As the chancellor prepares to deliver the budget today, Ministry of Justice officials have revealed the growing financial pressures they face due to the Ministry of Justice being an ‘unprotected’ department.
Appearing before the House of Commons justice select committee yesterday, senior civil servants from the ministry were asked about contingency arrangements to identify areas where they might have to cope with additional budgetary pressures.
Permanent secretary Antonia Romeo replied: ‘I strongly suspect we will have to cope with additional pressures because not only are we an unprotected department, but we are also a department on whom the demand is increasing, not decreasing, because of flows into the system.
‘In particular areas, we have already been fortunate with the Treasury, working with them to identify some extra money that might help on certain things. So you might have seen the justice system as a whole has been awarded £170m until 2029 on [HM Treasury’s public sector productivity drive], the new money announced yesterday. We obviously have to look all the time at our budget and these involve really difficult choices. We’re doing that at the moment in the context of allocations for 24/25.’
The committee heard that staffing accounts for 41% of the ministry’s cost base, 9% is property, 13% is contracts and 17% is legal aid.
‘There are large areas of funding which are not discretionary,’ Romeo said. ‘If you are running a system like a prison system or a court system, although you want to make it as productive as possible, nonetheless there is a certain cost attached to that. There are areas of discretionary spend, but those are areas with some of the most important spending, for example money on rehabilitation and reducing reoffending, money on support for victims. It is very difficult in a budget like ours to find places to go.’
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