Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Acting Chairperson (Mr McCausland): I welcome to the meeting David Guilfoyle, the chief executive; Norma Rea, the development officer who deals with equality principles; and Joanne Stainsby, the project officer. I invite the representatives from the Youth Council to make a presentation.

Mr David Guilfoyle OBE (Youth Council for Northern Ireland): Thank you, Chair. On behalf of the Youth Council, I welcome the opportunity to speak to the Committee today. You have already heard the introduction of my two colleagues, so I will refrain from repeating that.

I am confident that we will be the only organisation presenting to the Committee whose focus is on the Northern Ireland Youth Service. We believe it is important that, when we comment on shared and integrated education, we do so through a Youth Service lens. This will be the key focus of our input today. The Youth Service is often a forgotten member of the education sector family, yet it engages on a regular basis with 150,000 young people annually. It is also recognised — indeed, the Minister has recognised this — that 70% of a young person's learning takes place outside the school, and it is therefore evident that the Youth Service is the key player in impacting that 70%.

We all believe that youth work is a very important part of education. Indeed, the Minister flagged this up in his key policy document 'Priorities for Youth'. He said:

He also said that it contributed to educational and lifelong learning outcomes. Indeed, in the 'Priorities for Youth' document, he goes on to say that we have a very important role to play in building a new and shared society. He also said that we equip young people with the skills, attitudes and behaviours that they need, and that those, in turn, work towards addressing the legacy of conflict and moving towards a shared and inclusive society.

I know that you have heard a little bit about us this morning, but the Youth Council was established in 1990 with statutory functions including advising Departments on the development of the Youth Service and encouraging and developing community relations work. For a number of years, we have been involved in coordinating a wide range of initiatives on behalf of the sector, and, through many of those, the sector has been recognised for its contribution to a shared and peaceful society.

I know that you are also aware that the Youth Council provides core funding to around 40 regional voluntary youth organisations. These provide crucial support to front-line youth work and, indeed, work with 112,000 young people. In fact, that is about 75% of the total young people involved in youth groups. However, it would be pertinent for me to point out that the majority of Youth Council staff are not involved in the administration of such funding. They are involved in discharging the Youth Council's statutory responsibilities in areas such as training, international North/South work and community relations.

Since we submitted our initial response to the Committee, there have been four very significant developments that we want to flag up today. The first was the draft policy on shared education. The second was the draft Shared Education Bill. The third was the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) evaluation of the community relations, equality and diversity (CRED) policy in schools and youth organisations. Finally, the Minister has now submitted in his draft budget to end all CRED funding. Our presentation today will concentrate on these.

I want to touch on the four items very briefly, Chair. First, the policy on shared education evolved from the ministerial advisory group and was written at a time when we all envisaged an Education and Skills Authority being formed that would have subsumed Youth Council functions. The new Education Authority is obviously a new animal, so we wait to see how the Youth Council's current functions will be taken on board. There is also a need for the key actions on shared education to be developed in consultation with our sector, and we believe that we have a major role to play in assisting our sector to comment on those.

The second point is the issue of the Shared Education Bill. We recognise the inclusion of youth work in the Bill and the recognition of the role that youth work can play in encouraging shared education. We note that we are cited as the Youth Council in the Bill, with the power that we may encourage and facilitate shared education, but we contrast that with our existing statutory functions, which actually require us to address the issue of community relations work in society. In actual fact, our current statutory functions are not weaker than that which is actually included in the draft Bill.

Thirdly, I want to touch on the Education and Training Inspectorate. Its policy review came out last week, which was very timely because it noted, amongst other things, that voluntary youth organisations need support to expand and embed CRED through the dissemination of good practice events, training and increased access for young people to programmes. Those young people react very favourably to the safe places that these organisations were able to provide for them. The report also went on to commend the Youth Council setting up the CRED reference group, comprising organisations that we fund who support us in these roles. It went on to commend the Youth Council in providing appropriate support and guidance to challenge voluntary youth organisations to develop CRED and embed CRED in their own organisations. I will step aside briefly to say that, in our initial response, we noted that shared education must not diminish the valuable role and place of CRED. In fact, shared education is something we see living within the CRED umbrella.

The fourth point is on the announcement that the Minister made before Christmas to remove the entire CRED budget, followed by his announcement for funding shared education. We believe that the removal of the CRED budget poses a very major threat to youth work moving forward. In summary, we will attempt to highlight several key points this morning. First, there needs to be clarity on the role and place of the Youth Service and, indeed, the future role of the Youth Council in all these matters. Secondly, to remove the CRED budget in light of shared education is to seriously erode the valuable contribution that youth work has to make in this area and will jeopardise the legacy of the valuable work supported by CRED over the last few years.

Thank you, Chair. I will now hand over to my colleague Norma Rea.

Ms Norma Rea (Youth Council for Northern Ireland): I thank everyone for the opportunity to speak today. I will take a moment to look over the proposed policy from a youth work lens. It is good that it is out before we came here today, and we feel that we have very important points to make about youth work in general in terms of that policy.
The Youth Council very much welcomes the Minister's reference in his foreword to the long history of community relations work in youth work organisations. However, although he goes on to make specific reference to teachers benefiting from improved professional development, senior leaders and governors working more closely together and collaboration becoming a vehicle for school improvement, he makes no reference to a vision for youth work. The introduction to the shared education policy states that it is intended that all children and young people should have an opportunity to be involved, and it notes that the policy is aimed at early years, schools and non-formal education environments such as youth work. We very much welcome that clarity.

However, the policy goes on to state that, to reflect the full educational commitment of DE, within available funding, schools and other educational environments will receive resources, acknowledgement, support and encouragement to start or continue to develop high-quality shared education opportunities for their pupils. This is an example of the confusing nature of the policy. If it is about the full educational commitment of DE, references to "pupils" throughout the policy must be reviewed to ensure that they are not being applied at the exclusion of the work of other educational environments. In many cases, including the example above, these need to be replaced with the term "children and young people".

We very much welcome the vision for the shared education policy for vibrant, self-improving shared education partnerships and, in particular, the reference to promoting equality of opportunity, good relations, equality of identity and respect for diversity and community cohesion. We believe strongly that this vision is strengthened when it is placed within the existing Department of Education CRED policy, and we very much endorse the Department of Education position that was presented here on 21 January that shared education forms part of the CRED policy. The CRED policy is broader. It goes beyond a focus on shared education partnerships to mandate all schools and youth organisations to contribute to improving relations between communities. It states that this is about educating children and young people to develop self-respect, respect for others, promote equality, work to eliminate discrimination and by providing formal and non-formal educational opportunities for them to build relationships with those from different backgrounds and traditions.

When applied correctly, it does and should deliver whole organisational approaches to this challenging task. As Alan Smith recently noted, one of the concerns of shared education is that the Department's own plan suggests that, even after four years, only 65% of schools will actually be eligible to receive funding under shared education.

Turning back to the shared education policy; its background makes no reference to the fundamental role played by youth work in this area since the 1980s. This is despite the Department's review of community relations, which was completed between 2009 and 2010, having found that work already completed in the youth sector is further ahead than that available for the teaching profession and the contribution of Youth Service having been recognised in the resulting CRED policy. Specifically, the CRED policy made reference to the work of the joined in equity, diversity and interdependence (JEDI) initiative. I should state that that was a strategic initiative funded by the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), which brought together the lead voluntary and statutory youth work agencies across the Youth Service to develop coherent approaches to practice, training and policies in this field. The work resulting from it also informed the CRED training, which I will refer to later.

As I said, the policy made reference to the work of the JEDI initiative, stating that, within the Youth Service, the JEDI initiative has developed a range of training programmes, support resources and practice models. That work has been recognised as good practice and, in particular, its ability to address the needs of those more marginalised young people. It is a model that could usefully be built upon. That was stated four years ago.

The contribution of the Youth Service to the field has been further endorsed by the recent publication of the Education and Training Inspectorate's evaluation of CRED. David has already made reference to its recommendation on the need to expand and embed CRED, its endorsement of the safe space that youth organisations provide for young people to develop confidence around issues of diversity and inclusion and the appropriate support and challenge role that YCNI provides in the development of that practice. The ETI evaluation report went further than that. It noted that children and young people respond well to strategies that welcome and celebrate their uniqueness and diversity in youth organisations. In the most effective practice, children and young people demonstrate high levels of self-respect and respect for others. It also notes that there are too many missed opportunities for schools and youth organisations to work together to promote better learning for young people.

Of the schools and youth organisations currently engaged in CRED work, the ETI report noted that most demonstrated effective CRED practice in helping children and young people build relationships with others from different backgrounds and traditions. Yet the shared education policy only briefly mentions the arrival of the Department of Education's CRED policy in 2011 and makes no consideration of the work that it has brought forward across the educational settings. That significant oversight puts existing models of good practice at risk, with the potential to damage work, which has been building up a commitment to the agenda — relationship building and sharing — across voluntary sector youth groups and the local communities in which they operate.

The background to the shared education policy notes concerns as to whether the educational and social needs of young people are being met, and it makes reference to a number of groups, including those living with disabilities and those who may identify as GLBT. As part of our commitment to the CRED agenda, Youth Council funds the hub, which is a consortium arrangement that brings together all the disability focused youth organisations across the spectrum of disability, to promote the inclusion of young people with disabilities across Youth Service. Work of this nature needs to be recognised in the shared education policy and linked to a clear vision on how it will be taken alongside actions for shared education, either as part of the shared education policy or under the CRED policy.

There are a number of oversights in the policy. The case for shared education makes reference to a body of research regarding the effectiveness of school collaboration but makes no attempt to consider the case for collaboration across Youth Service groups or units. The section outlining the current and future context of shared education makes no reference to the Department of Education's CRED policy, the Department's policy for youth document or the Youth Service curriculum. The policy section does note that shared education involves schools and other education providers, which we welcome, and goes on to record an expectation that it will be organised and delivered to promote equality of opportunity and social inclusion for children at school and in less formal education, which, again, Youth Council welcomes. However, it makes no attempt to elaborate on how the Department will take account of the particular needs of Youth Service.

There is reference to a wide range and variety of opportunities for shared education, including adequate training for teachers, support staff and youth workers, yet there are no key actions to support funding for youth worker training. With the Minister's intention to remove the CRED budget, that matter is critical. At this point, it is important to note that the voluntary youth sector makes up over 90% of our youth service. Annually, over 22,000 volunteers contribute to that work. The young people who participate in those groups, the volunteers who support them and the communities they represent all have a role to play in delivering success in the shared education and related T:BUC agendas.

Linked to that point, the CRED reference group has recently developed comprehensive CRED training for those working with young people. That is accredited training available under the qualifications and credit framework, if you are familiar with that. That training has much to offer those wishing to take forward both the shared education and the summer camps initiatives within T:BUC. It is about supporting those to engage young people in that work. Again, the removal of the CRED budget puts that at serious risk.

The core principles for the delivery of shared education, the policy aim and the objectives need to be amended to be inclusive of Youth Service and the bodies that support its work. That is related to David's earlier point on how recommendations for ESA and the ministerial advisory group's research, which informed the policy, do not automatically read across to the Education Authority. That context needs to be reflected and considered within the policy.

The intended outcomes for the shared education policy include increased opportunity for young people to learn in a shared environment, both formal and non-formal, and increasing the number of children and young people participating in high-quality shared education programmes. That outcome will be strengthened when placed within the CRED policy. However, that further highlights David's earlier recommendations on the need for clarity on the role of Youth Service within shared education, for key actions to be developed for shared education — in consultation with the representative bodies, including YCNI — that reflect the specific needs of youth work, and for shared education's relationship with the CRED policy to be clearly stated.

The current proposal to remove the CRED budget will seriously marginalise the capacity of voluntary sector youth work organisations to deliver the shared education outcome within existing and very stretched budgets. I want to take a moment to specifically outline the work that will be lost as a result of the CRED budget being removed for regional voluntary youth organisations. It was a budget of £152,000. For example, during 2012-13, it impacted on up to 20 organisations. You have regional organisations, which then impact on local organisations, the volunteers within them and the young people. Over 500 young people and volunteers were supported to a level where they would be taking forward CRED work in their own local setting, so we are not just talking about young people engaging in CRED based-activities. It is capacity-building and the need to build that capacity. The multiplier impact of that is difficult to calculate, but if those young people and volunteers influence just five others, the investment costs about £60 per person.

The following year, 2012-13, we had two streams; strategic investment in organisations working in partnership and looking at whole-organisational approaches to embedding that work, and then organisations themselves might pick up on extra activity that they would need to further embed that work within their organisation. The following year, one of those organisations picked up on short-term funding of £2,500 and developed learning opportunities on the CRED themes, which then impacted in that year — they will still exist within that organisation — on 360 young people and 185 volunteers.

In addition, the CRED budget has contributed to approximately eight staff members — not full-time posts — who play a crucial support role across the funded and support groups. That is what we regard as a skeleton infrastructure of skills and expertise across voluntary, church, rural, community and the uniform-based youth work settings, but it provides an essential mechanism to support and enhance that work and take it forward to the volunteers. Significant investment is expected to take forward the shared education agenda across schools. However, there is no alternative investment proposed for youth services.

My colleague Joanne will give you a flavour of feedback from young people and volunteers who took part in some of that work.

Ms Joanne Stainsby (Youth Council for Northern Ireland): I also extend my thanks to Committee members for the invitation to be here. I would like to use the opportunity to give you a flavour of the impact that the CRED funding distributed by YCNI has had on youth organisations, volunteers and young people, and share with you some of what they said.

CRED funding issued by YCNI is supporting a number of strategic partnership arrangements to undertake agreed programmes of work to enhance the capacity of youth work activities across four settings — uniformed, rural, Church and community/voluntary — to help deepen the experience for young people and improve understanding of the CRED policy and its themes across the wider youth work sector. The uniformed CRED partnership includes six organisations: the Boys' Brigade, Catholic Guides of Ireland, the Girls' Brigade, Girlguiding Ulster, the Scout Association and Scouting Ireland. The uniformed sector in Northern Ireland works with in excess of 55,000 young people and 12,000 volunteers.

At a CRED sharing event in December 2014, a uniformed consortium member said that

Another uniformed organisation stated that

The learning from the uniformed sector partnership has resulted in a range of new training being developed for volunteers and young people across all the organisations. It is being embedded into the existing voluntary sector Youth Service infrastructure. However, as the partnership reiterated,

Across the four partnerships and other YCNI CRED projects, the inclusion of marginalised young people is at the core of the work. This includes work to promote the inclusion of young people with disabilities, young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, and other section-75 groups, further addressing educational underachievement and contributing to raising educational standards for all.

This work continues to engage young people who often have limited opportunities to engage with or meet others from communities outside their own. One young person who recently engaged with a CRED project for the first time said:

Another young person said:

A young person from the uniformed partnership shared that an important learning outcome for them has been visiting the peace lines in Belfast:

This work, however, supports young people not only to participate in CRED projects but to take on leadership roles and share their learning with others, for example by co-facilitating discussions with peers.

In November 2014, one young person reflected on their feelings about being a peer leader and discussing CRED themes with other young people:

Another young person added to this, however:

As a youth worker recently expressed:

YCNI staff have also been involved in developing a number of practical training resources that have involved collaborating and sharing with other sectors, for example, providing space for teachers and youth workers or for outdoors instructors and youth workers to come together to explore CRED themes. The inCREDible Drama Toolkit training is one such example. A teacher who participated in this training concluded:

Another stated:

At the CRED sharing event in December, youth organisations wanted to reiterate that:

The Youth Council echoes this concern.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Kinahan): Thank you very much. I apologise for not being here at the beginning. Thank you, Nelson, for chairing the meeting in my absence. None of us doubt the massive work that you do and its strength. When the Priorities for Youth consultation was presented to the Committee 18 months ago, we suddenly realised the sheer scale of what you are influencing. Having heard about the importance of CRED, I agree with that, and as a Committee we have to find a way to make sure that we do not lose what was learned or, on the other side, to try to help you. I very much take those points on board.

We are focusing on the Bill here, and the debates will all be about the definitions. You mentioned celebrating uniqueness and differences, and I have always been intrigued by the balance between teaching someone who they are and making sure that they are proud of it and then respecting someone else for the same. It is about balancing that against blurring the passion that can go with your identity. When we get to the definition, my concern is that, by defining maintained and controlled or socio-economic or political differences, we will force people into having to choose which they are. I wonder how you feel about that. It is that fine balance in the middle.

Ms Rea: I completely agree; it is a very difficult one. For me, that is where, in my experience, I would go back to the debates that we were part of in the development of the CRED policy, which was about maintaining that tension between your uniqueness and your identity and its place in a diverse society and respect for others if you are to receive respect for that identity too. That underpins the learning and training with which we support teachers and youth workers primarily to deliver on and the messages for that. I think that if you start to get into defining who is in and who is not, as opposed to focusing on the outcomes, that becomes confusing, because the outcomes, for me, are around respect for each other. You are then not about excluding people, and, if this is also relating back to T:BUC, reconciliation agendas and peace-building agendas must be there, too. Focusing on the outcome can sometimes help to keep the path clear.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Kinahan): Do you think that we should have a slightly broader definition rather than three tighter definitions?

Ms Rea: I think that the emphasis needs to be on the outcome. I do think that, in some way, the CRED policy reflects that. It is an aim that the outcome is there. Then, you are not excluding groups with regard to who is in to achieve that outcome, but it is about demonstrating that the work will achieve that outcome.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Kinahan): Something that I have very much got from you today, other than obviously your passion in what you do, is that CRED really is what should be leading shared education and therefore all the work that you have done. I know that one group that we have been talking to felt that the integrated sector should also be heavily involved because it has learnt so much. Maybe what we should take forward is what has been learnt from both.

Ms Rea: I very much think that if the Department of Education's commitment to this agenda becomes only shared education as it sits at the moment, it is very narrow. That is quite risky for the outcomes that it should really be contributing towards. That is not to take away from the proposals necessarily, but, yes, you cannot do this in isolation.

Mr Lunn: Thanks for your presentation. If I had questions, you have really answered them. That was quite a good, lengthy presentation. I admire what you do. I suppose that I say that to all the groups, but I really do mean it in your case.

I am interested in what you were saying about the uniformed organisations that you work with. That wee badge is historical, but [Inaudible.]

the Boys' Brigade. Where do you stand on what appears to be a slight conflict between the Department and various organisations about where the emphasis should be on shared education? The Department makes the point that it is basically about educational outcomes. I gather from you that you would see the other types of outcomes as being at least equally or perhaps more important.

Mr Guilfoyle: In the Youth Service, we are very much aware that what the Department funds must be framed within educational outcomes. Indeed, we are very proud of the fact that the Youth Service is part of the youth education family. What we do is complementary to what happens in school. Indeed, a number of us up here have direct or indirect links with schools. I used to be a teacher myself, so I appreciate what happens in the classroom. I also recognise that there are things that happen outside the classroom that cannot happen in the classroom, so we can work together. We do see what we do as being about educational outcomes. What we have done recently through a project that involves our colleagues in both the statutory and voluntary sectors is to look at how we can map youth work outcomes across to educational outcomes. We feel that it is a very easy fit. In fact, youth work outcomes certainly help educational outcomes for young people. We have recently come up with a framework for this. We have identified six areas of capabilities, such as enhanced personal capabilities, improved health and well-being, developing thinking skills, work and life skills, developing positive relationships, increased participation and active citizenship. Those are all relevant to the classroom. They are also relevant to the Youth Service. Indeed, in the Youth Service, we have the opportunities to perhaps do things that, as I say, you cannot do in the classroom. You can teach citizenship, but the Youth Service can practise active citizenship. We can provide opportunities for young people to work with others from diverse backgrounds in voluntary settings of their choice. Certainly, it seems to us that there is no contradiction or conflict here. We are in educational outcomes. Youth work outcomes map with that. With the work that we do in the CRED, we actually specialise in some aspects.

Mr Lunn: You directly or indirectly finance youth club activity. Is that mostly cross-community?

Mr Guilfoyle: I was personally involved with youth work as a volunteer away back in the '70s. Going back over the last number of decades, the Youth Service has always sought to work with young people of all communities. Certainly, we have become more sophisticated with that as the years have gone on. The Youth Service is something that is based in the community, and that allows us to make good links with all sections of the community. It is very challenging. Certainly, we have had to make sure that we train people and equip them to be able to cope with that. We, as the Youth Council, do not fund local groups on the ground, but, very importantly, as I think that you have already heard this morning, we fund 40 regional voluntary youth organisations whose support for those local groups is crucial. The Boys' Brigade, and I say this as a former member and officer in it, relies very much on its headquarter body, which recently had an inspection carried out by the inspectorate. I do not think that I have read the output yet, but there is no doubt that it was very positive. Certainly, the BB would be very supportive of all its companies across Northern Ireland, ensuring that not just the badge work but NCO training and other work is carried out to the highest standards. If that support was not there, the work on the ground would suffer and the young people's educational outcomes would suffer in turn.

Ms Rea: It is also fair to say that the Youth Service, because it is rooted in the community, will be a reflection of the community that we have, so it will be prone, in some areas, to be more representative of one community than the other. That is why we are very proud of the community relations work that has been carried out in that. In those settings, you also have parents who volunteer, so you need to bring the community with you and wider representative organisations.

Mr Lunn: Which BB company were you in?

Mr Guilfoyle: I was in the 22nd Woodvale.

Mr Lunn: I was in the 73rd Finaghy.

Mr Guilfoyle: I am sure that we [Inaudible.]

drill anyway.

Mr Lunn: We are talking military stuff here. [Laughter.]

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Kinahan): Robin.

Mr Newton: I am content, Chair.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: I think that the issue around the definition is critical. You have answered that. In your paper, you talked about almost a sense of support for an arm's-length body around peace-building. Could you maybe elaborate on that?

Ms Rea: I think that that was looking at the wider T:BUC agenda coming down through government and feeling that there would still be a place for challenge back to coordination for that work, but also, then, where does the challenge role come back to government? That was really what we were thinking around: where do we all have that opportunity for a critical friend to feed back and respond to decisions?

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: I suppose that the challenge in that would be almost an additional tier of bureaucracy, at a time when we have just had the previous discussion about the protection of the front line and the need to be very focused in targeting social need. Has the council explored what that model would be with regard to impact or cost?

Ms Rea: We are just familiar with the benefits that we have seen of having that; even, for example, back to us in terms of the work that we do and being able to monitor that. The Community Relations Council (CRC) does its own monitoring at the moment. It plays that role very well. We would rely on a lot of its research to help to inform where we should be going, and we have done over the past. Where does that then lie in future arrangements? It is a very important function. It is about the placing of that.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: It is more about a challenge function, but it is not, in your view, I suppose, detailed with regard to cost or impact.

Ms Rea: No.

Mr Guilfoyle: Your question could be interpreted in a number of ways. Certainly, over the years, the Youth Service in Northern Ireland has been very much a mix of voluntary and statutory. As my colleague Norma said, the voluntary sector is, by far, the biggest provider. The statutory sector plays a big role as well. Since 1990 — I have been there right from the outset — when the Youth Council was formed, it was formed with specific functions in mind. One of its statutory functions was to assist the coordination and efficient use of the resources of the service. We have interpreted that as actually trying to get all of the players together to make more efficient use of what money is on the table and to bring forward various initiatives. Certainly, if you have seen any of our stories of our 25-year history, you will have seen many examples of initiatives that we have facilitated — not our initiatives, but ones that were brought by the sector — that have produced real products and impact on the ground.

The challenge for the future is about who will provide that coordinating function. The voluntary sector needs to work with the statutory sector. The statutory sector needs the voluntary sector to deliver, primarily. That has to be coordinated, so there is an important coordinating function. I do not interpret that as administration; I interpret some of that as being developmental that has good impact on the ground.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: Is that not something that comes within the remit of the new Education Authority?

Mr Guilfoyle: As I understand it, the Education Authority was meant to subsume the functions of the five education and library boards; I have read nothing contrary to that to date. I speak as someone with some background in the education and library boards; I used to be the head of service in the Southern Education and Library Board. Education and library boards are responsible for funding local youth groups. They try to facilitate and support good work in the board areas. That is very much a role that the Education Authority will take on board for Northern Ireland as a whole, but we need to have a conversation about how other aspects of what is essential for good delivery on the ground are managed in a way that works within existing resources. Obviously, everything is resource-capped. How do we work out the best division of labour between the statutory sector, the Education Authority, the Youth Council and the voluntary sector, which is the key deliverer in all this?

Mr McCausland: Thanks for the presentation. If I have it right, there was mention of six uniformed organisations — ranging from the Girls' Brigade to the Catholic Guides and everything in between — 55,000 young people and 12,000 volunteers. That is a very big sector. It is important that the needs of that sector are not overlooked.

I pose two questions. The question around shared education currently references religious belief and political affiliation. The other element in our society is around cultural distinctiveness. That has been identified even by CnaG in terms of the cultural dimension of the Irish-medium sector. Do you think that there is merit in broadening that out to include not merely religious belief and political affiliation but cultural identity?

Ms Rea: Sorry to go back to the CRED one, but I found that the different backgrounds and traditions worked quite well for us. I reiterate what I said: you cannot have in and out; it is about the end game and the outcomes. Once you start to define who is going to be in there and who is not, it is going to be quite difficult. It is quite complex.

Mr McCausland: I have no difficulty at all. The point that you made earlier around equity, diversity and interdependence is the fundamental of the whole thing. It is a three-legged stool. It takes three legs to hold it up; you need all of them to be there. A two-legged stool does not stand up. That combination recognises difference on the basis of equality, but it also recognises interdependence, good relations and community relations — however you describe it. That is hugely important, and it needs to be acknowledged. Otherwise, you could have a dysfunctional situation moving forward.

It is a pity in some ways that we did not have the sequencing this morning in a slightly different order. The paper that we got from the Committee Clerk mentions budgets. Your budget in 2013-14 was nearly £6 million. Staff costs were £700,000. There was £5 million from the Department and £1 million from whatever other source. Half of the spending was on regional voluntary organisations and infrastructure funding, and there was £200,000 on CRED policy activities. How much of your budget from the Department would be pure administration, as opposed to developmental work, support or whatever?

Mr Guilfoyle: As I understand it, the figure is £5·1 million rather than £6 million. Of that, the council distributes £4·9 million. The vast bulk of the funding received is from the Department. We try to draw down European funding as well, and we help many other youth organisations to draw down about half a million pounds a year in European funding; but that is another story. As an arm's-length body, the Council has the discretion to decide how best to split that funding up, consistent with our statutory functions. The council has always, historically, put the vast bulk of that in the hands of voluntary organisations in a variety of funding schemes. The £900,000 that seems to be held back for the Council is certainly not an administration budget. I have had this argument with the Department for decades now. Administration, to my mind, is when someone passes a piece of paper across a table and is not actually engaging with the youth organisation receiving that funding; they are basically a paper passer. There is a certain percentage of our staff's time spent on that. We do administer funding, and obviously we are accountable for that funding, so there has to be a certain amount of paper associated with that. However, the vast majority of our staff's time, myself included, is spent engaging with the sector and with those outside the sector that may be good allies for the sector, which could be another Department such as DSD, DHSSPS, DOJ, DEL etc. It is also spent advising others on how best to utilise the expertise of the Youth Service and to take forward initiatives such as the United Youth programme, T:BUC summer camps etc.

I would challenge the Department to demonstrate how much of the £800,000 is actual administration. I would be very happy to sit down and have a discussion to show exactly where staff time goes. The Department has our business plan; it knows what the staff do. I would have thought that it was quite obvious to them, from our business plan, that the majority of our staff are not pen-pushers but are actually doing developmental work, supporting those on the ground by doing work that is moving the sector forward. We are doing work in areas such as the North/South context. International work is also referred to, and, as Norma was saying, we are developing accredited training for CRED work and for youth work. We are developing youth work apprenticeships in liaison with DEL. There is a lot of work that goes on that I would not personally say could be construed as administration.

Mr McCausland: It might be helpful to inform our correspondence with the Department —

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Kinahan): I have made a note of that. I think that that is exactly what we should be doing.

Mr Hazzard: Thanks for the presentation. The vast majority of my questions have been answered, but I just want to pick up on a couple of points that Nelson was talking about. You would obviously contradict the Minister and Department's assertion, made this morning, that £800,000 was spent on administration. How much do you spend on administration?

Mr Guilfoyle: I would not like to give a specific figure because it depends what one is counting. Certainly we have become aware — I have been chief executive for almost 25 years — that the level of public accountability has greatly extended over the years. Obviously we have no problem with that. We have to abide by that, and we have no problem doing so. There is certainly a lot of money, time and effort taken by staff looking at how we give out the funding. In fact, we have just had an internal audit report carried out, and we will have our external auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, in in a few months' time. I am delighted to say that we have always had very good reports on how well money is administered. You will appreciate that, giving out that money in public funding, we have to carry it out very carefully. We have people going out on the ground carrying out financial verification visits to groups we fund. I am sure that no one is suggesting that that is not essential.

I would not like to give you a figure today, but I am happy to go back to base, speak to colleagues and come back to the Committee with a figure in due course. What I can say assuredly now is that the vast majority of our staff time is not involved in funding. Funding is important; it is the lifeblood for the many organisations we fund, and, if some of them were sitting here today, they would say to you that, without their core funding, they would go out of business, because very few funders nowadays will fund core or infrastructure. They will fund short-term project funding. That is relatively easier to get. However, we do know that, sadly, a couple of the organisations we fund have gone out of business in recent years because of problems with funding. A couple more, I know, are on the brink, and certainly if the council is forced to impose a further cut in funding, that could be prejudicial to their future survival.

The only occasion, in my memory, when we had a cut, about 10 or 12 years ago, Youth Council itself took a bigger percentage cut from its own running costs, as it were, to try to cushion the regional voluntary organisations. With the £1 million cut, no matter how hard we hit ourselves and yet maintain our statutory functions, it would be very hard to cushion much of the impact on those organisations. I feel for them, having personally worked not just in the education and library boards but as a voluntary worker at a local club and a regional voluntary organisation. We empathise very strongly with our colleagues.

Mr Hazzard: I think that this warrants further investigation. I was alarmed this morning when the Minister mentioned £800,000 on what could technically be looked at as another layer of bureaucracy that we do not need. A bit of clarity around this would be useful.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Kinahan): It has also made me think about whether there is duplication in the authority. We should investigate that as well.

Mr Hazzard: It may not be the Youth Council but the authority that has the duplication. It is worth checking it out.

Mr Guilfoyle: My colleague would like to make a comment that is relevant to your point.

Ms Rea: The Minister will be familiar with the Irish-medium work and youth work. Although I look after the funding that goes out to support regional development of that and its coordination across the voluntary organisations, a huge amount of my time is spent — this is an emerging area of work — on supporting those who are involved in that work, so that they are aware of training opportunities, and working with my board colleagues to bring everything together to try to develop that area more coherently and, in some ways, protect the voice of the voluntary sector. I think that the Youth Council has been very good at protecting that. We are not a huge organisation, and perhaps that will be our downfall. A lot has been about where the voluntary sector can take it forward.

Mr Hazzard: I certainly empathise with what you are saying, but we have a duty to look at that, given the very harsh economic climate and some of the budgetary decisions. If we did not examine that issue, questions would be asked of us as a Committee.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Kinahan): We will look at it.

Thanks very much for a very good presentation. We know how valuable you are, and you should hold your heads high and know that you are incredibly important to us.

Mr Guilfoyle: Can I make two brief comments? I have two good colleagues here without whose work a lot of the work that we have described would not happen. I do not take the plaudits; I applaud my two colleagues Norma and Joanne. I thank you for the appreciation that you have shown today not just for the work of the Youth Council but for the work on CRED, which is crucial. As we understand it, the Minister is yet to make a final decision on that because the equality impact assessment consultation on CRED is not yet finished. That is a live issue. On behalf of all the youth organisations that we work with and fund, I thank you for your interest in this. Hopefully we will get a better settlement while still recognising Mr Hazzard's point that we all live with restricted resources. We certainly respect that.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Kinahan): Norma, Joanne and David, thank you very much.