Civil servants being "forced to play the role of minister" with Stormont budget cuts is "indefensible", a senior official has said.
The permanent secretary in a Stormont department said the UK government's "refusal to act in a timely fashion is making matters needlessly worse".
Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris is due to set a Northern Ireland budget in the absence of local ministers, with some departments potentially facing cuts as large as 10%.
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Permanent secretaries, the most senior civil servants who usually advise ministers, have been left running the Stormont Executive's nine departments in the continuing absence of a power-sharing government.
Since last year the DUP has been blocking the restoration of the devolved institutions in protest against post-Brexit trading arrangements with Great Britain under the Northern Ireland Protocol.
An unnamed permanent secretary expressed frustration at having to make significant spending decisions in the absence of ministers.
They told Politico: "I shouldn't be forced to play the role of minister. It's an affront to democracy and it's politically indefensible.
"Locally elected ministers must be taking these deeply consequential decisions if the power-sharing element of the Good Friday Agreement is to mean anything anymore."
The senior civil servant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added: "As long as power-sharing is not working, London needs to take its own responsibilities seriously.
"Its refusal to act in a timely fashion is making matters needlessly worse. We’re doing damage to so many lives. It's truly shameful."
Last week Mr Heaton-Harris said he hoped to set a budget for Northern Ireland "fairly soon".
The Northern Ireland secretary said he has been working with the Civil Service since January to decide how to spend the £14.2billion allocated.
Former Finance Minister and Sinn Féin MLA Conor Murphy had said the UK government had an opportunity to offset a deficit by spreading it over a number of years, but instead opted for a "punishment budget".
Mr Heaton-Harris denied this, but said it would be a "tough budget", pointing to a "£660million black hole" left by the last Executive in 2022.
He said that "Northern Ireland needs to live within its budget, just like England, Scotland and Wales".
Mr Murphy last week said the budget cuts would cause "very significant damage" and criticised the DUP for blocking power-sharing.
However DUP MLA Gordon Lyons, who served as Economy Minister, said the budgetary problems were the result of a £300million overspend and could not be fixed by returning to the Executive.
"The reality is that because of the failure to set a budget last year, there was time but the Sinn Féin finance minister failed to get support for a budget, and that meant there was a £300 million overspend last year," he said.
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