As a peer mentor and later a manager at the charity Youth Action (YA) in Derry, in Northern Ireland, Emma Johnston has witnessed first-hand the impact of austerity cuts on communities and the challenges organisations such as hers face in providing services with fewer resources. More recently, Johnston, who has been with the charity for 13 years, says funding issues triggered by the impasse in Northern Ireland politics following the breakdown of power-sharing talks last month have taken a fresh toll on the voluntary sector and public services. “There is a ripple effect across the community and voluntary sector,” she says. “Everyone has taken a hit”.

After 10 years of a devolved administration at Stormont, Northern Ireland has been without a functioning government since January. Voluntary and community groups that receive government funding on a year-to-year basis face financial uncertainty and many have had to warn staff that they could lose their jobs.

Youth Action supports thousands of young people aged 16 to 25 across Northern Ireland through arts programmes and employment training. With around a fifth of young people in Northern Ireland out of work – the worst youth unemployment figures in the UK – providing services for young men without basic life skills is particularly pressing, according to Johnston. Working mainly with young women from disadvantaged backgrounds, from helping them prepare for jobs to dealing with mental health issues. She argues that a spotlight needs to be put on the threats to services.

Johnston’s concerns reflect those across the voluntary and public sectors, which employ tens of thousands of people in the country. The deadlock at Stormont occurred before its annual budget or “Programme for Government” strategy was agreed for the financial year 2017-18, generating widespread uncertainty about the funding services would receive.

The umbrella organisation for Northern Ireland’s voluntary and community sector, the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (Nicva) reported recently that it had “major concerns” about the impact of the lack of an agreed budget on its member organisations. Around 40,000 people work in the sector, many delivering public services to those most in need.

Nicva launched a “funding watch” survey and results published in March showed 88% of its 1,054 members were operating without confirmation of statutory funding for 2017-18. Forty-three percent of those who replied reported that they expected to make redundancies in the face of uncertain revenues, while almost a third (31%) confirmed they had already had to put staff on notice of potential redundancy.

For those organisations surveyed by Nicva which rely on co-funding that requires statutory contributions before other funding is released, for example EU grants, there is additional instability.

Until the political impasse is resolved, the civil service is acting in a caretaker capacity to make sure services receive funding, but it has limited powers under the law over spending. This, as public sector unions and voluntary organisations have been pointing out, is far from ideal. The volatility is made worse by the fact that no one is sure if the devolved government will reconvene any time soon, or if direct rule from Westminster will be imposed. The Northern Ireland secretary, James Brokenshire, has put Stormont talks on hold until 29 June, after the UK general election.

An additional factor, according to Owen Reidy, the assistant general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in Northern Ireland, is that civil servants aren’t able to make decisions in response to changing demand for services. In the absence of a budget they are restricted to 95% of the previous financial year’s spend, which represents a real-term cut in funding .

Against this backdrop, services – including some for the most vulnerable in society, are in the firing line. The repercussions are being felt in areas ranging from housing to health. Alarm bells sounded last month, for example, when the Supporting People budget, which helps around 20,000 vulnerable people with housing-related needs, was reduced by almost £3m. Nicola McCrudden, director of the Chartered Institute of Housing Northern Ireland, was reported as saying that the cut poses a “real risk” to the near-900 Supporting People services.

Meanwhile, warnings about the impact on public services from the lack of a new budget have come from across the political spectrum, with some professional organisations saying that vital decisions on healthcare can’t be made. Lengthening hospital waiting lists and failures to meet targets for cancer referrals are among the areas being highlighted. So too is pressure on mental health provision.

Geoff Nuttall, Nicva’s director of strategy, explains that when set against the wider context of “momentous changes” about to be unleashed by Brexit, the latest political stalemate is all the more concerning. Nuttall says it places organisations, including many that deliver essential public services such as support for emergency services, in an extremely precarious position, potentially affecting thousands of service users. He stresses too that voluntary and community groups in Northern Ireland already operate in a system of annual statutory funding cycles that limit longer-term planning. Now he says they must contend with “a stay of execution” with three months’ funding approved until the end of June – a short-term sticking plaster in the absence of an agreed Northern Ireland budget.

Services in Northern Ireland are already reeling from austerity policies, welfare changes and job cuts

Another third sector umbrella organisation, C03, produces a quarterly index based on a survey of more than 500 bosses from across the sector. The index for the first quarter of 2017, published in partnership with Ulster Bank, highlighted how deep the worries run. It found that 44% of third sector leaders believed their funding was threatened by the absence of a budget. Nora Smith, the charity’s chief executive, says the latest figures “reflect a sombre picture”. Compared with the same quarter in 2016, when 26% of respondents thought political instability would worsen, Smith points out that in 2017 the figure was almost three times that, at 75%.

Smith says there are multiple levels to the anxieties. Short-term delays would “inevitably create cashflow issues” for service providers, she explains. “The piecemeal approach does not support anybody’s interests. Insecurity about the future, including your own and your staff’s employment, impacts on the morale of organisations.”

Crucially, Smith says, the uncertainty heaps further pressure on the third sector and public service providers. As with their counterparts elsewhere in the UK, services in Northern Ireland are already reeling from austerity policies, welfare changes and job cuts.

“There is also a deep level of anxiety that as the current programme of austerity continues, coupled with threats of further cuts in budgets … the sector will be at the coalface of cuts and disproportionately impacted,” Smith adds. “This is bad news for our member organisations, but even worse for the many thousands who are dependent on the effective delivery of the services we provide.”

Goretti Horgan, a lecturer in social policy at Ulster University, says the current situation is a “perfect storm” for services and those who use them. Northern Ireland has much higher levels of poverty and lower average wages than most of the UK, as well as a high reliance on public sector jobs. This makes the timing of the latest impasse critical, she points out. While demand for services, such as mental health and support for low-income families, has risen in response to austerity, providers are struggling, she says. In addition, unease about a Tory landslide emboldening the Westminster government to impose more cuts as it continues to try to shrink the state needs to be factored in, Horgan concludes.

The Northern Ireland Department for Communities says funding for existing public services has been maintained as a result of contingency arrangements put in place in the wake of the devolved government dissolving. “The department appreciates the difficulty that uncertainty about the budget has caused and has, along with the Department of Finance, engaged fully with sector representatives to seek to mitigate this as far as possible,” says a DfC spokeswoman.

Since the announcement by Brokenshire, the DfC has been working to “firm up its spending plans”, she adds. “We expect to shortly provide more certainty on funding for the sector for the remainder of this financial year.”

Such assurances may be welcome, but until a new devolved government and a budget is in place providers and service users alike face an unpredictable future.

Back in Derry, Johnston says that organisations have responded to the current funding issues with “more partnership working”. Nevertheless, for the services and the young people they support, the threats are considerable. She warns: “We’re talking about mental health. We’re talking about young people’s access to employment opportunities, youth services and youth spaces.”