NIC-ICTU is calling on the Northern Ireland Office to take immediate and decisive action to address the deepening funding crisis facing the community and voluntary sector.
Speaking after a rally of voluntary sector groups at Stormont, ICTU Assistant General Secretary Gerry Murphy said:
the immediate issue which urgently needs to be addressed is the threat to the employment of 400 people dedicated to delivering essential frontline services that individuals, families, and communities rely on every day.
In particular, many of these projects are designed to tackle economic inactivity, which we are regularly told is unsustainably high in Northern Ireland. The threat emanates from Westminster, and not the NI Executive and Assembly. The new Local Growth Fund has a rigid set of criteria which do not fit with the facts on the ground here.
This Fund is the political descendant of the EU’s Funding for social inclusion and infrastructure, which used to depend upon local input from the start, with implementation bodies representative of local politicians, business, trade union and the voluntary sector. Since Brexit, that local expertise has been discarded and replaced with Rule by Fiat from Whitehall, the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government.
We agree with the voluntary sector experts who argue for not seeking additional funding but instead are calling for an urgent revision of the funding split, protection of services through 2026/27, and a credible, co-designed funding model from 2027/28.
A capital-heavy model is unworkable in Northern Ireland, where need is predominantly revenue-based. The proposed split is misaligned with Northern Ireland’s needs, evidence base and current service landscape, where barriers to work are complex and multifaceted. The trade unions who represent workers in those service providers and whose lives are facing unnecessary disruption from a Whitehall accounting exercise are joining the call for the NIO and MHCLG to:
- Revise the capital-to-revenue split for Local Growth Fund delivery to reflect Northern Ireland’s evidence-based needs
- Protect existing services through 2026/27, avoiding collapse during the transition period
- Commit to a genuinely co-designed, sustainable funding model from 2027/28, grounded in local expertise and focused on people-centred outcomes.
