Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): With us are Colin Woods, Susan Anderson, Declan McGeown and Peter Rice from the Department for Infrastructure.

I have a couple of questions on the spending review, and then I will start off with John and then bring in anyone else who has any questions on this last piece. We are heading towards a level of time pressure now.

I am on page 172, for any members who want to follow it. These are not real figures but are what the Department is likely to bid for or what it thinks are inescapable or high-priority items for the future between 2026 and 2029.

The first question may be a silly one on my part. The table contains 26 bids. I have a little bit of departmental experience, and you have the inescapable and high-priority items listed there, but they are not ordered by inescapable and high priority. I was just a little surprised to see inescapable items at numbers 19 and 20, and the bids are certainly not in alphabetical order. Is there any reason for the order in which the bids appear in the table?

Ms Susan Anderson (Department for Infrastructure): The specific elements that you have identified are the BEAR Scotland liability and the Department's pay award. The BEAR Scotland liability will be inescapable at the point at which it crystallises. We are recognising a timing uncertainty because we are uncertain about when it will crystallise. We know that it will become inescapable, but we are not there yet. It was a bit of a difficult one to categorise, but that is how we have presented it. We have continually made the case that we do not have the funding for it and that we will seek additional funding when it crystallises.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I assume that the same goes for item 20, which is the Department's pay award.

Ms Anderson: Historically, we have effectively had to manage the pay award within existing allocations. Again, that will be inescapable because it becomes a contractual commitment, and staff are entitled to it. From a budgeting perspective, however, we have said that we will manage that within our allocations, which we usually do through staff churn etc. That is how we try to manage it: it will be inescapable, but we will try to manage it within existing allocations.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): What on earth is the Department's BEAR Scotland liability at item 19?

Ms Anderson: That relates to a legal case on holiday pay, effectively, that is due.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Fine. OK.

Mr Stewart: I have a couple of points. It is nice to see your work on this. I am sure that you are glad to start preparations for a three-year Budget: we have talked long enough about a multi-year Budget, and I know that it will become really advantageous as we go forward. Given the figures that have been assigned to winter service and essential roads maintenance — this is probably another one for you, Colin; I feel as though I am picking on you — are you bidding for a fully funded or a limited service?

Mr Colin Woods (Department for Infrastructure): We are setting out the requirement, which is for a fully funded service. Under capital, the assumed requirement for structural maintenance is about £200 million a year. That is why the graph that Susan spoke to in the presentation shows a sharp increase towards the end. We await the Executive's consideration of the Budget.

Mr Stewart: OK. That is good to know. Where do the likes of gullying and drain clearing come in? Are they under essential road maintenance or flood risk management?

Mr Woods: From a roads perspective, most of that would be essential maintenance. It can also be part of structural maintenance, depending on whether we have to repair something or construct a new culvert or gully, so it can be spread between the two, but the majority of our gully emptying is under essential maintenance as resource spending.

Mr Stewart: OK. Regardless of whether there has been a decision to reduce the gully clearing service, there has undoubtedly been a reduction.

Mr Woods: There has. At the minute, under limited service, we aim to clean every gully once a year and to supplement that with targeted gully cleaning ahead of weather events and in response to flooding. In an ideal world, we would have a significant, risk-based programme that would see some gullies being cleaned 12 times a year; for others, once might be appropriate. That is part of what moving from a limited service to a normal maintenance service entails, and that is what some of the additional funding will be used for.

Mr Stewart: I hate to be local about it, but would you do me a favour and take this one away? When Storm Amy came, the A8 in Larne and the Shore Road flooded for the third storm in a row. I was given assurances that the gullies and drains had been cleared, but they were not. Those are obvious areas to flag up, particularly the Shore Road, which leads into the sea, but it was blatantly obvious that the road was closed because the gullies and drains had not been cleared. Will someone find out why that did not happen and whether there was an oversight?

Mr Woods: Absolutely. That can happen for lots of reasons. I doubt that someone would claim that they had been cleaned if they had not, but material can move, obviously, so leaves, silt and everything else can be washed into them and block them again. It is possible to clean out a gully one day and come back three days later only to find that it could do with being cleaned again; that may have happened. In weather events, a lot more water flows with a lot more force, which moves a lot more material around, so that could be the reason, but, yes, we will look into both cases.

Mr Stewart: I appreciate that. I take it that the roads that are more likely to flood and be blocked and those that are more heavily used are done more often than the once-a-year target.

Mr Woods: Yes. Typically, when we know that a weather warning is coming, for example, section offices will go to known areas of flooding risk and do targeted additional gully cleaning to make sure that the gullies are in the best state to cope. Our gullies are not designed to cope with the once-in-500-years level of water — they are designed to tolerate a normal, reasonable case — so, depending on the severity of the weather event, there is always the possibility that the drainage system will just not have the capacity to cope with a particular downpour. Occasionally, that can lead to flooding — typically localised flooding that will drain away over the next few hours, but it can obviously cause an impact and mean that roads need to be closed temporarily.

Mr Stewart: That is useful.

Can you talk us through what the active travel behavioural change programme entails?

Mr Woods: A lot of that is focused on work with schools, in conjunction with the Public Health Agency, to try to promote the health benefits and other benefits of active travel.

Mr McMurray: How do you manage the reductions, basically, between what has been asked for from the Budget and what is actually attributed? I hate to bring it back to that, but, last week, we had Translink here, saying that it does not get what it asks for and has to rely on October monitoring rounds. We had NI Water say that it cannot deliver things because of budgeting. I just want to understand that. Bids are made, and then you guys say, "No, we actually cannot give you that. We are going to reduce it by this much". How does the Department arrive at that?

Ms Anderson: As part of the information-gathering exercise commissioned by DOF, which you have the returns for, we are really focused on maintaining the current level of service. Primarily, that was the main focus. There are some areas of exception, as Colin has mentioned, around the winter service, but that was the key planning assumption at this stage: we would maintain our business-as-usual, current services and then bid for anything on top of that that we need to do and for assumptions that we had used in previous years as well. It is an exercise, so it does not reflect the Minister's decisions at this stage. It is simply a bidding exercise. When we get a draft budget and final budget, we work that through in a lot more detail, sit with the Minister and prioritise those things at that stage.

Mr McMurray: Mr Stewart asked about active travel. I suppose that the inverse of my question is this: how do you attribute the external value of that — other than just the numbers — if you get my meaning? You talk about Translink, active travel and all the add-on benefits. It is all well and good working out the reductions that something will have, but do you sit down and ask, "Actually, where is the value in that?"; "How does the value increase?" and, "What is the multiplier effect for every pound that is spent?". How is that arrived at?

Mr Woods: That probably comes in at a slightly earlier stage when we are trying to figure out what the requirement is. For example, for active travel, what is the requirement to spend 10% of the transport budget? It would mean somewhere in the region of £75 million to £80 million. As I have said before, we are keen to ensure that, when we reach that point, we have schemes that are value for money. Typically, we will look at all the things that we might do, and the policy process just involves figuring out what we will actually propose to do, why and what the business case is for it, and, as part of that, what the benefits and costs of it will be. That informs what the number is on the requirement. Then, we sit down with the Minister, set out what the requirement is and the Minister decides on where the money needs to be allocated. It can feel like a reductions exercise because the requirement is always bigger than the amount of money that is available. Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of deciding what good things we would like to do with an extra £100 million. We already have good plans to spend more money than is going to arrive in the Department. In practice, it can feel a little bit like the Minister's being asked to take difficult decisions on where not to meet the full requirement because there simply is not enough money to meet that full requirement.

Mr Peter Rice (Department for Infrastructure): To echo what Colin said: that will be the same across Roads, NI Water and Translink with regard to the level of investment that can be made that will deliver value for money and will make a difference. That level of need or requirement is likely to be much higher than the available capital budget.

Mr McNulty: Thanks, folks. At this stage, it is a bidding exercise; therefore, bids that are submitted do not reflect any budget decisions. Ministers have been crying out for three-year budgets for a long time. Where do we actually sit? Is this a commitment to a three-year budget, or is it just a wish list for a three-year budget?

Ms Anderson: Again, that is a decision for the Executive. The Finance Minister will take a draft Budget to the Executive and they will agree, or not, on a draft multi-year Budget. That decision rests with the Executive.

Mr McNulty: So, essentially, we are talking about a wish list, as is.

Ms Anderson: Those are the requirements that we have identified and fed into that process. Again, DOF will bring that forward as a draft Budget.

Mr McNulty: No commitments have been made yet, but your expectation is that there will be a commitment for a three-year Budget.

Ms Anderson: Yes.

Mr McNulty: OK, good. I want to turn to the section 75 equality impact. What are the section 75 implications, for example, for a person with a disability, of not proceeding with a three-year Budget?

Ms Anderson: Again, we will assess that as part of our equality impact assessment when we get our draft budget. We will look at that in detail, and we will go out to consult, as we did for the 2025-26 Budget process.

Mr McNulty: The Deputy Chair was very parochial on an issue that he raised. I am going to be very parochial on another issue that affects my constituent, the great Breege Shaw, and her husband Victor, who uses a wheelchair. There is an adverse camber on the footpath in Irish Street in Armagh, and there are drainage channels that prevent Victor from traversing the footpath safely or at all. Will it be possible to address that situation?

Mr Woods: We will be happy to look at that.

Mr McNulty: Thanks, folks.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Thank you, Justin.

No other members have indicated. That draws this session to a close. Thank you, folks, for coming along. I am sorry for the delay in getting you before the Committee. The Committee will now consider whether we require any additional information, and we will write to DFI accordingly. Thank you very much.