NI Budget: What will impact of cuts be on criminal justice and public spending scrutiny?
The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee will question leading figures in the PSNI and the Victims of Crime Commissioner Designate Geraldine Hanna on the impact of the budget squeeze faced across Stormont on the police and wider criminal justice system.
Likely areas of questioning
The Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) and Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman will follow to give evidence on how their reduced budgets and the processes adopted to set them could hamper their independence and scrutiny of public finances and services.
It was revealed last year that Stormont’s budget had a black hole amounting to hundreds of millions of pounds. The subsequent budget while it attempts to payback the Treasury is tighter than those elsewhere in the UK, with sharp real-terms cuts to services expected.
This is the third session of the Committee’s inquiry on the funding and delivery of public services in Northern Ireland.