The Secretary of State has denied his flat-cash budget for Northern Ireland is a "punishment" for Stormont's power-sharing impasse.
Chris Heaton-Harris outlined a funding settlement broadly in line with last year's budget, with the total down 0.4% on 2022-23.
Two Stormont departments had slight increases for 2023-24 while seven had their baselines cut.
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But with soaring inflation and other pressures including public sector pay demands, the budget is likely to have a more significant real-terms cut to public services.
Mr Heaton-Harris had responsibility for setting the budget due to Stormont's collapse as a result of a DUP boycott in protest against Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol.
The Secretary of State met the five main Stormont parties at Hillsborough Castle to discuss the budget.
Speaking afterwards, he said the settlement was better than expected due to Treasury "flexibility" on the timeframe for repaying an almost £300million Stormont overspend from last year.
Asked whether the budget was a punishment for the lack of a power-sharing Executive, he said: "The purpose was not to punish anybody with this budget.
"The purpose of this budget is to make sure public services can continue in the absence of an Executive.
"Now I do want to see an Executive up and running and that's why we continue to have talks with the DUP representatives and let’s see where they lead to."
Sinn Féin former Finance Minister Conor Murphy said: "If the idea of this is to punish the DUP for not being in the Executive, the only people who will suffer as a consequence of this will be people who rely on public services or people who deliver public services."
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson expressed concern the Government was "playing politics with public services".
"I think it is wrong for the Government to punish people in Northern Ireland," he said.
He added: "I think it is regrettable if this budget is being used to play politics with our public services. No-one should be doing that."
It had been expected a £297million advance to help plug an overspend last year would be deducted from this year's budget.
But Mr Heaton-Harris said the money would be drawn back in other ways and potentially spread over two years.
He said it could be repaid using any future in-year funds allocated to Northern Ireland by the Government through the Barnett process.
And if that was not enough to cover the cost, the remainder could be taken from other Government planned spending projects in Northern Ireland or recouped in the next financial year.
The total non ring-fenced resource budget for day-to-day costs in 2023-24 is £14.211billion - down from £14.269billion the previous year.
The overall budget for capital projects is up slightly from £2.05bn to £2.24bn.
Department of Health funding was raised slightly to £7.3bn, as was funding for the Department for Infrastructure.
The other seven departments received non ring-fenced spending reductions ranging from 1.4% to 4.4%.
While Mr Heaton-Harris has distributed the block grant among the departments, he will not be taking spending decisions needed within individual departments.
Stormont permanent secretaries say they should not be put in the position of having to impose significant cuts and say such decisions should be taken by democratically elected politicians.
Mr Heaton-Harris also tabled legislation on Thursday that seeks to extend decision-making powers given to civil servants in the continued absence of local ministers.
The Bill also gives Stormont officials the ability to undertake preparatory work such as public consultations for potentially introducing new revenue-raising measures in Northern Ireland.
It would not empower the Secretary of State to introduce such measures in Northern Ireland, with the Government instead aiming to enable decisions to be taken more quickly by a restored Executive.
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