More than £3m raised by fines and fees paid by Northern Ireland motorists to cover crucial elements of road safety was sent unspent to the Treasury over the last five years.
The PSNI-led NI Road Safety Partnership, responsible for the deployment of cameras and the administration of speeding offences, sent the money to London because of government restrictions how it could be spent.
Details of the £3.2m underspend, including close to £500,000 last year and nearly £1m in 2022, emerged on the same day figures confirmed last year as the worst for deaths and serious injuries in close to a decade.
The 71 fatalities was a 22% increase on the previous year, while 951 were killed or seriously injured, one of the highest for over a decade.
As the SDLP described the underspend as “unforgiveable”, the PSNI revealed it has lobbied for a loosening of the restrictions on spending so no money will be wasted. It has been successful, the police said.
“Recognising the partnership’s inability to spend within these existing guidelines, NIRSP has been lobbying local government and the Home Office for broader expenditure parameters,” a PSNI spokesperson said.
“With the assistance of DOJ, these wider parameters have recently been forthcoming and, as a result, NIRSP has developed a 2024/2025 investment plan and is in the process of recruiting a project manager.
“These steps, and others, will seek to maximise expenditure in this and future financial years. Where possible, and again within the guidelines, NIRSP will also look for opportunities to support implementation of the Northern Ireland Road Safety Strategy.”
SDLP MLA Mark Durkan, the party’s spokesman on infrastructure and a member of the Policing Board, said that “even one penny of underspend at a time when the Executive parties decry Whitehall for decimated budgets is unforgivable”.
“From 2016 to 2022, road safety advertising benefitted from over £1m in campaign expenditure year on year. The total allocated funding for 2022/23 stood at £0. Which makes the return of £3.2 million for road safety initiatives all the more deplorable,” Mr Durkan said.
“I’m acutely aware that budgets have been decimated right across the board - in terms of roads safety, we see that in the PSNI reduction of the number of dedicated road and traffic officers and the decimation of our road infrastructure which has placed road users at risk.”
The partnership, which has representatives from the police, the courts and the government, is entirely funded by fines and fees from fixed penalty notice, is currently responsible for cameras and administration of speeding offences.
But it aims now to become involved in changing attitudes towards speeding and try to reduce road traffic casualties through education and by detecting speed at locations with a history of collisions and where there is evidence of speeding, the PSNI said.
Chief Superintendent Sam Donaldson, chair of NIRSP, said: “The Road Safety Partnership is committed to reducing the number of collisions and casualties on our roads by preventing and detecting speeding offences.
“The purpose of safety camera deployments, whether by fixed cameras or in our mobile road safety vans, is to slow drivers’ speeds and keep everyone safer on the roads. The vans are deployed to locations across Northern Ireland where there is a proven history of collisions, or where the local community has requested speed enforcement action.”