FINANCE Minister Arlene Foster says the Executive is unable to access the £700 million funding for the voluntary exit scheme due to the impasse over the Stormont House Agreement.

Approximately 500 Fermanagh civil servants received an application for the scheme back in March, including employees in Enniskillen Jobs and Benefits office, Roads Service, the Driver and Vehicle Agency and local Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD).

But Minister Foster, a Fermanagh-south Tyrone MLA, told the Assembly on Tuesday that the scheme and the money required to fund it “are key elements of the Stormont House Agreement” and added: “At present we are unable to access that funding.” “That has significant implications for the Executive’s Budget, the budgets of public-sector bodies and, importantly, the individuals affected,” she said.

Minister Foster was then asked by the UUP’s Sandra Overend to outline how much the delay on implementing the voluntary exit scheme is costing the Executive.

“There are two aspects to the voluntary exit scheme. We have been allocated £700 million under the Stormont House Agreement to allow people to apply to the scheme. As the Member will know, over 7,200 people from the Civil Service applied. The head of the Civil Service has sent out the first tranche of conditional letters to 1,200 people. Those letters indicate their offer, that they could leave at the end of September but that is conditional on our being able to access the £200 million for this year.

“It is important that those people be allowed to leave in a timely manner because Departments have factored in savings from the pay bills of those leaving. Pay bill reductions will come into their savings plans, so there are two sides to it. It is very important that we can proceed with the voluntary exit scheme,” said Minister Foster.

She will bring forward her budget to the Assembly on Tuesday, following a supply resolutions debate in the Assembly on Monday. A spokeswoman for the Department of Finance and Personnel told Stormont Files that the Bill will make provision for the balance of money and resources required to reflect the departmental spending plans in the 2015-16 Main Estimates which, in turn, are based on the Executive’s 2015-16 Budget, which was published in January 2015.

Minister Foster told the Assembly: “The budget that I am bringing forward is a budget that is based on the full implementation of the Stormont House Agreement. Therefore, the people who are not standing by the Stormont House Agreement have to look at themselves and ask themselves why they are not standing by their commitments in the Stormont House Agreement.

“To do otherwise will cause grave difficulties to public services in Northern Ireland. There are two choices if the Budget goes ahead: either the Westminster Government will have to implement welfare reform or those who have turned their face against welfare reform will have to deal with it. Those are the choices ahead of us,” she said.