Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): We welcome to the table Patricia McIntyre and Ricky Irwin. My notes suggest that you will make opening remarks, Ricky.

Mr Ricky Irwin (Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister): Yes indeed, Chair. Good afternoon. We were very pleased to be invited today to give the Committee an update on victims and survivors, straight after Margaret and Oliver from the Victims and Survivors Service (VSS). There have been a number of positive developments since we were last here on 8 October. At our last briefing, we outlined progress on the implementation of the recommendations arising from the independent assessment of the VSS. Work has continued to implement those recommendations. To date, 51 of the 70 recommendations have been fully implemented. The remaining recommendations, which relate to the assessment process, monitoring and evaluation, protocols for dealing with the psychologically injured, and better communication, are being taken forward as part of a collaborative design programme of work to improve services to victims and survivors. Margaret touched on that earlier.

That is in line with the previous commissioner's recommendation to transition from an administrative model to a service model of delivery in VSS for victims. The outstanding recommendations that relate to the governance and the VSS board are being taken forward as part of the outworkings of the recruitment exercise for our new chair and additional board members. Those appointments are currently pending security checks. They will be announced very soon.

The commission re-engaged with WKM Solutions and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) to undertake a review of progress against the implementation of the independent assessment. I am pleased to report that the follow-up was positive and acknowledged significant improvement in a number of key areas, including relationships and communication between VSS and key stakeholders, as well as the considerable progress on the implementation of the recommendations in the initial report and the commissioner's covering advice, which came to Ministers on 14 February last year. Let us be clear about this: there is still further work to do.

Throughout 2014-15, VSS has continued to provide funding to victims and survivors through the individual needs programme and the victim support programme. Margaret outlined some of that. Despite the challenging budgetary constraints, the service has proactively managed its budget to maintain front-line services, including communicating clearly and sensitively with victims and stakeholders. It has worked closely with us in the Department and the commission to obtain feedback on communication to try to minimise any confusion and distress. Again, you heard Oliver and Margaret talking about that.

The VSS initial budget for 2014-15 was reduced. Whilst a bid for additional resources was not met in June monitoring, an additional £1·3 million was secured in October monitoring to restore VSS to its baseline position of 2013-14. A further bid of an additional £1·3 million was secured in January 2015. That took the VSS budget to £12·6 million this year. Margaret outlined how she fully intends to expend that on meeting the delivery of services before the end of March.

I outlined at my last appearance that a number of schemes to assist individuals opened over the summer months. I am pleased to report that, in securing the additional funding in both monitoring rounds this year, VSS was able to make 1,955 awards for £400 under the support for the bereaved scheme. Flexibility was given to allow awards to be used towards the cost of home heating, complementary therapies or a respite break. In doing that, VSS listened to feedback it got from the forum, the commission and other stakeholders. It was a much welcome approach in terms of that flexibility.

Under the support for the injured scheme, a further 700 awards were made for those on the disability living allowance (DLA) middle-rate care component or those with agreed management treatment plans. The awards in that case were £400 or, in the case of the DLA high-rate care component, they were for £1,500. Those awards were towards the cost for therapies and eligible goods and services.

In addition, whilst there was no increase to the £500 paid through the care for carers scheme, I am pleased to report that VSS has now issued all award letters. That is a total of 400 individuals who registered for that support. VSS also provided a further £350 to the individuals who were awarded £650 under financial assistance scheme 6 when it was a two-phased approach.

That took the total amount awarded to every individual under scheme 6 to £1,000, which was in line with previous awards.

I am pleased to advise that the budget for 2015-16 has been agreed at £13·245 million, which is the highest level since VSS was established. In light of the independent assessment of VSS and the ongoing collaborative design work, the Department is preparing an addendum to the business case for programme funding to roll forward for a further year. That will allow sufficient time for a new service delivery model to be designed and agreed and for any revised operational and governance structures to be put in place as a result of the collaborative design programme.

The appointment of a new Commissioner for Victims and Survivors remains a key priority for Ministers. The competition reached an advanced stage. However, it produced a disappointingly small pool of appointable candidates. I am sure that you will recognise the need to ensure that victims and survivors have an appropriate representative voice through the commissioner and, therefore, the importance of identifying the right person for the job. In light of that, the process has been designed to widen the pool of appointable candidates through a new competition, which has now been launched. I assure the Committee that, whilst the commission has continued to operate without a commissioner, it remains fully committed to, operational for and accessible to all victims and survivors and organisations that are working with them. Candidates from the current competition will remain on the deemed appointable list, and we have thrown the net wider in the new competition by advertising increased remuneration for the post. We are also looking at practical issues, such as relocation costs, to attract a wider pool.

Additionally, the competition to appoint a permanent VSS chair and additional board members is at an advanced stage. I touched on that. Interviews have taken place, and Ministers have selected a chair and additional board members from the list of candidates that I sent forward. Further details will be announced very soon, but we cannot go into detail, because those individuals are going through the security checks that are necessary prior to that kind of appointment. However, I anticipate that those appointments will be finalised before the end of this month and possibly even next week if the checks go through quickly. In the meantime, the interim chair and the board continue to meet as required to fulfil their obligations, as you heard Oliver outline. I commend the board, the VSS senior management team and Margaret for their leadership during that challenging period.

I previously advised the Committee that the Department was in discussions with Health officials on how best to meet the psychological needs of victims through the potential enhancement of service provision in the health-care sector. In line with recommendation 23 of the WKM report to the commission, we have continued discussions with the commission, DHSSPS and the Health and Social Care Board on protocols with the statutory health services where victims are identified as requiring acute psychological or psychiatric interventions.

As part of the collaborative design programme of work, a number of pilots are scheduled to be taken forward during 2015-16. Margaret touched on those. Preliminary work has commenced in the two areas to look at the best approach to implementing personalised budgets where a package of care, rather than rigid schemes, is developed for individuals. The second pilot is on the introduction of dedicated case workers. We very much welcome that approach.

I hope that the Committee will acknowledge the progress that has been made in improving services to victims and the commitment to continue with that through our programme of co-design. Indeed, I invite members to take part in the programme by extending an invitation to an event that we are organising towards the end of this month or in early April that will look at identifying the key priorities under the themes of individual funding, group funding and mental health services. I look forward to your input to that.

That concludes the presentation. I am happy to take any questions that you might have.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Ricky, thank you very much. Let us start with the board. I understand that there are constraints that prevent you from discussing many details and that security checks are under way. Let us say that the scrutiny checks are all positive and that there are no issues, are you saying that there will be a board that will consist of a named chair plus six or plus seven members?

Mr R Irwin: It will be plus six.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): So, there will be seven people, one of whom has been identified as the desired chair.

Mr R Irwin: That is right, yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): It is out of your hands and is going through security checks. OK.

A process has been run for the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors, a small pool of appointable candidates has been identified and none has been selected by the Ministers, who have decided instead to run a second process with all those who already deemed to be appointable carried forward.

Mr R Irwin: That is right.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): That happened before — to me, may I add.

Mr Spratt: They were waiting on you.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): The outcome was a decision by the then FM and DFM, without consultation with anybody else as far as we can make out, not to appoint one commissioner but four. Is it an option to appoint more than one at this stage?

Mr R Irwin: I could not possibly say whether that is an option. It is not within my gift to make that recommendation. My job is very clear. It is to chair the recruitment panel and present a list of appointable people. That is what I will be doing.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Those are presumably not in rank order.

Mr R Irwin: No, they are not in rank order.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Those are people who have just cleared whatever bar there is and are in the category called "deemed appointable".

Mr R Irwin: That is right.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Do you know the difference between "appointable" and "appropriate", which is the word you used when you said that no candidate was considered appropriate?

Mr R Irwin: OK —

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): In your opening remarks, you said that none was considered "appropriate" or that it was important to get an "appropriate" —

Mr R Irwin: Yes. That is in the context of ensuring that there is an appropriate voice for victims.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): So, you have people who are deemed appointable but who are cleared not deemed appropriate. What is the difference?

Mr R Irwin: I would not necessarily accept that. I mean —

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I am using your words.

Mr R Irwin: Yes, but in the context that there has to be the appropriate voice for victims in the role of the commissioner. I think that that is a reasonable statement to make. In comparing the word "appropriate" —

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I am sorry. I do not see how you can say that a person is deemed appointable if they are not appropriate.

Mr R Irwin: I am not saying that, Chair. I am saying that the statement that I made was reasonable. The decision on whether someone is deemed appointable is a matter for Ministers. That is not something that I get into. It is up to Ministers to make that decision.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): So, you judge by some criteria, and the Ministers can apply a different criterion or criteria. Yours is "appointable", and the Ministers' is "appropriate".

Mr R Irwin: The Commissioner for Public Appointments very closely scrutinises and regulates the process. I am working within that protocol.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I am genuinely trying to understand the difference between a candidate who is appointable and one who is deemed appropriate.

Let us move on to the budget. As we heard from Margaret, last year it opened at £11·685 million but dropped, and this year it is opening at £13·245 million. Can you guarantee the Committee that it will not drop?

Mr R Irwin: I think that you will accept that, as an official, it is not within my gift to give an absolute guarantee on the budget or a decision that I do not have any power over. However, let me be clear about this: I have always put forward that, where VSS requires extra money, it should get it to meet the needs of victims who come forward. I came here in October, and we went over the initial allocation to VSS in some detail. We have to look at the lessons from that, and with the decision that has been made to provide £13·2 million, Ministers have sent a very clear message that VSS needs stability in the 2015-16 year. As far as I can, I will try to make sure that that is the minimum budget and that is not reduced in any way, shape or form. Let me also say that I have also not heard any doubt or anything to indicate that it will be reduced at any stage going forward. While that is not what you are looking for, it is as much as I think I can give.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): That is a very welcome statement, actually. You are obviously constrained by what Ministers decide, and I welcome that statement.

As you said, you were here in October, Ricky, and we asked for sight of the management statement and financial memorandum between you and the VSS or at least the part that relates to the duty of care to staff. Five months have passed, and we are still waiting.

Mr R Irwin: I am aware that the Committee formally made the request. It remains under consideration in the Department. That is all that I can say on that matter.

I talked about duty of care the last time, and I think that that is what sparked the request. Margaret outlined the changes that she has put in place to support her staff. I commend her for putting in place a lot of support for staff. There has been a culture change. You will accept that that seems to be the case now. The organisation is still quite new, but let us be clear that it is in a hell of a lot better position than it was a year ago. Where the Department has been asked to step up, we have. Patricia and I, and the rest of the team, have been there to support Margaret in anything that she has asked for. She said that she did not ask us for any help on some issues, and that is fine. We need to be careful that we do not tread on the operational issues of the VSS. The Department has a clear role and so does the VSS. We do not want to cross the line. There is no need to worry that something is going wrong with the duty of care issue.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): What concerns me is that we, as a Statutory Committee, made a request to the Department, it took it away but, five months later, it has not even had the courtesy to come back to us to say, "We cannot show you that", "There is an issue" or "Here it is".

Mr R Irwin: I understand what you are saying about the time delay. Chair, you will be aware that all requests are made formally and come back to the Department. That is the process. It is not a process that is in my gift to change. All requests are considered.

Mr Spratt: Thanks, Ricky and Patricia. It needs to be said very clearly that the Department has worked very well since its previous presentation to the Committee to address the recommendations that were made. Let us face it: there was a mess. In fairness to the Department, it very quickly accepted the problem, and everyone worked hard together to get that problem sorted out. As I said earlier, it is very clear that, from a constituency point of view, we are not getting the individual complaints on many of the issues that we got complaints about before. A lot of very good work has been done, and we need to recognise that departmental officials have done hard work. You need to be thanked for doing that, because it was clearly a very difficult situation. I am glad that the Committee pursued the matter in the way in which it did.

Margaret referred earlier to the McClure Watters report, which contains quite a few recommendations. I assume that you will try to take the clients on a more personalised journey, as opposed to the way in which it has been done in the past. That theme has been coming through from the previous recommendations.

Can you give us some insight into meetings? I assume that you meet monthly, or at least regularly. I know that there is a board — I cannot remember the name of it — through which you meet monthly. Then you go off.

The McClure Watters report seems to be pretty recent. I assume that the Department has no problem with letting us have sight of its recommendations at some point so that we can all work together to make sure that they are cleared. Can you give us some insight into what has been recommended in the report, how you see it helping and how you will continue to support the VSS? I assume that that support is needed less now, as it appears that some fairly robust decisions have been made, and some of the staffing and telephone-call issues and all the rest of it appear to have disappeared.

Mr R Irwin: First, thanks for the comments about our work. The reports are on the commission's website. They are in the public domain, so there is no issue there. We have set up a collaborative design subgroup, which has on it the commission, the service and the Department. The idea is to look at the recommendations in more detail. When you see them, you will notice that the recommendations are building on what came out of the independent assessment report from a year ago. It is a direction of travel that Oliver has welcomed.

I will give you a flavour of some of the stuff. There are two reports: one for individual needs; and one for groups. The individual needs report talks about developing robust monitoring and evaluation, on which Oliver touched. It recommends minimising duplication where services are offered by other providers. We know that some of the stuff that the VSS does in its schemes is available elsewhere, but there has never been any check done to see whether there is any duplication. That recommendation is therefore about efficiency.

There are two pilots recommended: a pilot on the use of personalised budgets; and a pilot on the use of caseworkers. There is also a recommendation around developing a code of practice for eligibility checks, and that applies in both the individual report and the group report.

The group report talks about embedding partnership-working. That is about developing partnerships in the sector and in groups but also between the likes of the Department and groups and the Department and the service. It also talks about working towards the strategic allocation of funding, which is a reasonable recommendation to make. That recommendation will involve looking at where current need is, looking at current provision and making sure that the model is the most efficient model for victims.

An obvious recommendation is to introduce longer funding cycles. That is something that comes up not just in the victims sector but in the voluntary and community sector. People want stability around contracts. They do not want one-year contracts. They want three-, four- or five-year contracts, and understandably so.

Those are all reasonable and acceptable recommendations. We want to work very closely with VSS, the commission — including the forum— and groups on how we bring the recommendations forward over the next few months. Let me be clear: we do not want to make the mistakes that were made before. We do not want to do things too quickly. We do not want to introduce changes that are going to be unsettling and destabilising. By building on the improvements that have been made in the past 12 months, 2015-16 should be a stable year. We are not in the business of suddenly making a whole series of changes. The idea behind the collaborative design process is to work closely with all stakeholders. I will say again that, as far as I am concerned, that includes Committee members. I therefore welcome your input. When you have had a chance to look at the reports, certainly get back in touch with us.

Mr Spratt: One last thing, Chair. When talking about group funding, Oliver referred to looking at putting together a process that monitors how grants are spent and best practice for how that money could be more efficiently used for victims. Is that something that you have had discussions with the interim chair about? Do you see a need for that type of process?

Mr R Irwin: Yes, we have had discussions, and probably more so with Margaret, in her capacity as interim CEO. Both reports picked up on monitoring and evaluation. Monitoring is an issue. We need to look at the impact of the money, and we need to be measuring the data. It is accepted that we do not have that at the minute. There is an awful lot of good work going on across all the groups. Some of them have fantastic systems in place to capture the journey of the victim, through counselling or whatever other service they are offering. We have been out and about, and I have found that a lot of groups are doing the same thing and using the same systems, but there has not been that consolidation. Margaret is trying to work with the groups to bring about that consolidation and standardisation of data and information. That will help us understand whether we are doing the right things, whether the services are the right ones and whether victims are being helped. That is important. We are into those discussions now. I do not know what the endgame will look like, but I am hopeful that there will be robust data that we can use to improve the services even further.

Mr Spratt: That is a very important process, particularly for groups. I suppose that it is a mini audit process as well. It is also very important how that is sold to the end user. The people who benefit from it need to know that the process is going on and that it is trying to improve the amount of money available, because, let us face it, a very substantial amount of money is being made available. However, it is important at the very outset of such a process to make sure that it is sold to end users — those who benefit from what the group is doing — not just those who are involved in the group.

Mr R Irwin: The other point to make is that people want to know that their information is being held and managed in the right way, and that is very important in the sector. We are mindful of all of that, so it is all being taken forward as well.

Mr Lyttle: Thank you for your briefing, Ricky. The variable budget allocations to the VSS in 2014-15 were obviously quite severe and had a fairly significant impact on victims and survivors and on the impression that they have of government provision for their services. Has the First Minister, the deputy First Minister or either of the junior Ministers at any point suggested coming to speak to the Committee on those issues?

Mr R Irwin: I would have thought that, any time that there was an invitation from the Committee, they would consider that, but I cannot answer for the First Minister and the deputy First Minister. You would need to ask them.

Mr Lyttle: OK. I have no intention and cannot imagine that the Committee has any intention of having undue interference in a public appointments process at the end of the day, given the importance placed on the timely appointment of a Victims' Commissioner, not least by the Victims and Survivors Service. Can you give any more outline detail on why, given that there was a pool of appointable people, an appointment was not possible?

Mr R Irwin: No.

Mr Lyttle: OK. Can you give a target date for appointment?

Mr R Irwin: We have launched the new exercise, and the advert will be in a lot of the major newspapers next week. It is on a few websites now. That is the beginning of the process again, so there is a time frame for allowing people to apply. We have to factor in shortlisting and interviews. I think that we have interviews scheduled for May.

Mrs Patricia McIntyre (Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister): Yes.

Mr R Irwin: Yes, there you go: interviews will be in May.

Mr Lyttle: By that point, the non-appointment of a Victims' Commissioner will be pushing 12 months.

Mr R Irwin: Yes.

Mr Attwood: I want to come back to the issue of the non-appointment. Did the Commissioner for Public Appointments raise any questions about the process?

Mr R Irwin: No.

Mr Attwood: I think that you have to explain to the Committee an apparent tension, as I see it, in what you said earlier, when you said that there were appointable candidates. When you then said that there needed to be an "appropriate representative voice", the Chair picked up on that. Is an appointable candidate an appropriate representative voice or not?

Mr R Irwin: That is not for me to answer.

Mr Attwood: It is language that you use, so I am asking you about that language. Is an appointable candidate an appropriate representative voice?

Mr R Irwin: Again, it is not for me to answer, because I do not make the final decision.

Mr Attwood: What do you mean by an "appropriate representative voice", then? That is the language that you used?

Mr R Irwin: Someone who will fulfil the role of commissioner in line with what has been set out in statute for the commissioner's office on an advocate for victims and survivors — a voice working with the Department to oversee the implementation of the victims' strategy. I do not see an issue with my saying "appropriate person". I do not see a problem with that.

Mr Attwood: The language that you used was "appropriate representative voice", not an "appropriate person".

Mr R Irwin: OK.

Mr Spratt: We are happy enough on this side.

Mr Attwood: Thank you for that intervention.

You have to concede that it is a curious choice of words. Two people are deemed to be appointable candidates, yet this other criterion appears to come in about an "appropriate representative voice".

Mr R Irwin: It is not a criterion.

Mr Attwood: How would you describe it, then? It is your language, so you describe it.

Mr R Irwin: I am merely outlining in the context of filling the role. Again, I do not think it is unreasonable to say an "appropriate voice" for victims. I do not understand what the problem is.

Mr Attwood: I am trying to clarify what you mean. If there are two people who are appointable candidates under the criteria for selection, further to a rigorous process of interview, about which the Commissioner for Public Appointments, you accept, raised no questions, why are they not deemed to be an "appropriate representative voice"?

Mr R Irwin: As I said previously, I do not make the final decision, so I cannot answer that.

Mr Attwood: I am not saying that you should; I am just saying that you used the language about an "appropriate representative voice". Why would you use that language? Those people were appointable and were clearly appropriate representative voices under the criteria for selection and interview. Why would you raise any questions about it at all?

Mr R Irwin: I am going over old ground here, Chair. I do not see that there is an issue. Am I missing something?

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Can I be clear, Ricky? You run a process. You present a list to the Ministers.

Mr R Irwin: That is correct.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): The list does not state that the person who scored the highest number of marks under the criteria is X and that the order is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Mr R Irwin: It is unranked.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): It is unranked. Those are the people who jumped whatever bar was set. Then, as they did in my case, the Ministers went away on their own, locked themselves in a room, came out and said, "Run it again", because, even though there were names on that list who were all deemed appointable by the civil servants who ran the process, they, for whatever reason, decided that they did not want any of those people or did not think that they were suitable. That is beyond your role.

Mr R Irwin: What Ministers decide is beyond my role. The pool was not big enough, so that is why we are running the process again — to get a sizeable pool.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): What is the minimum size?

Mr R Irwin: I do not know.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): How can you say that the pool was not big enough if you do not know what "big enough" is?

Mr R Irwin: It is not in my gift to make that decision.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): All right. Therefore, the Ministers said that there were not enough names.

Mr R Irwin: The Ministers have decided that we should rerun the competition. Those people who were deemed appointable are carried forward to the new process.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): You talked about the size of the pool. Who decided that the pool was not big enough?

Mr R Irwin: Ministers asked me to rerun the competition because the pool was not big enough.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): The Ministers decided that the pool was not big enough.

Mr R Irwin: As I said before, the Commissioner for Public Appointments has not raised any issues.

Mr Attwood: You said the words "appropriate representative voice". Are they your words or are they not your words?

Mr R Irwin: Yes. I am not trying to take that back. Yes, I said that.

Mr Attwood: They are your words. You wrote them. You said them.

Mr R Irwin: I said them, yes. If I said them, I said them, yes.

Mr Attwood: How do you reconcile your words about an "appropriate representative voice" with the fact that two people were deemed to be appointable?

Mr R Irwin: First, I never said that there were two people who were deemed to be appointable.

Mr Attwood: They were not deemed suitable to be appointed.

Mr R Irwin: I never said that they were —

Mr Spratt: On a point of order, Chair. Is it fair that somebody who is running a process that is overseen by the Commissioner for Public Appointments and has been directed to run another process is being put under pressure or having his integrity questioned? Are we not interfering with a live process?

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I am not sure whether we have points of order in Committee, but I take your intervention.

Mr Spratt: It is not a court that we are in.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I do not sense that Alex at any stage questioned Ricky Irwin's integrity. Absolutely not.

Mr Spratt: The officials are not in court, and I do not see why they should be questioned —

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): If Ricky wishes to object to the questioning —

You may walk out, Jimmy, but that is not a very mature thing to do, in my view.

We will have to suspend, because we are no longer quorate.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): We are quorate once again, not to make decisions but to take evidence.

Mr Attwood: I am not going to pursue the point, save to say this: you said "appointable" candidate — that is a word that you used — for where the Commissioner for Public Appointments has not raised any questions about the process or criteria. The individuals who were appointable are appropriate representative voices, because they fulfil the standards set out in the criteria at interview. I therefore do not understand why you referred to "appropriate representative voice" in that context.

My second question is on the decision that the pool was not big enough. Is that correct?

Mr R Irwin: The pool was not sizeable enough.

Mr Attwood: I find that an odd concept, because, whether it consisted of one or 21, the pool was adequate because the process was properly conducted, the person or persons were appointable and the criteria were met. It seems to be rather arbitrary to decide at the end of a process, about which there is no issue or dispute, that the pool is not big enough.

The process was proper, and the outcome was appointable candidates. Then, after that, something that is outwith the process or the criteria is suddenly introduced; namely, the pool is not big enough.

I am subject to correction, because I cannot recall this fully, but I think that the First Minister said in the Chamber that we needed to offer more money to get a bigger pool, which, similarly, seems to me to be rather strange. Do you accept that the introduction of the criterion that the pool was not big enough sits uncomfortably with the fact that there was a proper process and that the criteria had been previously fulfilled by at least two of the candidates?

Mr R Irwin: It is not a criterion.

Mr Attwood: It is a criterion. I said —

Mr R Irwin: I thought that you said that that was an additional criterion.

Mr Attwood: It certainly was an additional standard or requirement.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Alex, you will recall that there was a judicial review of the original four, of whom I was one. Justice Gillen concluded that it was reasonable for the then First Minister and deputy First Minister to — figuratively speaking — lock themselves in a room without anybody else and reach decisions, which is obviously above and beyond the appointments process that Ricky would run, overseen by the Commissioner for Public Appointments.

Mr R Irwin: They are ministerial appointments.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Judicially, there has been an endorsement of a process that says, "You run your thing, and then we will add criteria or standards".

I am not saying that that is right; I am just wondering how much further Ricky can go in answering these questions.

Mr Attwood: OK.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I am not trying to censor you.

Mr Attwood: I have nothing further to say. I had only one more question anyway.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Is that it? Megan, are you happy enough?

Ms Fearon: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Ricky and Patricia, thank you very much.