Funding and how to secure it
6.8 Ensuring any necessary resources are available is key to making policy happen.
When developing a policy you must always be aware of the cost implications of policy implementation and the need to achieve best value for money.
Where policies do not involve significant public expenditure, there may still be implementation costs for the administration and compliance costs for individuals
and organisations, which need to be considered and justified.
6.9 The project planning process described in Chapter 3 will help you to judge
whether you have the necessary resources to support the development of policy. However, the cost of the policy implementation can often be many times more
than the cost of the internal resources.
6.10 Departments Finance Divisions are the first port of call for advice on financing
policy solutions. They should be involved in policy development at the earliest possible stage and kept up to date throughout the process. Early engagement
with DFP through the Departmental Finance Division is in turn important, given DFPs approval role in relation to new or contentious proposals. The key point,
however, is that the business case for a policy must stand up in its own terms. Funding should follow policy, rather than policy being skewed, for example, by
the availability of funding from external sources. If a policy is decided to be of sufficient priority by departmental Ministers and subsequently by the Executive
on the basis of the evidence, the resources will be found. Conversely, as there will never be sufficient funding to do everything that is desirable, Ministers and
in turn the Executive need to be in a position to take strategic decisions about policy priorities involving both new and existing policies. That could mean
ending existing activities which are no longer necessary in order to allow new priorities to be taken forward.
6.11 It is important for policy staff to be aware that there is no automatic read-across
from additional funding allocations made in England to comparable programmes in Northern Ireland. While additional funds come to the Northern Ireland block
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under the Barnett formula, the Executive, or, under Direct Rule, the Secretary of State
determines the allocation of the overall budget on the basis of the competing priorities from all the
departments, in tandem with the development of the Programme for Government. Nonetheless, in
many cases there will be a public expectation that the Northern Ireland administration will respond to
funding increases or new programmes in England. It is therefore important to keep in touch with
counterpart Whitehall Departments to monitor their
Ensuring any necessary
policy developments and assess how to respond.
resources are available is key to making policy
happen. When developing
Legal advice
a policy you must always be aware of the cost
6.12 As your policy-making process proceeds, it
