budget has borne the greatest cut in real terms over the past few years.   It is currently around £100 million short of what is needed. Today’s budget announcement is a ‘below inflation’ allocation for the coming year.   It is effectively a further cut.   The impact is already being felt by children in schools and in particular by children with special needs.  It places jobs in jeopardy.

There is nothing in the budget to indicate a pay rise for public service workers let alone the introduction of the promised ‘living wage’. UNISON members in health, social services and education are already poorer than they were 10 years ago.  This has been caused by years of pay freezes and the imposition of a pay cap which is well below inflation.   UNISON has already put the health service on notice that further cuts will create a major trade dispute.

Today’s budget is another ‘stop gap’ that brings us closer to direct rule.  Whilst we now know the budget allocations for the rest of the financial year, the political decisions needed to implement real positive change for the public will not be made.  We do not need direct rule.  We need our parties to work together in the interests of the People.’’