Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:
“A key element of the Stormont House Agreement involved loans to fund an exit scheme for public servants. The Agreement gave the Executive “flexibility to use £700m of capital borrowing to fund a voluntary exit scheme over a period of 4 years”. The Finance Minister Simon Hamilton has repeatedly said that he expects the size of the public service to shrink by 20,000 over the next four years as a result.
“However, if we look at fair employment data collected by the Equality Commission we find that in the last five years a total of 98,950 people have left the public service. That’s an average of 19,790 per year!
“Why therefore are we borrowing £700 million to fund 20,000 redundancies over four years when almost 20,000 people are leaving every year anyhow, before this extra borrowing power was negotiated? By not replacing them, the same result can be obtained, but without having to borrow £700m.”
You can view the figures from the Equality Commission on page23 (chart 4.23) here.