Northern Ireland’s most senior finance civil servant has stepped in to set spending limits for the executive’s departments for the next few months in the absence of an agreed budget.
More than £4m of public money was prevented from being wrongly paid out in Northern Ireland following a “data matching” exercise, according to a report from the Northern Ireland Audit Office.
The Northern Irish spending watchdog has found that a council’s agreements relating to two pieces of land were unlawful, with auditors saying the deals point to a culture of “bypassing best practice...
The Northern Irish government could be given responsibility for setting and collecting income tax by 2027, matching agreements in Scotland and Wales, if there is political will to do so, a report has...
The Northern Irish budget process needs to become more transparent and government departments need to collaborate more to improve public sector efficiency, according to a report urging significant...
Most aspects of Northern Ireland’s draft budget show no evidence of strategic priority setting, the chair of the NI Fiscal Council has said on the publication of the organisation’s first annual...
The UK government’s lack of engagement with devolved administrations over the £2.6bn fund aimed at replacing regional European Union funding has strained relationships across the union,...
The Northern Irish government is set to increase focus on healthcare spending in the 2022-23 draft budget, impacting on other departmental funding, including local government.
Concerns raised by a senior Northern Irish civil servant over fraud and error in a Covid-19 support scheme eventually came to pass as a result of the extreme pace of development, according to the...
The level of fraud and error in benefit payments made in Northern Ireland rose again last financial year, leading to a spending watchdog issuing a qualified opinion.
Northern Ireland’s Department of Health is facing questions over its accounting treatment of millions of pounds that might otherwise have been redistributed to other departments.
The cost of government responses to Covid-19 in Northern Ireland topped £6bn as both Stormont and Westminster worked to fight the health and economic crises caused by the virus.
More than £900m spent on reducing the gap in GCSE results between disadvantaged and affluent children in Northern Ireland “has not made any demonstrable difference”, a damning report has found.
The recently announced budget watchdog created to assess Northern Ireland’s public finances will not have “legally binding teeth” to prevent scandals such as that surrounding the green energy scheme.
New legalisation passed by Stormont will allow local authorities to set independent tax rates, giving councils the flexibility to tailor rates to local needs.
Mid Ulster District Council has won a VAT case which could see councils in Northern Ireland receive up to £50m in rebates on admission charges to their leisure facilities.
Finance ministers from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have expressed concerns over the financial implications the UK Internal Market Bill will have on devolved governments.
The government has guaranteed £3.7bn of additional funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to help the devolved administrations plan their response to Covid-19 in the months ahead.
Northern Ireland’s economic recovery from Covid-19 is predicted to be a “long-term endeavour” and likely take longer than the rest of the UK and Ireland, according to a report from think-tank Pivotal...
