Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): I welcome Richard Logan, finance director; Andrea Quail, head of financial strategy; and Louise Blair, head of financial support. I thank you all for taking the time to join us today. I invite you to make an opening statement.

Mr Richard Logan (Department of Justice): Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to update the Committee on finance-related matters for the Department. We have shared detailed written briefings on the areas that we will cover. I therefore intend, at this stage, to provide just a brief overview, with a particular focus on the outcome of the December monitoring round.

The Department submitted its return to the Department of Finance on 20 November 2025. That information, along with a detailed briefing outlining the main aspects of the Department's return, was shared with the Committee on the same day. The Executive subsequently agreed the December monitoring position at their meeting on 9 December. The outcome for the Department of Justice included an additional £7 million for PSNI workforce recovery costs and £4·6 million for PSNI pay awards. In December monitoring, the Department's available budget was adjusted for technical transfers of £1·5 million. That included inward transfers for Departmental Solicitor's Office costs and outward transfers for custody nurses, the Rowan sexual assault referral centre, funding for the domestic and sexual abuse (DSA) programmes and funding for the Northern Ireland Road Safety Partnership. In total, that brings the Department's non-ring-fenced resource departmental expenditure limit (DEL) budget for 2025-26 to £1·44 billion.

As part of the December monitoring process, business areas from across the Department, including the PSNI, identified cost reductions and easements to help to address pressures across the DOJ budget. That was achieved by business areas taking proactive steps to manage their projected overcommitments and reduce expenditure where possible, mainly through vacancy management but also due to demand and costs being lower than had originally been projected in some areas, including the Prison Service, compensation services and legal aid. It is important to note, however, that those reductions are not recurrent and will therefore not assist in the management of future years' budgets. Together with the additional resource DEL allocation of £11·6 million from the Executive, the easements and cost reductions identified by DOJ business areas mean that the Department can meet in full its current stabilisation pressures of £17·9 million. Those pressures include the cost of the PSNI workforce recovery plan and the police pay award, which the PSNI can demonstrate to be affordable in 2025-26.

As you would expect when dealing with a budget of £1·44 billion for a complex Department such as Justice, uncertainties remain on pressures and easements over the remaining months of the current financial year. The Department's budget will therefore still require continued careful management and stewardship, but it is currently projected that the Department will be able to live within its resource budget for 2025-26.

The Department's capital DEL budget increased by £0·4 million in December monitoring. That increase reflects technical transfers from the Department of Finance for the Castle Buildings accommodation project. The Department's capital DEL budget is now £101·5 million. The Department did not need to submit any capital bids in December monitoring but continues to manage pressures of £0·3 million. Historically, the Department has had small underspends in its capital budget by year end. That should allow the pressure to be managed internally by DOJ.

The Department submitted a bid of £1 million for ring-fenced resource DEL for depreciation and impairments. That bid relates to pressures in the PSNI. The Executive were not able to meet any pressures for Departments in this monitoring round. The Westminster Supplementary Estimates may result in additional ring-fenced resource DEL becoming available that would, in due course, be allocated to Departments pro rata on the basis of the bids submitted.

Finally, the Department's revised balance for annually managed expenditure (AME) for 2025-26 is £531 million. Treasury and, in turn, the Department of Finance do not set firm AME budgets, as they are volatile and demand-led in a way that Departments cannot necessarily control. The main elements of the Department's AME balance of £531 million includes £270 million for police pensions — just over half the balance — £141 million for legal claims across a number of business areas and £85 million for compensation services.

The Committee will be aware that the Department also faces significant exceptional pressures due to legal claims relating to the PSNI data breach, holiday pay and the McCloud remedy. The costs involved are best estimates at this stage, as there is a range of potential outcomes, depending on the eventual settlement of those legal claims. The timing of payments to settle the claims also remains uncertain, but the current assessment is that those costs are more likely to be incurred in 2026-27 or later than in 2025-26. Engagement continues between DOJ and DOF at official and ministerial level to secure the funding that will be necessary for the claims to be settled. The funding needed for the data breach has not yet been secured, but the Department's understanding is that that will be considered as part of the Executive's upcoming discussions on multi-year Budgets.

The Department of Finance has confirmed that it will commission a January technical exercise, following the outcome of the December monitoring round. It has been noted that bids will not be accepted in the technical exercise and that Departments are not expected to submit reduced requirements at that stage. It will be an exercise only for the necessary technical adjustments. The timescales for the exercise are not yet known. The Department will provide to the Committee full details of its submission at the same time as that information is provided to the Department of Finance.

The Committee will already be aware that the Department was successful in securing transformation funding of £22·6 million for two projects in the first tranche of bids for speeding up justice and modernising electronic monitoring. The Department's budget for 2025-26 includes funding of £5·1 million for the speeding up justice and electronic monitoring projects, and work on both is progressing. As part of December monitoring, the Department has actioned transfers for speeding up justice budget allocations to the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service, the PSNI and the Public Prosecution Service. In addition, there was a reduced requirement of £1·1 million for speeding up justice funding as a result of a re-profiling of budgets in order to maximise project outcomes in future years.

The second tranche for transformation bids was launched on 23 June this year, and the Department subsequently submitted three bids, together with a further bid from the cross-Executive programme for a trauma-informed approach delivery team in the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS). We remain engaged with the board and its secretariat to assist in its considerations and await the final outcome of its decision-making. We will, of course, as we did with tranche 1, inform the Committee of the formal outcome when it is provided to the Department. Should the bids not be successful, separate funding will be required to ensure that the critical transformation work identified can still move forward.

Another matter that I wish to bring to the Committee's attention is the Finance Committee's request relating to the review of arm's-length bodies (ALBs) and the ALB pay landscape review. By coincidence, the Committee Clerk wrote to the Department yesterday on the same matter. The Chairperson of the Finance Committee has written to the Justice Minister requesting an update on the progress of both reviews and on whether the broad review of ALBs will be completed by April 2026. I understand that a similar request has been issued to all Ministers and Committees. The Department is preparing a response to the Finance Committee that is due for return by 8 January 2026. Our return will, of course, be shared with the Justice Committee.

I trust that I have provided you with a helpful overview of our financial position. We continue to operate in an extremely uncertain financial environment. The Department's position remains challenging when it comes to managing the budget in the current financial year and in future years.

I thank you for the opportunity to provide the briefing. We very much value the role and views of the Committee. We are happy to take any questions.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Thank you very much for that and for your paper. I have one question, if you will indulge me, which is about the strategy to end violence against women and girls. Obviously, TEO is the lead Department on that cross-departmental strategy, but how will that bid — £24·6 million for resource and £4·6 million for capital — be broken down? What is the objective of that money? What is the planned spend? Do we know when a decision on that bid will be forthcoming?

Mr Logan: The bid is still being considered. We do not know yet. My sense is that the two bids that are most likely still to be in the running are those on ending violence against women and girls and the PSNI IT systems. We have not had final confirmation on anything, but that is my informal view.

We have shared with the Committee details of the bids in full. The bid for the ending violence against women and girls strategy — bear with me.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): My apologies. I am new enough to the Committee.

Mr Logan: You are OK. I will provide an update on certain things, but I cannot remember —.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): That is 100%. If the Committee has already received that, I will be able to access it. Apologies.

Mr Logan: I will give a brief overview. In the Department, the director of victim support division has been working closely with senior PSNI leaders and Department of Health officials, all of whom hold operational and policy responsibility for the relevant element of the bid.

Priorities were informed by alignment with the domestic and sexual abuse strategy. A scoring matrix was also used to consider each element of the bid against a range of relevant factors, including deliverability, evidence base and interdependencies.·Overall oversight of the programme would be managed by the domestic and sexual abuse strategic oversight board and, if successful, would apply the best practice and guidance in the 'Teal Book'. That is the structure. If you want more detail — we shared the full bids — we are more than happy to re-share that.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): That is 100%. My apologies. Thank you.

Ms Egan: Thank you for coming in today. I have one question on the Department's projected capital needs during the spending review period. How much will be needed to meet those needs?

Mr Logan: As part of the future years exercise that DOF commissioned earlier in the year and the work that we did on the departmental five-year plan, our assessment based on returns from the areas is that, on average, over the next four years it will be £270 million per annum. At the moment, our departmental budget is in the region of £100 million, so there is a significant gap between what we currently have and what we need in an ideal world. Even if we were to try just to meet contractual commitments, the pressure on the budget would be tight. We need that to develop and improve our facilities in the police college; police stations; the courts, including the Royal Courts of Justice (RCJ) and Bishop Street courthouse in Londonderry/Derry; forensic science facilities across the estate; and the prison estate. We are trying to improve those to make sure that we have adequate facilities for everybody who uses the services in Justice.

It is also important to note that, given that we have an ageing estate, the maintenance costs each year are becoming increasingly expensive, so we need to modernise, get proper state-of-the-art facilities and reduce our resource spend in order to manage our resource budget. It is therefore critical that we get the expenditure and budget for that.

Ms Egan: I agree. We had a Committee visit to the courts in Belfast, and a lot of us were quite concerned. We saw their condition at first hand.

Mr Logan: Whatever budget we get, we will have to prioritise. Certainly, for 2026-27, prioritisation will be along the lines, in the first instance, of contractual commitments. There are already projects under way. Commitments have been signed with suppliers, so we have to honour those first, and then, depending on what budget we are allocated, we will need to see what is left to allocate to other priorities across the whole of the justice sector.

Ms Egan: Thank you.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Patsy, lean ar aghaidh

.

Mr McGlone: Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh.

I have two questions. First, you will have noted the report on Operation Kenova and Operation Denton that came out this week. What resources have been provided and where are they provided for in budgets for any follow-up response either in the DOJ or by the police? Will any extra funding be required to see that through?

Mr Logan: It is too early to say. We have not been given any costs. The Chief Constable is best placed, certainly in the first instance, to talk about the operational aspects of any costs.

Mr McGlone: Chair, with your forbearance, can we get the necessary officials and the police in to discuss those matters at some stage?

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): We can look at putting that in the forward work programme.

Mr McGlone: That is great. Go raibh míle maith agat as sin

, Emma.

Secondly, in the middle of a maelstrom of different interpretations of the situation, what is the position on police pay and the compensation for the data breaches? Can you shed some light on that, please?

Mr Logan: Certainly. The Executive have allocated £4·6 million to the Department and the police for police pay. Overall, the bids were originally £150 million among Health, Education, Infrastructure and Justice. There was £100 million available to the Executive to allocate. Each Department got a pro rata share of that. Our bid was £6·7 million, and we got £4·6 million. In addition to that money from the Executive, the police have made cost reductions and we have worked to reduce pressures elsewhere in the Department, which has meant that we are able to fully fund police pressures. That will enable the police to deem the pay affordable this year.

The budget allocation letter confirming their allocation was issued to the police either this morning or shortly after lunchtime today. The police will review that against their budgets. The Minister will then invite the PSNI to submit a pay remit and accept that on the basis of the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB) recommendations. DOJ and PSNI officials have already done preparatory work in anticipation of funding being available. We have planned and got the documentation reviewed and ready to go. There is still a bit of a governance process to go through to get things formally signed off by our Minister and the permanent secretary, and it then goes to the Department of Finance for the Finance Minister to sign off. At that point, the police will have full approval to do it. The aim is to progress that so that it can be paid to police officers in January 2026.

Mr McGlone: I am getting the process bit, Richard, but I am trying to establish — maybe you can establish this for me with clarity — first, whether the police will get their pay and, secondly, the situation with compensation for the data breach.

Mr Logan: The aim is to progress the pay awards so that they will be paid in the January 2026 salaries.

Mr McGlone: What about the other issue?

Mr Logan: There has been media coverage of the data breach. The Minister clarified the position during an interview this morning, and that has been followed up with a statement to a number of media outlets that had made enquiries about it. The Minister has clarified that she incorrectly stated that the Executive had agreed to fund the costs of compensation for the data breach. The agreement was that DOF was going to submit a paper to the Executive for consideration. The Minister has explained the error to the Chief Constable and apologised to him. That apology extends to all the officers and staff who have been affected by the data breach, and the Minister will continue to work with Executive colleagues to ensure that the matter is resolved as quickly as possible.

The key element is that there is a legal obligation to pay the compensation. We want to get the payments to the individual members of staff and police officers so that they get the amounts that they are entitled to, and we will work with the Minister and DOF officials to secure the funding for that. There is a legal obligation to pay it.

Mr McGlone: I know that, if it is going to other Departments, some of these factors are outwith your control, but do you have any indicative timing for when that payment issue might be reconciled?

Mr Logan: It is subject to the Executive's approval of the funding, but, if that is forthcoming, the PSNI's assessment is that the payment will fall into the 2026-27 financial year at the earliest. It will not be paid in the 2025-26 financial year.

Mr McGlone: OK. That is grand. Thanks very much for that.

Mr Kingston: Thank you for your attendance at the Committee. First, I want to ask about the £7 million that, we were told, was earmarked for workforce recovery costs. What does that mean? Is that additional officers?

Mr Logan: The PSNI submitted a business case, and that was approved by the Department of Justice and the Department of Finance. The caveat was that it was subject to affordability. The premise of that business case was that the baseline that the police were working on was 6,358 officers and 2,344 civilian staff. The business case intends to increase those numbers to 7,000 officers and 2,572 civilian staff, which is an increase of 642 officers and 228 civilian staff. That is subject to timings for recruitment campaigns and the capacity in the college. It builds up over the three years: 2025-26, 2026-27 and 2027-28. If everything goes according to plan, it will take three years to achieve those numbers.

There has been reference to a five-year plan. It will take time to get everybody in, and we will then have two years at the end to stabilise things. When it talks about a five-year plan, it assumes that the first three years will be spent recruiting officers and maintaining those numbers.

Mr Kingston: OK. That will produce a new minimum level for officer numbers that will, hopefully, be sustained.

Mr Logan: That is subject to additional funding being available. In the business case, the costs in the first year are £7 million. That is being funded now. That then builds up to £26 million in 2026-27 and rises to £48 million, then £60 million and then £65 million. The figures being quoted in the media and elsewhere of £205 million or £206 million are on a cumulative basis, and that is the difference between what it would cost to employ at the current level — the baseline — and the increased cost of the additional officers and civilian staff.

Mr Kingston: OK, that is good to hear.

In this monitoring round, £1·1 million of the transformation funding for speeding up justice was given up. What does that mean practically? I assume that there is a desire for that to be reallocated in a future year. What was that funding for, and why could it not be delivered this year?

Mr Logan: There were delays with the whole project. When the bids originally went in a year ago, assumptions were made about how far the project could progress in the first year, and a number of organisations were working together on that. There have been delays, and the spend has not matched the profile. The point is that the funding is being re-profiled for future years, so the money is not expected to be lost to the Department. We will be able to make better use of it in future years when further progress has been made.

Mr Kingston: Can you explain what that £1·1 million was for specifically?

Mr Logan: I cannot say specifically, but I will follow up with you on that. It is probably for a combination of things. There are a lot of elements to the original bid. There could have been slippage on one or more of those, but, certainly, we can follow up on that.

Mr Kingston: OK. Finally, it is regrettable that the issue of data breach compensation funding has ended up in the news. The Minister has apologised because, effectively, she had got ahead of the full Executive decision. We are all mindful of the consequences for police officers, and the chairman of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland spoke out about how it is affecting people's lives in a major way. There are positive indications that the money will be found next year. Equally, I do not think that the Executive have given up on making the case to the Treasury. I think that we would all agree that this is an exceptional situation and that we should not give up on the Treasury providing that funding.

As the Committee for Justice, we should write to the Minister or the Department seeking formal clarity on the situation with that funding. I know that we will hear about it in due course, but the Committee should write expressing concern about the impact of the uncertainty on the police officers affected by the data breach and asking for clarity on the securing of that funding.

Ms Ferguson: A lot of my questions have been asked. I will follow up on one of those, and then I have one or two others to ask.

The pay award is £4·6 million, but you put in a request for £6·7 million, so there is a £2·1 million deficit. You mentioned that there have been some cost savings. Will you clarify the final total required for this financial year? Do you know it?

Mr Logan: The original £6·7 million was a best estimate. The police will need to work through the actual costs of the pay award, because it depends on the point that people are at on their pay scales and other factors. That will come through in due course from the PSNI.

On the shortfall, previous reports showed that police had pressures of around £21 million to £22 million. There has been a really good example of collaborative work between the Executive, the PSNI and the Department on that: between those three groups, we have been able to bridge the gap and secure the necessary funding to make that pay award affordable. From the outset of the year, the Minister and the Department have been clear about not expecting significant additional funding during the year. We have had to put in place cost reductions and efficiencies from the outset, and the business areas, to their credit, have delivered.

Ms Ferguson: That is where I was going next, because you advised of an overcommitment of £32 million back in October. It is a credit to you that you are now likely to break even. It is excellent that the Department has been able to do that. Generally, how were you able to account for that £32 million? I am not asking for the details, but it would be interesting to know, particularly for other Departments that are overspending.

Mr Logan: In June monitoring, we were reporting £32 million. When I came to the Committee on 11 October, October monitoring had not been formally commissioned and we were in the process of doing an internal exercise. Although it had not been formally commissioned, the Department took the steps to do that exercise, the results of which brought the pressures down to about £22 million in October. The main elements of the £32 million in June were £21 million or £22 million for the police, £10 million for legal aid and £1 million for prisons.

We got down to £22 million in October through a reduction in legal aid costs. On the basis of the projections or assumptions at the time, that reduced to about £3 million. Prisons and court pressures reduced at that time as well. We got emerging pressures coming out for legal claims in other areas, but we had got it to £22 million in October.

For the latest exercise, there were a number of easements. The police were able to identify some easements through reduced utility costs and the accounting treatment of how they were doing their leases and profit on the sale of the Desertcreat and Castlederg properties, so they were able to generate some money. There were further reductions in the projected costs for legal aid. Nearly all other business areas managed their pressures out, so the point is that we did not just end up with police pressures.

The total pressures that we were left with at the end of December monitoring was £17·9 million, of which £17·3 million was for the police, but the Minister was also able to fund the remaining pressures in the likes of the Probation Board, Forensic Science, the Police Ombudsman and Criminal Justice Inspection. They had managed down their pressures as much as they could, and, with the easements across the Department, we were able to meet those in full. It has been a concerted effort across all areas, rather than a single solution to anything. It is everybody doing what they can to live within their budget. That theme will have to continue into future financial years.

Ms Ferguson: Thank you. One final question in relation to the equality screening: the Department noted that the budgetary pressures were having a significant impact on service delivery at the time when the Justice Committee was up. However, it assessed that there was no need for equality impact assessment. How was that assessment made, and how can the Department stand over that assessment, given that there will be ongoing budgetary pressures that will impact on services?

Mr Logan: Everybody recognises that there are significant financial pressures. The issues raised were deemed to be relatively minor. They were raised but not significant. Overall, we looked at the total £1·44 billion budget and the issues and impacts. It was not considered to be a major impact overall, so that was the assessment. A lot of what has been happening in the Department is that we are not necessarily stopping one, two or individual services; it is stretching it out. The result is that sometimes things slow down and take longer, but generally services are being maintained as far as possible from within existing resources, so it is the Department still trying to do everything, despite all the budgetary pressures.

Ms Ferguson: There is just one wee final one, if I can. In relation to legal aid last year and the year before, is there no slowing up of payments of legal aid —

Mr Logan: No.

Ms Ferguson: — where you have to wait months and move into the next financial year for payment? Is that not happening this year?

Mr Logan: No. There are three main factors in managing the legal aid budget. One is the outcome of the judicial review, where there had to be appropriate timescales for payments and the Department could not manage its budgets through how it determined the timing. We also have the volume and value of claims. There are patterns and trends, so we can model, but we never know exactly in advance how much is coming in and how much it will cost. The third element, at the outset of the year, is the increase in the level of fees, be that at a general level of legal aid or the taxing master increase that came in in June.

For the first six months of the year, criminal legal claims cases were being paid within four weeks, and civil claims were being paid within six weeks. Our value of unassessed bills was down. Comparable figures in the past might have been sitting at 10 or 12 weeks, so that is the level that we have been able to reach. Paul Andrews's team has been successful in managing that.

We refer to our opening remarks: there are always uncertainties at this time of the year — at any time — and legal aid remains in that category. Paul will never know when a high-value claim or case will come in. However, at this stage, we believe that he can maintain his payment timings and live within the budget.

Mr Beattie: Richard, thank you. Where does the figure of £119 million for the data breach come from? It seems to be at the lower end of what we were talking about some while ago.

Mr Logan: The PSNI has prepared a business case, and it has been approved by the Department and DOF. It includes a number of assumptions. Claims have been grouped into certain categories of what, we think, the estimated costs of settling certain types of claim are: straightforward claims, more complex claims, different types. There is a split of how the claims could be grouped and the potential value of settling those claims. Those are our estimates, informed by discussions with legal counsel and the police, knowing what they know about the claims and the costs. It also takes into account estimated costs of legal fees and possible court costs.

There are a lot of factors. That is coming up with a range of potential costs. We will not know what the actual cost will be until funding is secured and the police can formally go into negotiations with the claimants to see what can be resolved. Hopefully, our assumptions are accurate, but we will not know how accurate they are until those negotiations happen. The sooner we can enter into those negotiations, the sooner we will, hopefully, get the claims settled and minimise the cost to the public purse. If they are not settled out of court, the likelihood is that the costs — the other costs that you referred to — will increase if they are settled by the court or if people do not accept the universal offer that is made to them. We will not know until those negotiations happen, the legal teams consult their claimants and we see what percentage of people are prepared to accept the offer and settle out of court and how many want to go through the full court process for settling the claims.

Mr Beattie: Are there not six already going through the courts? Is there not a likelihood that the vast majority will wait to see the outcome of those cases before they decide to settle? Just imagine that the Chief Constable gives an offer but the court then gives those people twice as much: is that not a danger? That is why I asked how the £119 million was set. I do not know when those court cases are due to be heard. Have we any idea?

Secondly, have you a ceiling? If the Executive say "Yes, we are going to give you £119 million, but actually it is going to cost £220 million, and, if you cannot afford the excess, you may not get the £119 million", if you understand what I mean. Do you have a ceiling?

Mr Logan: There is definitely a risk that people will hold off to await the outcome of the court cases. Those court cases have specific circumstances, and it is about whether every individual claimant is in a similar position. There are different levels and types of claim. As with any group litigation like this, there are certain groups that could get paid more, and so could some people. We do not know, but it is absolutely a risk that, the longer it takes to make a formal offer and negotiate, the more the potential risk of people holding off for a settlement increases. We do not know what the outcome of that will be.

In terms of a ceiling, the £119 million that has been quoted is not a target that, we are saying, we want to work towards; we are saying that it is the best estimate on the basis of numerous assumptions on claimants' costs, legal fees and court fees. It is not a target that, we are saying, we want to work to and that we want to spend exactly. We have responsibilities, as public servants, for public money. We want to minimise the cost but, at the same time, balance it with a fair and reasonable settlement for the claimants. It is not a target that we want to work towards. If it increases beyond that figure, there will be further discussion with the Department of Finance to see whether and how we can bridge any potential gap.

Mr Beattie: That is fair enough. There are a lot of unknowns there.

Yesterday, the Justice Minister announced that the money had been secured and ring-fenced, but you knew quite quickly that that was not accurate: am I right in saying that? How come you did not put a statement out to state that that was not accurate? Why did you leave it until this morning, even though the interviews were done yesterday?

Mr Logan: The Minister clarified this morning, so that was the timing that —.

Mr Beattie: No, she clarified yesterday. Her interview was yesterday, not this morning. Why did the Department not put out something to ease everybody's jets, so that we did not have that furore? The Minister did the interview yesterday to say that she misspoke: fine, that is a mistake. Why did the Department not put something out to say, "Look, it has not been secured. It has not been ring-fenced, but we hope it will be in a week's time"?

Mr Logan: I think that was just a decision to let the interview — we knew that the interview was going ahead today, and we let it proceed at that. That is the position that the Department has taken, and now it has clarified that further.

Mr Beattie: Did the Department take that decision?

Mr Logan: Sorry, in absolute conjunction—.

Mr Beattie: Did the Department decide not to tell police officers?

Mr Logan: In absolute conjunction with the Minister. It was not a separate decision at all. It was fully in conjunction with the Minister, and we have been engaged with her on that.

Mr Beattie: Are we saying that the Minister and the Department decided not to tell the police officers and their families that it was not accurate?

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): It is probably not a question for you to answer.

Doug, is there anything else you want to cover?

Mr Beattie: Yes, just a quick one. Sorry, I was probably probing a bit. Apologies, Richard.

The £7 million for the workforce recovery in this financial year is welcome, although it is a little late. Can you remind us what it will be next year?

Mr Logan: The cost in the business case was £26 million, and the figures for next year are 256 officers and 77 civilian staff. The figures are written at a point in time; there are leavers and joiners, and the figures will fluctuate. However, that is the premise, and there are similar numbers for the following year, but the cost will be £48 million because a few hundred people have already been recruited, and there is a cumulative effect each year.

Mr Beattie: Did I pick you up right? Is that £48 million? I know the reasons why, but that is the figure we are talking about.

Mr Logan: The figure is £7 million for the first year, £26 million in the second year, then £48 million, then £60 million and then £65 million. It levels off in year four. Assuming that everybody is recruited, you are up to 7,000 officers and 2,572 civilian staff, and the costs will be mainstreamed each year but will increase with pay awards and other costs. There will always be joiners and leavers, but that is the profile. Whilst it is a five-year business case, there is a three-year profile of additional recruitment in the business case, and that is subject to additional funding being made available. Those are the figures in the business case.

Mr Beattie: The important bit is that it all needs additional funding, and it cannot come from where you are now, yes?

Mr Logan: Exactly. We have already reported to the Committee and shared the five-year plan in terms of the level of pressures going forward, and it will be subject to the money that is available. Even without the additional recruitment, all areas of the Department face financial pressures going forward.

I may have quoted the figure before, but the Department's pay bill for next year, across all the organisations, will be in the region of £1 billion. Therefore, every 1% of a pay award is £10 million, and, if a 3% or 4% pay award is agreed, it will cost £30 million to £40 million before we do anything extra. If you build in inflation on the remainder of our costs at 3% or 4%, that is the main driver of the Department's budgetary pressures, and it is a similar situation across a lot of the other public-sector organisations. Some 70% of our costs are staffing costs, which are the basic salary; employer's National Insurance contributions, which increased by 1% this year; and pension contributions, which range from 32% or 33% up to 46% contributions for police officers. That is the range of additional costs that are coming through as pressures.

Mr Beattie: Thank you, Richard.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Thank you for taking the time to answer all our questions. We will let you go.

Mr Logan: Thank you, Chair.