Robin Swann: Stormont budget process ‘flawed’ says health minister
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The health minister has renewed his attack on last week's Stormont budget, describing the whole process as "flawed".
In a letter to the health committee, Robin Swann also appears to criticise the comments of fellow ministers.
He says "the tone and tenor" of some comments since Thursday suggests there is little recognition of "the actual pain" the budget will cause.
Mr Swann repeated his call for fresh executive discussions on the budget.
'Inescapable pressures'
In the letter, seen by the BBC, Mr Swann says the process for setting the budget was flawed in two significant ways.
Firstly, he says, there was "no true assessment" of the impacts that different decisions would have, meaning ministers were not in a position to make objective decisions.
Secondly, he claims, departments used different criteria to define "inescapable pressures".
An inescapable pressure usually refers to a spending commitment that cannot be cut for contractual or other legal reasons.
He concludes that "the normal executive process for agreeing a budget is in my opinion ill-suited for the current realities".
'Competing priorities'
Last week's budget involved the allocation of £14.5bn for day-to-day spending and about £2bn for capital spending.
The Department of Health got the largest share of day-to-day funding - £7.76bn.
That was about 6% higher than last year's opening position but Mr Swann said it was less than the department ultimately spent last year.
Mr Swann's decision to vote against the budget was criticised by the first and deputy first ministers.
Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said she understood Mr Swann's concerns but that if he had received everything he asked for "it would have consumed the entirety of what additional [funding] was available for the budget".
"There are other issues of key importance - special educational needs... broader education, justice. There are competing priorities," she said.
