Select committee: Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
Recommendation 3
1st Report - Funding and delivery of public services: follow up
Published 7 Apr 2025
Addressed to Northern Ireland Executive; Northern Ireland Office
Northern Ireland Affairs Committee Funding and delivery of public services: follow up All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Government must engage constructively with the conclusions of Prof. Gerald Holtham’s independent review of Northern Ireland’s level of need in deciding future levels of, and mechanisms for, needs-based funding. In negotiations with the Executive on the final Fiscal Framework, we urge the Government to backdate assessed need to the start of the 2021 Spending Review period, in order to include it in the Block Grant baseline figure for the next Spending Review period—or, alternatively, having acknowledged the shortfall during that Spending Review period, compensate Northern Ireland in future years. (Recommendation, Paragraph 41) Transformation and reform
From: Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, 1st Report - Funding and delivery of public services: follow up (HC 477), 7 April 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 19 June 2025 (deadline 7 June 2025).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response "notes" the Committee's recommendations on needs-based funding, multi-year budgeting and tax devolution, and sets out funding and Fiscal Framework developments, stating that "more time is needed" on the long-term framework.
- On needs-based funding, the government says the Executive will "continue to receive over 24% more per person" than equivalent UK Government spending in the rest of the UK, "above their independently assessed level of need". Its response does not address the request to backdate assessed need.
- On the Fiscal Framework, the UK Government and the Executive "have also agreed to immediately begin negotiations" on a full framework, covering Housing Executive borrowing and the Holtham Review. The government says "more time is needed" for any long-term agreement to be robust.
- On multi-year funding, the Chancellor "has confirmed multi-year funding for the Spending Review period until at least 2028–29". The government says it "would expect" the Executive to return to multi-year budgets.
- The government says £129m of the £235m Transformation Fund has been allocated to six projects, and it will "seek to identify more projects" and continue to monitor and evaluate allocated funding with the Public Sector Transformation Board.