Northern Ireland’s Infrastructure Minister, Liz Kimmins, has said NI Water must operate within its budget allocation and do the best it can with available resources.
The Minister was speaking in the Northern Ireland Assembly as she provided an update on the forensic investigation carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP into why NI Water was unable to live within its resource budget allocation in the 2024/25 financial year.
Minister Kimmins said:
“My decision to appoint a forensic accountant in March was taken because protecting public funds is of the utmost importance, particularly in light of the ongoing wider pressures faced not only in my own Department, but across all the entire public sector.
“In what PwC describes as a ‘significant limitation’, it is clear from this report that the NI Water Board did not base its financial decisions on the budget it actually had, or the amount allocated by the Department. Instead, the Board based these decisions on the larger amount it wanted, despite not actually having that budget to spend. If I had not intervened in the final days of the financial year, NI Water would have overspent and would have been in breach of their obligations to manage public money.
“The report highlights that NI Water needed to manage fluctuations in prices for goods and services through better financial profiling and supplier management throughout the year. If NI Water had negotiated savings, it could have planned better and made the necessary pay award within its allocated budget.”
Minister Kimmins took the decision on 27 March to allocate an additional £3m to NI Water, just four days before the end of the financial year. Had she not, she believes NI Water would have “most definitely” incurred a breach of Managing Public Money (NI).
The Minister concluded:
“I am determined that we all learn from this forensic investigation. I cannot stress enough that in these challenging times for the public purse, it is essential that NI Water takes every opportunity to live within its budget. The Board needs to factor in affordability to all its decisions alongside careful financial management, just as the Department and other public bodies have to do.”
