Stormont's former caretaker ministers made more than £435million of spending decisions in their last eight months in office which senior civil servants refused to endorse.
Fourteen ministerial directions - formal instructions to overrule advice from senior Stormont accounting officers - were issued between February and October, details obtained by Belfast Live show.
It emerges amid warnings of a multi-million-pound "black hole" in Stormont's finances as the UK government moves to set a budget in the absence of a power-sharing Executive.
