Drowning In Numbers
Budget days can be fairly confusing as journalists try to wade through a welter of statistics. But this Spending Review seems even more perplexing than usual.
First George Osborne told us we were doing very well, thank you, staying flat in terms of cash with a current budget of £9.5 billion in 2014/15.
Then from across the Atlantic we started hearing dark rhetoric, as both Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness talked about hearing very bad news, especially on capital spending. Mr Robinson implied that the government had massaged the figures on capital spending and also raised a question over the security budget.
According to the Treasury website, we appeared to be doing better than other departments with This seemed to be the beneficial knock on impact of the ring fencing of health in England and the generous settlement for education.
But the website revealed that so far as capital spending is concerned (the money used to build roads, hospitals and other public projects) we were taking more of a hit, down 37%.
So that's clear then? Well I thought so when the Department of Finance put out different figures, estimating the current revenue cut at 8% and the capital cut at just over 40%. The explanation for this discrepancy is that the Treasury and the Stormont Finance department started their calculations at a different stage - the London arithmetic applied to the figures after the recent emergency budget, the Belfast sums started prior to that reduction.
Then to confuse matters still more the local Finance Minister Sammy Wilson came up with a global figure of £4 billion - the amount he said we are losing cumulatively over the next four years. This surprised me, as we have all been talking about a £2 billion cut in the run up to this Spending Review. So have we got double the cuts expected?
Mr Wilson says no - instead the previous Department of Finance briefings were based on the notion that we would be down £2 billion in four years time, not the amount we would lose in total on the way.
If you understand that get back to me - it doesn't seem to be borne out by the annual breakdown on the Treasury website.
Boiling it all down, it looks like Northern Ireland has done relatively well on the current side, but undeniably badly on capital spending. That's not good news for the local construction industry. Some experts are predicting as many as 20,000 job losses locally.
One group who will be feeling relieved are Presbyterian Mutual Savers, now the Chnacellor has confirmed a £200 million life line. The Stormont Executive has yet to sign off on their role in the rescue package. Local ministers will no doubt be busy not just considering that, but also deciding how they cut up their diminishing portion of George Osborne's cake.
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