Stormont Roads Division boss says one third staff vacancies affecting work capacity

The Stormont Roads Division has given a frank confessional at Belfast City Hall explaining that staff vacancies of nearly a third are slowing down its work on roads across the city.

At a special Belfast City Council committee meeting this week, representatives for the Department of Infrastructure Roads Division admitted that staffing pressures were its greatest challenge and meant essential maintenance had to be prioritised.

At the council’s City Growth and Regeneration Committee, during an annual report presentation, DfI Roads Eastern Division manager Des McFarlane told councillors: “The 2024/25 budget remains challenging, however the Finance Minister announced additional resources in capital funding for the department. The Infrastructure Minister is currently considering how that allocation can be prioritised.

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“The department continues to prioritise essential front line services. The initial capital funding of £89 million has been allocated primarily to structural maintenance, and that will help to deliver the high priority road resurfacing and drainage works.”

He added: “For many years the department has operated with a constrained resource budget, and this continues to be the case. It means we have to prioritise essential services.

“This means the department will continue to operate a limited service policy for routine maintenance activity such as road defects and grass cutting. At present we have a full street lighting service and that will continue into 2024/25.”

Mr McFarlane went on: “The Division is continuing to face significant staffing pressures, which are impacting on our ability to deliver all elements of our work. In an effort to maximise our effectiveness, I would strongly encourage councillors to report road defects using the DfI online reporting facility provided by NI Direct. My operational teams are of course available to assist with emergency and public safety related issues.”

He told councillors: “To give you a feel for the challenge we have at the minute - the Division is currently operating 40 professional technical vacancies. That is a vacancy rate of about 29 percent.

“At Tech grade, which includes the road inspectors, that vacancy rate has increased to 44 percent. Our industrial workforce has an overall vacancy rate of about 32 percent, and our consultants, who basically design, deliver and supervise our resurfacing schemes have a vacancy rate of 33 percent.

“We can mitigate to some extent by redeploying staff to safety critical posts, but unfortunately in these circumstances we don’t have staff always available to attend external meetings, as we would have done in the past.”

He said: “All of this is happening when there is an increased demand for the services that we provide. Much of this additional work will affect how Belfast and NI prepares for a carbon neutral future.

“In addition to our normal activities, staff are working or advising on important initiatives such the Eastern Transport Plan, the Belfast Rapid Transport plan BRT2, and sustainable travel. On the development of Belfast Grand Central station, we are advising on the fine design and the temporary traffic management, especially in relation to the current closure of Durham Street.”

He said: “I am telling you this so you can fully appreciate the pressures that our staff are under, and why we are not always able to respond as quickly, either by phone or in correspondence, because we are under immense pressure at a time when we have such a high vacancy rate.”

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