26 November 2004
Northern Ireland's public bodies are facing a growing financial crisis with all of the province's five education and library boards and some health trusts looking at large deficits unless they are allocated larger-than-planned cash increases.
Northern Ireland's Department of Education has announced it will initiate a statutory inquiry into what the department describes as 'financial mismanagement' at the Belfast and South Eastern education boards, with each incurring deficits exceeding £5m in the past financial year.
The Southern Education and Library Board has now stated that it must make cuts of £3.6m in the current financial year to avoid also going into deficit. It is expected that the Western and North Eastern ELBs will have to cut next year's spending programmes to avoid deficits.
Helen McClenaghan, chief executive of the Southern ELB, said that it needed an extra £28m over the next three years to maintain programmes.
Boards said that financial pressures have arisen through increased costs of special education, school buses and classroom assistants. But a statement from the Department of Education said that spending plans for future years were still out for consultation and that current allocations were scheduled to increase by 14.5% by 2007/08 against current year budgets.
Northern Ireland's health service has also hit problems, with one of the province's largest hospitals, Belfast's City, facing a deficit of £4.5m in the current financial year. Leaked papers from the hospital suggest its projected shortfall will rise to £12m next year.
A source within the City Hospital said that overspending was the result of a large increase in the number of patients receiving chemotherapy, involving complex and expensive drug treatments. An additional £3.3m was needed this year, they said, just to cover increased spending on oncology drugs, with cancer day case and ward attendances rising by 30%.
A spokesman for the main public sector union, Nipsa, said it would resist moves to cover the deficits by implementing staff cuts, and refused to rule out the possibility of industrial action. 'The education minister needs to realise that there is now a financial crisis gripping all of the education boards and additional funding is a must.'
PFnov2004
