Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr McKay): I welcome Aideen McGinley, the co-chair of the Roundtable; Peter Doran and John Woods, members and Carnegie Associates of Queen's University's School of Law; and Theresa Donaldson, who is a member of the Roundtable and is chief executive of Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council. I ask you to update us on the group's progress and the upcoming report.

Ms Aideen McGinley (Carnegie UK Trust): First, Chairman, I wish to thank you in a personal capacity for your leadership on this issue way back from the original conference. Members will remember the little booklet that was produced; you will have had copies of it before. We can get you copies of it if you have not received one. You and the Minister did the foreword to the booklet, Chairman. No later than last Tuesday, you very kindly addressed the chief executive's forum, which was a briefing that we gave to the public service. We were delighted to be invited here this morning to bring you up to date on the Roundtable's progress. I wish to pass on apologies from Martyn, the chief executive of the Carnegie Trust, who was with you last time but unfortunately, at short notice, was not available to be here. As co-chair with Martyn Evans, I am delighted to present an update today.

We have been very busy since the last time we met you. We have held four Roundtables. You have met Peter and John before in their capacities in the law school at Queen's University, which has been doing the Trojan work of wading through huge amounts of evidence. As Assembly Members, you will know what that is like. Indeed, a technical document will be available on the Carnegie Trust's website; it is running to over 100 pages as we speak. That, in itself, tells you the quantum of evidence. They have been wonderful, along with the Carnegie Trust team in Scotland, in supporting the Roundtable. I want to thank Theresa for coming along as a member of the Roundtable, which, in itself, is a cross-section of representatives from business, the public sector, some public servants in a personal capacity, the community and voluntary sector, health and education and has a range of expertise at the table.

We have met four times in 2014 and 2015 to evolve the work. In addition, we were very conscious that this is a whole-systems approach. It is about well-being in the true sense of everything as you live life and to try to look at life in the round. We ran a series of focus groups across Northern Ireland with elderly people, young people and ethnic minority groups. We invited expert witnesses to present to the Roundtable and we had written evidence from organisations, including the OECD, the New Economics Foundation and the Scottish Government's performance unit. We had a range of conversations with trade unions, business, the voluntary and community sectors and individuals.

Indeed, one of the most important milestones for the Roundtable itself was a visit to Edinburgh at the invitation of the Scottish Government in June 2014, where the Deputy First Minister John Swinney very kindly hosted us and gave us a very honest and inspiring insight into how Scotland, as our near neighbour, has applied an outcomes-based approach to well-being in terms of the their performance framework. We learned a lot from that and we felt that there was a real opportunity to take the best of the Scottish system. They were very honest that not all of it works and that a lot of things need ironed out, but there are lessons that we could gain from that very quickly.

We feel that the time is right. Coming up in the car this morning and listening to the radio, I heard well-being featuring a couple of times in the health debates and in the training for members of local government in well-being and community planning. In that context, we are very aware that the next Programme for Government is coming up as well as the public sector reform programme and local government reform with the power of community planning. There is also austerity and there is a need to prioritise our decisions in a meaningful way. We are looking to see whether we can develop this outcomes-based approach so that we measure what matters. I know that is of particular relevance and interest to this Committee. It is about improving well-being and helping policy development in that climate and then looking to next steps. We hope to report at the beginning of March to the Executive with a report and recommendations.

Without further ado, I am going to introduce colleagues to give you a little bit more flavour of our findings. Peter will start by looking at the narrative and framework.

Dr Peter Doran (Queen's University Belfast): I would like to make three comments. The first is about the backstory to what we are doing around the well-being agenda. I will talk a little bit about what we mean by well-being in this particular context and that what we are really talking about is societal well-being. Finally, I will talk about scrutiny.

You could say that there is a global dimension to this: a global conversation is being driven by organisations like the OECD and the UN and there is also a local dimension. There is a real appetite for some of the implications of this work in our own systems of governance. Globally, this conversation goes back, in part, to 2009 and to the Stiglitz Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. Sometimes it is called GDP Plus. How do you move from a focus on a single economic production-based indicator serving as a proxy — a rather weak one — for measuring the well-being of our societies to a richer, more textured baseline of information that allows you to look at the real impacts of policy and the real needs of society and the real choices that people are making and that are valuable to them?

Locally, the agenda also implies a series of transitions or reforms in how we approach policy design. For example, a more preventive approach or a more collaborative approach across Departments with people working together, not simply to gain efficiencies but to reimagine some of the problems that we are trying to address: some of the wicked problems around the environment or finance, for example.

The journey that we have been on in the Roundtable over the past 12 months has been quite a revelation. It is clear that the implications of the well-being agenda, insofar as they take us towards a more collaborative and more outcomes-focused approach to policy and measuring impact, a more evidence-based approach, greater transparency, greater engagement and understanding from the public, a greater range of think tanks and inputs to the policy process and partnership at the levels of policymaking are that there is a real appetite and readiness across the public sector to take this agenda forward. People are simply waiting for the mandates and cues in their Departments, in local government and in partner organisations. In a sense, the momentum is there, and what we are offering is the linchpin that will allow some of those aspirations, which are already there in the public sector, to move forward. We want to fire the starting pistol and are offering one way to do that, which is the framework.

What is societal well-being? Well-being is normally associated with physical and mental health. Societal well-being, of course, includes those things, but we were informed by the work of the thinker Amartya Sen, who sat on the commission with Joseph Stiglitz. For him, well-being is not a highly prescriptive, detailed definition but consists of two things: it is those functions that we all value, whether it is good relationships, access to a good, secure source of employment, health, mental health or a good environment — it is the things that we do and want to be; it is also about the capabilities — all those structural elements that allow for the freedom to pursue those lives that we value. There are important determinants of those freedoms to pursue the lives that we value, which include equality, a healthy economy and democracy.

It is interesting that the societal well-being model also harks back to some of the stories that emerged in Northern Ireland over the past few years, such as the Prince's Trust research that reported this time last year, and the depression, self-harm and suicidal tendencies in our young people linked very explicitly to their experience of being excluded from the job market. Another interesting dimension of societal well-being is the way in which Sen talks about the way in which the health of our democracy and the quality of our participation is in itself a contributor and a reflection of our societal well-being. So, this agenda is a means and an end. It is about engaging in a healthy way in our democratic process and contributing to it as well.

Finally, one thing that we tracked very closely in the Scottish experience is the role of scrutiny. The framework is increasingly becoming a centrepiece for the Finance Committee. In the latest draft Budget, there was a two-year aggregate assessment of all the outcomes across government to assist the Finance Committee in its scrutiny and tracking of the outcomes, and the Finance Committee recommended to all the Committees in the Scottish Parliament that they use the scorecards based on the analysis derived from the framework. So, it is becoming an accessible and striking part of the scrutiny process. They are not only measuring the information around outcomes. The backstory in Scotland, and potentially here, is all the changes in the way that we do things, such as the shifts in institution and the shifts in culture that need to accompany this agenda. So, in many ways, we are scrutinising the effectiveness of those reforms in the system that support the framework as well.

Mr John Woods (Queen's University Belfast): Peter talked about the framework, and perhaps the centrepiece of the Roundtable's report is the proposal for a well-being framework. We see that framework as having three essential characteristics. It would be shared across the whole of government and across parties. It will be long term in its vision and will be clearly focused on outcomes. While the Roundtable started its work by looking at the business of measurement, we swiftly concluded that a relentless focus on achieving well-being outcomes was the priority, and that approach has clearly resonated with just about everyone we have spoken to. Perhaps one of the things that the Roundtable has tapped into is a growing feeling that inputs, outputs and targets are all very well but, if they do not produce results that make a difference to people's lives, we need to take a new approach that ensures that all those inputs and outputs lead to an end result. So, we looked at work in the area by OECD and the Office for National Statistics, but we were particularly struck by the Scottish national performance framework, Scotland Performs. Although our proposals are rather different from the Scottish framework, looking more closely at it is a good guide to the Roundtable's thinking. So, in the words of the Scottish Government, the national performance framework is:

I ask members to look at the final two pages of the briefing note that we supplied. You will see that the Scottish framework is succinctly presented and headed "National Performance Framework". At the apex of that framework, at the top of the page, sits an overarching statement of purpose to which the whole of government across Scotland is committed. For Northern Ireland, we are proposing that well-being is the agreed collective purpose of government. So, the key element of the first page is that list of 16 national outcomes, and they are long term and cut across more than one Department. Progress on those outcomes is measured by indicators that are shown on the other side of the page, and those indicators are publicly available and are used the present performance scorecards to parliamentary Committees. As Peter mentioned, that is an aid to scrutiny.

The point here is that all parts of government are aligned behind these outcomes; it is not one or two outcomes per Department. A number of Departments and agencies may have a role in shifting just one indicator, collectively or separately. Collaboration and that ever-elusive joined-up working are the prizes that now seem to be within the grasp of government in Scotland. So, the Roundtable is strongly of the opinion that the forthcoming Programme for Government, and future Programmes for Government, is an opportunity to implement this kind of collaborative approach so that the 2016-2020 Programme for Government reflects long-term shared outcomes and aligns the entire public sector, and beyond, in making progress towards outcomes that will make a real difference to the lives of citizens.

Dr Theresa Donaldson (Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council): I will try to link what you have just heard to the reform of local government. The Committee will be well aware that local government reform will culminate in the reduction of local councils from 26 to 11 on 1 April 2015 and that the Local Government Act is in place. From 1 April, the new authorities will have planning powers transferred and will have a statutory duty to initiate, maintain and participate in community planning for their districts. The community planning foundation programme, produced by the Department of the Environment, in partnership with local government, provided the definition:

While there have been good practice examples of cross-agency collaboration in Northern Ireland, there is general agreement that the statutory obligation that is placed on the new councils provides a different and exciting opportunity to develop citizen-focused services in a way not experienced in Northern Ireland. While community planning powers are new to Northern Ireland, similar powers were introduced to Scotland in 2003. There, it is recognised that community planning has an important role in the Scottish Government's outcomes-based approach to delivering their objectives. The Scottish Government's national performance framework underpins that approach. As you heard, the framework sets out the Scottish Government's purpose, strategic objectives and the national outcomes that they want to achieve, with national indicators that track progress towards the achievement of the national outcomes.

In 2007, the Scottish Government fundamentally changed the relationship between central and local government through a single outcome agreement. Those agreements set specific shared outcomes for community planning partnerships, bringing together health services, councils, fire, police, the voluntary sector and community representation. Single outcome agreements are based on the national performance framework, but with local flexibility allowing community planning partnerships to focus on locally determined priorities. On agreement of the outcomes, financing is agreed with no ring-fencing from the Scottish Government. A concordat between the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) — for which, I think we can read the Northern Ireland Local Government Association (NILGA) — was agreed, setting out the terms of the new relationship based on mutual respect and partnership. The single outcome agreement guidance states that the direction provided by the national performance framework is central to community planning and that single outcome agreements should demonstrate how local outcomes relate to one or more of the national outcomes.

While it is clear that huge strides have been made in the 10 years since community planning was introduced to Scotland, the Scots are the first to accept that there is still a distance to go. Following a review of community planning, as part of a review of the future delivery of public services in 2011, the Scottish Government and COSLA published a shared statement of ambition which put community planning at the heart of an outcomes-based approach to public services in Scotland and made it clear that effective community planning arrangements would be at the core of public services reform. A national community planning group was established to play a pivotal role in implementing and communicating the overarching vision for community planning and single outcome agreements by identifying and addressing issues that have a national dimension and building the skills and capacities of partnerships. That was in 2012.

In 2014, Audit Scotland published a report, 'Community planning: Turning ambition into action'. It drew together key learning from a number of audits on community planning partnerships. Some of the lessons learned, which we in Northern Ireland need to listen carefully to, concern the need for leadership, scrutiny and challenge, and the need to be more consistent and to have a clearer focus on how community planning will improve outcomes for specific communities and reduce the gap in outcomes between the most and least deprived groups in Scotland.

Ms McGinley: That was a brief overview. I think that it shows the amount of information. We want to stress the appetite that there is for this. We have been very impressed by the energy behind the agenda. We feel that, with this work, we can help the Executive to take a next step towards a new approach that will help in the challenges of judging priorities when resources are limited, of what level of scrutiny to apply, of changing culture and of aligning central and local government. There is a one-off opportunity to do the joining up there and get right down to community level and also to create an opportunity for a wider community narrative. A lot of the councils are already setting out on survey work etc with the new areas and identities, and we feel that, if well-being is at the heart of this and we explain it and keep it simple and practical but effective, there is a real opportunity for the Executive to use this as a means for driving forward a lot of things that are now coming together.

The Chairperson (Mr McKay): Thank you, Aideen. First, I congratulate you on the work that you have done to date. There certainly is a lot more on the bones of this than there was this time last year. So, good luck with the rest of this particular journey.

Obviously, there are a lot of challenges in this, and part of the conversations that we had last week touched on this. Perhaps members and the public need to get their head around what well-being is. You could publish a document and have your objectives and aims, and it could sit on the shelf with all the other documents and strategies that we have had down the years. Key for me is the accountability mechanisms for the other key players in the public, the media and, of course, within government in terms of the civil servants and the leadership in the public sector.

I would be interested to hear more about the Scottish example because, obviously, this has been in operation for some time now. In Scotland, is this published quarterly? Is it one of the main items on the news that the indicators are going up or the indicators are going down? Also, you mentioned the Finance Committee there. How often does it look at the issue of well-being? Does it have officials up every quarter to look at the well-being and at the indicators, or is it spread across all the Departments in Scotland? How key was the decision that was taken by the head of the Civil Service to "de-silo" government in Scotland?

Ms McGinley: I will let John and Peter go into the detail, but one of the things that was really impressive on the study visit was the depth that this went into in Departments. For example, we looked at justice and children and young people as two areas of particular work. In each area, instead of measuring the number of police officers per budget, they were looking at levels of safety in communities and perceptions of safety. So, they completely changed the dynamic. You still had the number of police officers in the budget, but the actual outcome being looked for was different, so it was reframed. They worked it right down to division and operational level that reported through the Departments and then out into the departmental Committees and then into the Finance Committee.

We also had conversations with the Northern Ireland Audit Office and briefed it. It is very keen to work with us on a scrutiny focus. A lot of it is about a positive culture of lessons learnt and being held to account with clarity about what it is that we are being held to account to. A lot of this is about aligning Departments to work together instead of working in silos. For example, the area of children and young people straddles nearly every Department. How do you join all of that up? If they are given a single target, how does that all weave through? We saw detailed evidence of how they have managed to do it. They were very honest about where it did not work and where it had not worked, but what was most impressive was that they said, "So, this is what we did". One of the things that they mentioned was that they had not done enough at the outset. It was very honest of the Minister to admit that the SNP had not expected to win the election and that it only had two months in which to get a Programme for Government together so had nothing to lose.
There was a freedom in that, where they jumped in and said, "Right, we are going to go for this". They then said that, if you were doing it by the book, you would have done a massive consultation. So, seven years later, they are only starting to do some of the consulting and setting up some of the mechanisms like the leadership group that Theresa mentioned, which is new. If you were doing it by the book, those are the sorts of things that you might do in sequence. So, some of the lessons are to jump in and do it.

Peter and John have been immersed in the detail. Do you want to pick up on some of the questions posed?

Dr Doran: First, when we spoke to you last time, we suggested that you might consider a visit to the performance unit in Scotland. We have found our colleagues in Scotland to be extremely helpful. There is really no substitute for sitting down with people like the Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, and Sir John Elvidge, the former head of the Civil Service, who has been very generous in explaining the background to the issue. As you said, this can be regarded as a technocratic bit of work or a document and information, but behind the piece, the backstory is the partnership between the Senior Civil Service, led by Sir John at the time, and the parties in the coalition in 2007. There was a convergence, which was around the thought that, at the highest levels of policymaking, they knew what needed to be done, but it was not what they were doing. There was a disconnect. The signals were not there and the cues were not there. They were putting money into policy and areas that they wanted to shift, but it was not happening. So, Sir John worked with senior politicians on streamlining and the creation of a government reimagined, if you like, as a single organisation. The framework and the outcomes approach complement that. It is the linchpin of it, but it is really about a culture shift, alignment and the methodologies that support an outcomes-based approach. So, it is about the detailed methodologies that support a new approach to design and evaluation, taking a more modest approach to what you can plan and focusing more on evaluation after delivery.

In terms of the frequency, the objective is to have near real-time information so that the political representatives, the public and the various partners involved in helping to deliver outcomes have a picture of what is happening. One of our recommendations will be using the latest data visualisation so that that information is meaningful and accessible to the public as well as the legislators. I hope I am not breaching protocol, but I have some of the documentation that is used by the Committee system in the Scottish Parliament. As I was saying, the Finance Committee in particular has been pushing its colleagues across the piece in all the Committees to use those to help scrutinise the outcomes across government.

The bottom line was that Sir John had the privilege of dismantling the traditional departmental system so that form now follows function, rather than policy following the imperatives of the civil servants and the existing structures. So, it is a smart piece, but it is more than a framework. It is about all the mechanics and ensuring that, in the background, the wheels are not spinning idly while the framework is up in lights.

Mr Woods: Chair, you made the point about them being able to "de-silo" and take that radical step of abolishing Departments. Even if we wanted to, it is not a luxury that is open to us here. We have been looking at how we can encourage ways of cutting across those departmental silos. The very existence of the well-being framework can help with that fundamentally, specifically around how it is translated through the Programme for Government.

There is an interesting development in the Stormont House Agreement that allows for the Programme for Government to be agreed before the d'Hondt mechanism has been run. That could have the benign impact of enabling parties to agree shared outcomes that, hopefully, will flow from the well-being framework in advance of d'Hondt. There would be a more collaborative approach at that political level that could then cascade down through the Programme for Government to delivery through different levels of government.

The other aspect that is probably a bit longer term is budgeting for outcomes. That would mean beginning to align budgets behind the outcomes that government collectively want to see. So, rather than having strictly departmental budgets, one could allocate the budgets to the outcomes, and the budgets would then be determined depending on what contribution different Departments and agencies were making to those outcomes. It is quite a complex area, and I know that you, as a Committee, have looked at it. There is a very interesting research report on the issue, and we would certainly encourage you to continue to look at it because, ultimately, that probably is the best way of getting collaborative working right across Departments.

Ms McGinley: That is the form of reporting, just to give you an example. Each Committee would get its information, which is collected for the annual reporting. The thing about it is that, as you can see, it is quite simple for the public as well. So, at a glance, the public get a sense of skills, Internet use, housing need or whatever. That is deceptively simple.

The other thing to assure the Committee is that NISRA, which was on the Roundtable, has been doing a lot of work already. I am sure that you are aware of the well-being work that it did last year, which it is updating. So, we feel that it is well placed to start to be able to get this form of information ready for Members and Departments. A big piece of work needs to be done there to ensure that that comes through, but we are reassured by what we have seen of NISRA's work. It is drawing heavily on the Scottish model.

The Chairperson (Mr McKay): What response have you had from the Department of Finance and Personnel and the Minister? Who is the key player in OFMDFM?

Ms McGinley: It has been very strong. The Minister is very supportive and is keeping a watching brief, as are you and the Committee. We feel that this is very much us doing work to present to you with evidence and findings for you to help you to make your decisions. The Minister is very minded to this and has said to us that he is looking forward to receiving the report. We have been very heartened by the willingness of public servants at all levels in the system, including the Senior Civil Service. Some of them were there in a personal capacity. Some from OFMDFM, DSD and so on were on the Roundtable. We feel that a lot of very good practice already exists in Northern Ireland and that this is about the piece that connects it all up. Work is being done in the councils in Lisburn, Derry/Londonderry and Belfast, and everywhere from Irvinestown to Colin Glen. People have come to us with that type of evidence to show that they are using this type of approach on the ground and that it works, but there has not been context in which to place the work. So, it is bottom-up and top-down. We think that there is a lot of willingness to give this a try.

Dr Doran: At the Chief Executives' Forum, I thought that it was quite significant that the Minister indicated that his vision for this is that the framework could offer something that might sit under the Programme for Government and that it could help to organise the evaluation and tracking of the delivery of key Programme for Government commitments. That was our thinking, and, as Aideen said, we are very heartened by the Minister's commitment.

Mr Hamilton also made a connection between this work and the public-sector reform agenda.

It is one of those areas that I spoke about where we are talking a language that offers a way to bring a number of existing initiatives together. That is the same in OFMDFM. It is about delivering social change while moving from a project-based approach to a scaled-up, system-wide and outcomes-based approach where collaboration is the name of the game.

Ms McGinley: It creates a common ground and shared agendas. Having local government and central government experience, I think that this is a prime opportunity. I know that Theresa can speak about local government's appetite for it as well. I think that there is real opportunity here for bottom-up to meet top-down in a shared agenda that is groundbreaking in Northern Ireland.

Dr Donaldson: You will be well aware that councils are all making initial preparations for the community planning powers, which begin on 1 April. There is a huge opportunity to involve our citizens in developing a local plan through the mechanisms that we see in Scotland, particularly if government start to look at the potential for a single-outcome agreement. We will have a performance improvement framework imposed on us through the local government reform programme, which I think we all welcome. A number of measures are in the consultation that is out at the minute. Those include measures on waste management, economic development and planning. There is the opportunity to expand that list of improvement areas, to look at the work that has been done in Scotland, particularly the national performance framework, and to join up with central government the outcomes that the Executive would like to see coming forward from local government. Certainly, there is a strong appetite in local government to have that kind of joining at this stage with the reform that we are all going through.

The Chairperson (Mr McKay): What buy-in has there been from the media in Scotland? Are there articles in 'The Scotsman' about well-being figures generally going up or down? Is it on the agenda in the media? Do they take it as seriously as they should?

Dr Doran: Our Scottish colleagues have been quite frank about the way in which they have worked on the process. They really began it as an internal one and have now been working on public engagement. I think that that is also the case with engaging the media on this and getting them to use it. Of course, as the Minister of Finance and Personnel, Mr Hamilton, pointed out at the Chief Executives' Forum, there is risk around this as well. We want to encourage all the players, including the media, to see this as a positive learning opportunity, rather than another opportunity to beat legislators over the head with performance outcomes that might not be going in the direction that we had anticipated. We are quite keen to talk to the media about the framework. We will do that as part of our implementation work following the launch of the report. It is something that the Scottish are working on. If I take your point, I think it is something that has to be managed, as well as taken out to the various media organisations.

Ms McGinley: The advantage in some of this work is that Carnegie has backed it. It has 100 years' experience of working in well-being, and it has international experience. We have talked a lot about Scotland this morning, but Carnegie is fully versed in global practice. In presenting a report to the Executive and Assembly, that independent voice adds value from a media or, indeed, any other viewpoint, in that there is no "agenda". This is a piece of well grounded research that has looked specifically at Northern Ireland in the Northern Ireland context and that is saying, "Here is what we think could be done". We have identified a seven-step journey with a series of recommendations. Some of it is on capacity building in the system, alignment of the system and the opportunity to create a narrative in the wider community, which is something that I think, for example, the media would be very keen to be involved in. We are developing a detailed advocacy plan around the report so that we get the information out and make it understandable. We think that that will be of interest to the media.

We will be presenting a very honest opinion. It takes courage. It is a major change in culture and a major piece of work at a time of change and when people are busy doing other things. It is as much about saying no to things as it is about saying yes. You need well grounded evidence and the courage of conviction. When you are saying yes, you need to know that you cannot do everything and need to decide what is really important in Northern Ireland. There is a story there that anybody in the media will want to know about. We, as the Roundtable, are very aware of influencing the public and of getting the message out that the media have a very important role to play.

Mr McCallister: I apologise to the panel for my phone going a bit crazy.

It is an area that I am very interested in, even across the piece. Your point, Peter, on things like think tanks is interesting. Northern Ireland has probably invested a lot over 20 years in things like our peace process, but we have probably not done any real policy development or had think tanks and those types of things. Too much of our politics is not based on real policy, which you are particularly pushing. I am very supportive of this, and, if I get the chance with my private Member's Bill, I would want to extend that period from elections to the running of d'Hondt so that you have time to negotiate a proper and meaningful Programme for Government. You might even include in that movements of Departments' functions to a configuration that best suits your delivery of any new Administration's Programme for Government and its priorities.

I think that you would also want to include broad budget headlines in that. We are in a place now that is all about defending budgets rather than the outcomes, and there is no point in me saving money if, for example, Judith will get the good of it in her Department. We have too much of that. Then you come to local government. If Stormont is setting the broad policy and strategy, you will certainly want local government to be at the forefront of the delivery arm of that, but it is about how you make that happen. It is good that, in our local government, broadly something like 70% of finance is raised in rates. That gives you a good contact between ratepayers and the services that you, as a council, are providing. That is why I made amendments. I would like to see local government getting more into an executive model of government with a scrutiny role and an oppositional role for people.

Have you found from the Scottish experience that it is easier because of their model of government, where a single party is in charge? I think that one of the big weaknesses of our system is not so much that five parties are in charge but the idea that it is collective Cabinet government. You mentioned the Government moving forward as one unit. The problem is that our Government do not move forward and do not act as one unit but, effectively, can act as five separate units, and Ministers have a large degree of autonomy over what they do in their Department with no coordinating role. Is there a big difference between what the Scots can do because it is one party, or do we even just need to get to a point where we have an agreed Programme for Government that is outcomes based and focused on how we are getting there with OFMDFM being a coordinating Department at the centre to make sure that government are delivering on their priorities?

Mr Woods: It is interesting that the Scottish experience, as Peter mentioned, started as a minority government and had to do things in coalition with other parties. One of the experiences that is recorded — we were told about this when we were in Scotland — is that it has cut across parties and has encouraged collaboration between parties. If there were a change of government in Scotland, which, I suppose, is not that likely at the moment, given the way electoral politics are going there, they would expect the performance framework and those long-term outcomes to remain. It seems that it has encouraged collaborative working. We could read a certain amount across to our situation so that all parties could agree long-term outcomes.

Of course, there is political debate on how you then implement those. However, if they are agreed — the next Programme for Government period before d'Hondt seems to be an opportunity to do that — along with a great deal of work between now and the next Programme for Government that is quite an opportunity to start building the consensus that is needed. The Scottish example is encouraging in that respect.

Dr Donaldson: I think that you are absolutely right. There are important differences to Scotland, as well as similarities. In Scotland, some of the educational and health services that are delivered through the centre are delivered through local government. We have important advantages as regards some of the documents that I mentioned. One of the strengths of Scotland is the review that they have undertaken. Scotland have made huge strides forward, but they have continually reviewed their progress. I was drawing attention to the scrutiny and challenge that comes from the centre. A Committee like this is hugely important in making sure that things are on track and with scrutinising and challenging, as our elected members in councils do. We have an important advantage, in that Scotland are trying to bringing together their health and social care sectors, which are separate. I know from reading recent documentation that that is something that Scotland are struggling with. We are starting from a point where we already have that system in place. So, yes, it is not totally comparing like with like.

We are in a good place with the reform of local government as well. Additional powers are now being delegated to local government. Planning is a massive issue. The work that has been done is being drawn to elected members' attention. The timing of that could not be better, because massive change is about to happen in local government. Yes, we raise most of the money to pay for local services through our rates, but we also get a significant amount coming from the centre to fund planning. There is a change. There is an opportunity in that change to look at some of these issues and for you, as members, to decide whether this is something that you want to take forward.

Ms McGinley: In one way, you actually answered your own question very eloquently. On paper, it looks as though a single system-type government, which exists in Scotland, should be easier. However, Scotland would be the first to say that it was very challenging. We have said all along that we know that we have a different set of circumstances. You mentioned some of the "hows", and the next piece is about trying to build up the next steps to see what is it that we need to do to introduce this sort of approach. Indeed, creating the common ground and a bit of a shared dialogue and narrative might help in some of the conversations that the Executive need to have over the next year.

Mr McCallister: I accept that. Literally since I was elected and arrived here in 2007, government and everybody else have talked about things like early intervention. However, we have seen precious little of us being able to deliver that. I am not even being critical of individual Ministers. Well-intentioned individual Ministers probably get frustrated sometimes with the lack of pace when trying to pull all these things together, whether it is dealing with mental health, suicide, much earlier interventions, educational underachievement or whatever. There is probably a frustration about how they pull that together and make what they want to happen actually happen on the ground. That is bound to be very frustrating for them. It is certainly very frustrating for me as a Back-Bencher, never mind for Ministers. How do we get from the point of writing a very highbrow Programme for Government to something that is outcomes focused? I accept that we have a great opportunity, because we in the Assembly are 15 or 16 months out from writing our next Programme for Government.

Ms McGinley: Early intervention is a really good example, because part of the current dilemma that we face was caused by short- and medium-term planning. This is long term, and it will be 15 years before you see the impact of some of the investment in early intervention. That is where courage comes in and when people have to trust. Seven years in, Scotland are finding that the early intervention, particularly in the children and young people's sphere, is starting to impact on other statistics, like those for crime, suicide, depression etc. It is about having the tenacity, patience and courage to accept that it is long term. It will be two or three Assembly mandates before we see some of these impacts. It requires courage on your part, as a Committee, to accept that we are not going to get quick wins. Some of this will be putting down the foundations for improvement over a period of time.

Mr McCallister: The eventual win will be that, if you upstream so much of your activity, your overall cost envelope will fall. At a time when we are not expecting huge rises in public expenditure for a very long time, you could make a major impact on that. That is probably the frustration for organisations like the Public Health Agency, which is looking longer term and building that in to have a sustainable health system 20 years from now.

Ms McGinley: That is right. Indeed, 'Making Life Better' is a document that we took particular cognisance of when we were looking at the performance framework that we are suggesting. The Public Health Agency has done some really good work on that exact premise and has highlighted some of the best practice around the Province. I actually think that people want to do this. The trick for us now is to get the "how" and to take the reality check that there are not going to be quick wins and that it is going to be about government working in different ways. However, there will undoubtedly be gains, maybe more quickly than we think.

Ms Boyle: Thank you for the information that you have given us. We welcome the report. I have a couple of points. I tend to agree with John about the slow pace of things in how we can assist. Aideen, you will understand where I am coming from when I ask this: will the approach to well-being be rural proofed to ensure that we tackle social exclusion? I will give you a small example through the equal opportunities committee and increasing the proportion of young people in learning, training and work. We need investment to change policies to get these outcomes. I do not want to ramble on, but one issue that I had to deal with in the constituency on Friday concerned a young male who left school very early with literacy and numeracy problems. He is now on the Steps to Success training. This is why I asked whether it will be rural proofed.

That young person from the Burndennet area, which you know, travels to the South West College to train to be a mechanic. That is his passion, and that is what he wants to do. Because of our policy and because he is in the low-income bracket, the assistance that he gets to go to the South West College just entitles him to get a bus from a to b, but he lives a further 10 miles out. The little assistance that he gets all goes towards his transport costs. That does not give him any incentive to do that work at the college, which is work that he wants to do. He, his peers and others around him, feel socially excluded. If we want this to work, it has to be rural proofed. How can we assist you in doing that? I know that we are going through the changes in council, and I am sure a lot of this will be at their door as well. We could talk all day about it. These are issues that I am passionate about. We have a lot of transgenerational issues, and I know that a lot of this will go a long way to assisting on those issues.

I know that this report is exclusive to the North, but what potential exists for an island-wide approach to well-being? Can data be harmonised North and South? Will you be looking to expand that further down the line? I know that you looked at the Scottish model, but will any work be done North and South?

Ms McGinley: On the first point, you have very ably put into perspective what we are talking about by giving someone's individual experience.

Ms Boyle: The impact on the ground.

Ms McGinley: Exactly. That is what we should never forget. That is the touchstone; that is why we are here. We are here to see what you would do, and how you would take that issue, look at the system and see where the things are not working. That is what they have done in Scotland. They have tried to turn things on their head and start with the people at the bottom. That is what we are trying to encourage. It is not easy. There are multiple players: local government; FE and HE; transport; rural issues and the Department of Agriculture. Just by using that example, you can see the complexity of this approach, but it is the one that would make the difference if we could get it right.

Ms Boyle: Someone's life could be changed.

Ms McGinley: Yes, that is why we are talking about societal well-being. It is about helping that young man to do what he wants to do, as best we can. It will take a while to get the thing right, but if we have some successes —

Ms Boyle: Obviously, funding will have to follow that. That will be the major hurdle.

Ms McGinley: Absolutely. There is a complexity to it, but it is the human example.

North/South work has been done. John, do you want to pick that up?

Mr Woods: Before I do, I will quickly add to what you said about rural proofing. We learned something from Scotland's approach. They talked about their work being people-focused and place-based. This is something that we would very much take on board. A holistic approach to well-being is about people and how it impacts on them. How does it impact on that young man? That has to be read across or through the outcomes we are trying to achieve. Does it have an impact or a result for him? So, it is about people, but it is about place; it is about where he lives and the community he lives in. That, of course, is what community planning is all about. It is so that well-being can manifest itself through the place that I live in, my relationships with the people I live and work with and the community I am in. That is where we see it working out. If we do it well, it should have results.

Ms Boyle: It is also about putting the infrastructure in place to help that.

Mr Woods: Of course; it is about all those elements.

Dr Donaldson: FE colleges are extremely committed to community planning partnerships. Last week, some of the chief executives of the FE colleges had a meeting with the Minister for Employment and Learning, Minister Farry. They are very keen to be involved from the earliest point.

Going back to the Scottish model; there was an important issue about the way funding has followed outcomes. When we spoke to our colleagues in Scotland, we heard that unless agencies can point to the outcomes they are contributing to they do not get funded. So, it becomes a very important mechanism for ensuring that the money goes towards the outcomes that the Executive want to see being delivered. It squeezes out duplication, and putting in a service because it is a good idea. The outcome becomes the thing that everybody concentrates on. Obviously, social inclusion is a critical issue for all of us, as are rural proofing and early years, as you mentioned. If they are the areas that we should be concentrating on, then that is where the money has to go. This is one of the strengths of the approach, certainly from my perspective.

Dr Doran: Finally, on that point, with regard to inclusion, part of the story is around a societal well-being approach and going beyond aggregate measures, which often lose out on the detail and texture of the stories that you are talking about. The international evidence that we have taken on board suggests that communities need to be involved in the design of indicators and outcomes. We need to be capturing the narrative as well as the statistics. That is part of the piece. We talk about this contributing to a new culture where communities are enabled to engage in a much more comprehensive way with policy and outcomes. This is part of our expectation and hope around this agenda.

On cross-jurisdiction, we had one of the leading experts in the well-being field, Helen Johnston, from the Republic of Ireland, sit on the Roundtable. She has been a very active participant in the Roundtable. You are absolutely right; there has been a parallel conversation on well-being and governance in the Republic of Ireland. There is much to learn. Helen drew attention to certain methodologies that they have pioneered on community participation and community conversations and how those conversations effectively contribute to government outcomes.

Finally, as a more generic response to your question; this is a blatantly obvious point but I will make it anyway. As a region, we can never be in control of all the influences on an outcome. There are always global and cross-jurisdictional factors involved, and then there is the devolved piece as well. The cross-jurisdiction piece has to be there as well, and it has to be explicit in any framework in this particular context.

Ms McGinley: Indeed, we drew on a major study made in 2009: 'Well-being Matters: A Social Report for Ireland' by the National Economic and Social Council. Interestingly, in 2013, they introduced a subjective well-being measure into their national household survey. So, they have started introducing well-being measures into their political system. We have been looking at all that practice in our deliberations.

Mr D Bradley: Good morning. I find what you have outlined in the report very interesting. I think it was de Valera who said that all he had to do was look into his own heart to find out what the Irish people needed. I am sure you would not describe that as an objective needs-based model.

Peter, you said that Scottish Ministers said that they knew what needed to be done but were just not doing it. I want to ask you this: when they said that they knew what needed to be done, was that knowledge based on de Valera-type heart-searching or was there some objective means of establishing the needs on which the policies would be based?

I suppose, if you have an objective list of needs, you then have to prioritise them because some might be more important or urgent than others. Do they do that? We also know from our experience that some outcomes that happen here are perhaps the result of lobbying by various sectors of society. I do not say that those outcomes are not needed, but they may not be what are most needed. In Scotland, what influence do lobbyists have, whether from the third sector, business or wherever? How do you ensure that the outcomes are those that are most needed, and which need to be prioritised?

Let me just ask about the use of the graphs, statistics and tracking. There is an old expression that there are lies, damned lies and statistics. I know that from my own experience, having met people high up in the health trust at various stages. I have complained about some aspects of the service which, in the experience of the end users, is far from satisfactory. The officials may respond, for example, that they have met their targets every month for the last 18 months. However, there is a discrepancy between meeting targets and the experience of the end user. How do you ensure that the indicators or trackings are a faithful representation of what is actually happening?

Ms McGinley: It is about knowing where to start, because we still need to find the answers to every one of those questions. Do any colleagues want to pick up any of those in particular?

Dr Doran: One of our friends in the Department of Justice uses the phrase, "What we know is that we need to start preventing people from falling into the river rather than spending money rescuing them when they have fallen in". The frustration is that the knowledge is evident in Scotland and here. There is a real desire to respond to this. If a cost-effective as well as humanitarian approach is to be pursued, you have to work at the front end of the problem.

The justice system is constantly picking up the fallout from people's lives where they have not been well served at other points in their lives, whether it is in education, training, early years or support for mental health. The Justice Department is not the place to support people with mental health or addiction difficulties, yet it is full of people who need that kind of support. So, it is in the sense that the frustration that comes from insight drove change in Scotland. The change was not simply about data, writing another report and making these points; it was linking the desire for a change in focus to reorganisation and shifting the culture. It involved unleashing and liberating the doers in the various Departments, and their partners beyond the Departments, and providing the cues, mandates and authority to work together to reimagine the problem as well as getting new solutions. So, it is in that sense that that disconnect has driven some of the change.

On the point around lobbying; part of the piece here is to try to enshrine an evidence-based approach to policy and get more transparency about why certain trade-offs and decisions are being made. It is also to raise the ability of actors beyond government to engage in that debate, and to provide a platform for them to do so that the lobbying piece begins to be exposed if it is leading to poor outcomes.

Mr D Bradley: There also needs to be an acceptance in the broader body politic that this is the way to go and that, if the greatest need and priority is at a certain point, then that is, as you said, where the bulk of the funding should go. It means that other stakeholders in society have to be prepared to put the fulfilment of their particular needs on hold until a more urgent one is dealt with.

Ms McGinley: Indeed, we heard evidence, interestingly, through the Roundtable itself. Obviously, we went to Scotland for the visit, but we then tested some of the evidence. Through one of our contacts, we heard that some charities associated with domestic violence were not happy because they felt they had lost out. However, they also saw the benefit of the investment in children and young people's services, so they recognised the reality. You are quite right to say that there will be lobbyists for particular issues, and rightly so. That is what they are there for, but there is a maturity required about the fact that we cannot do everything.

Dr Donaldson: I want to make a point about the statistics. I absolutely agree that there is a lot of information around. I am sure that you are bombarded. At times, making sense of it can be quite difficult. One of the opportunities we now have with an outcomes-based approach is the joining up of different bits of information to make sense for, as you very eloquently put it, that person who you meet who is your constituent. They do not care about silos; they are not interested. What they want to know about is the service that is being provided for them.

We have had this conversation in the Roundtable. I have a justice background, in working for the Legal Services Commission, and a family and childcare background, and there is a link between the children coming into the care system and our legal aid spend, but Departments do not join those linkages. It is left to yourselves to make the linkages when the people come before you. The outcomes-based approach forces key officers and officials to start looking at their data and joining it up to make sense of the end-user experience.

The other thing that happens in the outcomes-based approach is the fluidity of spend. It hits the point as well about the rural example that we heard. One of the people I was speaking to recently was the Chief Constable who worked in Scotland. I do not want to misquote him, but he was very impressed with community planning and the Scottish approach. He made the point that, in the community planning partnership that he was part of, the police found themselves being funded by health. It meant that if they were policing very heavily in Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow on a Saturday night, there were fewer casualties hitting Glasgow Infirmary. Joining up thinking and funding can produce good outcomes for all the services and for our services users.

Mr Woods: You asked how the Scottish Ministers were able to say, "We know what needs to be done". I cannot really answer for them, but thinking about our situation and how things have developed, the UK Government has created the initiative of What Works centres across all jurisdictions, where the evidence for policy is being gathered and, quite simply, what works and how we can share that knowledge across the piece. That is one valuable way of addressing it.

The other question was about how things are prioritised. In the report, we look at different methodologies that could move us away from conventional cost-benefit analysis, which very often fails to take account of well-being outcomes, and look at other methodologies for how you would bring in what the ultimate result would be on people's well-being. Also, it is about how you deal with the trade-offs that are often necessary when you are making these decisions and how you recognise that sometimes you have to make a judgement and say, "What we want to do is this, because we feel it is more politically important than something else", rather than just saying that it is a technical exercise. So, we write a bit about that in the report.

Finally on the statistics; some of the evidence we heard was that it is really important to include a discussion with citizens on how they want to measure progress. So, what are the indicators that Scotland has that it wrote down to start off with? Can we develop indicators that people have been involved in developing and, therefore, trust, so that they believe what is produced and so the legitimacy of the whole system becomes rather deeper.

Ms McGinley: It creates an opportunity for a really good community conversation at the 11-council level to inform the Executive about what is important to people on the ground.

Mr D Bradley: When you have the information and the statistics, it is important that you act on them. In the health service, we hear quite frequently about waiting times for emergency departments and so on. Some are very good, but some never seem to get beyond a certain point. So, whilst we know that certain areas of the system are not working, we do not seem to be able to take the action to make them work. As the Scottish people said, we have to make it work better, otherwise the statistics are not much use.

Mr Woods: Some of the thinking is that the results of the indicators allow us to ask the question, "Why?". Why has it moved in that direction? Why has it got better? Why has it got worse? Why is it not moving at all? Then we can take action.

With regard to the example of a waiting list, one might be keen to reduce waiting lists, but the outcome that one is looking for is the health outcomes for people. That might point policy in a different direction.

Mr D Bradley: Presumably, the longer the waiting time the lower the outcome.

Mr Woods: Yes, but this will enable the trade-offs and the discussion to happen more clearly than it does at the moment.

Mr McQuillan: What you are saying is that it is back to basics and back to common sense. That is something that we have lost somewhere down the line. I had a conversation with the North Eastern Education and Library Board a wee while back, and I was asking about a transfer: a family was going to make their child move schools because of transport and stuff. I will not bore you with all the details, but basically I was told by the representative that he dealt in policy and not common sense. I thought, "There is something seriously wrong in our system somewhere."

Is this the right time to introduce something like this, with all our budgetary constraints? How did the Scottish Parliament marry this with their budget constraints? This is a really good thing to do, but I am not sure that now is the right time to do it.

Ms McGinley: One of the dilemmas is that the austerity measures that we face are unprecedented, and something has to happen to test the priorities. This is an opportunity to start that debate. Otherwise, things could continue in a process of "ad hocery", where we continue the silos and do not get outcomes. It is not going to be easy, and, as Theresa said, budgets determine things. You need to have a sound basis on which to say, "That's the priority."

The development of this framework, for the first time, gives assurance, from local government to central government level, that there is a basis on which these choices are being made. They are not easy choices by any means, and there will be outcries. The Scottish model had teething problems, and there were people who were disaffected because their areas were not a priority. I stand to be corrected, but my sense, from talking to officials in Scotland, was that it was hard going at the start but that they very quickly saw the advantages of working across the boundaries Theresa described. We saw that in the teams that were built up across Departments. For example, DEL, a bit like the Department of Justice, tends to pick things up that have failed further down the line — issues such as literacy and numeracy. What is happening in education? Should the priority be to be preventative in education? The framework allows the forum for those debates. It is a common-sense piece.

Everybody knows the point that Scotland knew. They said, "We know what needs to be done", but the hard discussion was on the question, "What do we do about it?" Then, the Budget follows. The hard decision for Northern Ireland will be on the compelling narrative that people here want to see for the vision for the next 15 to 20 years. That conversation needs to be started so that you, as elected members, and your electorate feel, "Yeah, we have not been able to do everything, but for Northern Ireland these are the key things." Cross-party, it is possible to have those conversations as well, because a lot of the issues are about the human issues that you face on the ground in your constituencies. It is not easy, but we have an unprecedented opportunity to change the conversation.

The good thing is that we have managed to gather a robust body of evidence globally; everything from the OECD down to work done locally. We mentioned the PHA already. We can help to shore up the conversation with some of the evidence base and the suggested statistical background. You are going to need the assurance of a good solid system, and there are going to have to be mechanisms, training, and development, and awareness raising with elected members, and an understanding of the measures and what has been brought in.

So, there is a capacity building piece that needs to happen as well. We are not just saying overnight, "Here's you're framework. Away you go." It has to be a process that people understand as they go along so that when you get evidence and see that housing need is going up you can ask, "Why?". In that case, it would not just be representatives of the Housing Executive in here; representatives of Health or the other associated Departments would also be brought in. So, you would get collective reporting. People accepting responsibility for the part they play is also a change.

Mr McQuillan: The PCSPs tried to do something like that, and it has not really worked there in the way that it should be working. This is the same sort of frame or model, but it is bigger.

Ms McGinley: It is. Some of that has worked well, but not all.

Mr McQuillan: Not in the way that it should have worked, really, or the way in which we envisaged it working.

Ms McGinley: Maybe it is the context. Sometimes, a thing is of its time. Maybe it is moving towards that.

Dr Donaldson: I think that the point that you are making is absolutely right: what is required is a culture change. That is what we are hearing from members of the Committee today. I think that we would all agree that it is a culture change, but it is a citizen-focused approach, and it is very much what community planning is about. It is focusing on the citizen, then joining through the single outcome agreement, if that is the way in which the Executive decide to go, right through into the Programme for Government. The citizen is joined right into the heart of government in a way that, to date, they have not been.

Dr Doran: The financial climate is an interesting background for this conversation. There is a report by an organisation called Vanguard — no local reference.

It was conducted by a systems thinker, someone who understands that you cannot reduce a problem to its component parts; you have to look at it in the bigger context. The findings are striking, because the study, which was based in England, showed that virtually all the increasing demand on public services resulted from poor decision-making in the public sector itself. The cost of not actually shifting the way we do things is phenomenal. There is an economic story here about the benefits as well as the outcomes for citizens.

Mr McQuillan: We need to get that story out — the two messages going out as one rather than just one message. Otherwise, that could be used as an obstacle.

The Chairperson (Mr McKay): OK, members. It is fascinating stuff. We will see you again in two months' time, I think, for the report.

Ms McGinley: Thank you for your interest. It is very much appreciated by the Roundtable because it has given us a real sense of the value of this work. Thank you for that.