AROUND 30 vacant posts in the Stormont assembly are not being filled.
The body which runs Parliament Buildings has endorsed a decision not to replace staff who have left to take up other jobs through ill-health or retirement.
The gaps are mainly administrative officers and IT support for MLAs, who have not passed legislation for 20 months.
Because of Stormont's absence, the Assembly Commission has also approved the secondment of about 70 civil servants to other bodies.
Some are working for the devolved administrations in Edinburgh and Cardiff and a few in Westminster, but could be recalled at short notice.
Commission members do not believe there would be a shortfall of essential staff if there were moves in the near future leading to the restoration of devolution.
Assembly Commission member and Alliance MLA Stewart Dickson said: "In my view this has been extremely well managed by the senior management of the assembly.
"It would only become an issue if too many people had left and not been replaced and in any event no-one forsees a deal between the DUP and Sinn Féin anytime soon."
DUP MLA Jim Wells, who is also a commission member, added: "We would have to recruit quite quickly if we came to a crunch point in the short to medium term.
"But in fact there is a very good system for dealing with the secondment of staff and management have experience of this from the last assembly suspension between 2002 and 2007."