NEWS

DARD in £5m hand back
By Steven Moore

THE Department of Agriculture is surrendering close to £5 million of its budget to the Department of Finance and Personel.
The move, which is being done under the December Monitoring Round, heads off the embarrasment of DARD having to declare a multi-million pound underspend at the end of the financial year.
The cash, which comes from a variety of sources, will now be available to other departments on the understanding it can be spent by the end of March.
The figures were revealed to the Stormont Agriculture Committee on Tuesday - leading to a heated debate over the lateness of the submission and the failure to utilise some of the money elsewhere within the department.
MLAs were angry that the paper before them had already been sent to the DFP for consideration before they had been given the opportunity to scrutinise it and pointed out that a number of other papers had in the past been slow to be passed to the committee.
As a result, Permanent Secretary Dr Malcolm McKibbin is to be asked to appear before members in the new year to explain why documents were late appearing and to discuss way of improving the situation.
The total reduced requirements being declared by the department amounts to £4.727 million.
The bulk of this money, almost £3.4 million, is being saved from its "Other Resource" kitty, amounting to two per cent of this budget.
This is being achieved by giving up almost £2 million that had been set aside for potential Common Agricultural Policy disallowance.
DARD Finance Director John Smith told MLAs that Northern Ireland was vigorously defending its position with the EU and that no disallowance was expected to come through in the current financial year.
He added: "We trust that DFP will recognise the positive intent behind the original allocation and this move, and will take that into account in the event that disallowance materialises in the future."
Another £600,000 from the EU Veterinary Fund is being returned to DFP, along with £500,000 that should have been spent on the Badger Prevalence Survey.
Officials said the survey, including a badger cull, had been delayed with the business case - submitted to DFP in June - still yet to be approved.

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December 11th 2009
November 27th 2009