Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Maskey): I welcome Lauri McCusker, Karen Sweeney, Lyn Moffett and Cathy Polley. You were in the Public Gallery for the last evidence session, so you have a good idea of members' questions and concerns. Without any further ado, folks, I will leave it to you to make your case to the Committee.

Mr Lauri McCusker (Fermanagh Trust): Thank you for the opportunity to meet the Committee today. The Fermanagh Trust has not expanded across Northern Ireland —

Mr Allister: I thought that you had taken over. [Laughter.]

Mr McCusker: No. When we initially corresponded with the Committee in mid-January, we took the lead role on behalf of 30 organisations with which we work in partnership, which have been supported for a number of years by the Department for Social Development under the community infrastructure fund (CIF). We felt that it would be more productive to hear, as part of your discussions, from a cross section of those 30 organisations rather than just one.

We have outlined a number of key issues in our paper. I will pick up on a point that was raised with the representatives from the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA): we honestly feel that the Bill does not honour the government commitment to participatory processes. Our last discussions with representatives from the Department were in November 2010. From the point of view of the organisations that we represent and others with whom we have been working, the concordat, the Department's corporate plan about inclusivity and collaborative working and the development of the Regeneration Bill have not been about a process of engagement. That is disappointing.

Very importantly, the Department released the 'Urban Regeneration and Community Development Policy Framework' towards the latter end of 2013. That document was very well grounded and considered how the Department does its business and plans to do its business. This important Bill will see approximately £56·5 million transferred from the Department, so it is unfortunate that the Department did not engage in some of those participatory discussions and processes to hear from organisations across Northern Ireland about their experiences and to allow some input.

There is a lack of information. The discussions to date have been between local government, the Department and its officials.

We are not party to those discussions. There has been information, but it is not clear. When is neighbourhood renewal transferring? Is it transferring? What comes in with the Bill? It was the Regeneration and Housing Bill, and it then became the Regeneration Bill. [Interruption.]

The Chairperson (Mr Maskey): Sorry.

Mr F McCann: Sorry; I thought that I had my phone off.

The Chairperson (Mr Maskey): Fra McCann, stand in the corner. [Laughter.]

Will members please check their phone?

Mr Wilson: At least he confessed to it. I tried to pretend that it was not me. [Laughter.]

Mr Campbell: Not with much success.

The Chairperson (Mr Maskey): Will people please make sure that their phones are switched off? It is ultimately disrespectful to people, particularly to those who are giving evidence. Thank you.

Mr McCusker: It is interesting that it is called the Regeneration Bill. Other jurisdictions have regeneration Bills. This Bill seems to be mainly a transfer of resources between the Department and the councils. It does not get into the nitty-gritty of regeneration, whether that be economic, environmental, social or physical regeneration, so it is hard for us to comment on its content and get into that level of regeneration.

There also appears to be a real lack of joined-up thinking and a missed opportunity for the Executive. We have rural regeneration, which is the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. It was interesting to listen to officials from the Department for Social Development address the Committee a number of months ago about the lack of joined-up work between the two Departments. There are things like the social investment fund, which is putting substantial resources on the ground to address social need, but there appears to be no alignment between that and the Bill. It is disappointing that the Bill has not been seen as an opportunity for more joined-up thinking about the relationship between the different aspects of government resources that are designated for regeneration.

The timeline is also an issue. On the ground, councils are currently — even this week — appointing staff to positions and trying to meet the deadline of 31 March, so there is some uncertainty about those roles and responsibilities. We are now saying that, in 12 months' time, we should see a significant transfer and a change in the relationship between the organisations that the Department for Social Development has pump-primed. The Department, particularly the voluntary and community unit, has gone on a journey of putting in place support for community infrastructure organisations — neighbourhood renewal and so on — and has not had discussions with those organisations about the changes. New organisations are being formed, and the Bill suggests that we should hand over resources to those new organisations but should not take into account the considered view of the organisations that the Department has helped to put in place and core-supported. That seems to be an interesting way to do business.

Most importantly, we want to get across the impact that the transfer will have, particularly on the community infrastructure fund. I will hand over to Lyn to address that.

Ms Lyn Moffett (Ballymoney Community Resource Centre): Thank you. One of the things that Lauri and the Fermanagh Trust have done is to survey all the CIF-funded organisations, of which two thirds responded to the survey. With just those two thirds, £1·5 million will be lost to the third sector — the community infrastructure organisations. That may be a drop in the ocean in terms of the wider DSD budget, but it is quite significant in terms of the community and voluntary sector. The transfer of CIF funding to the councils has the potential to result in at least 16 organisations closing their doors. I remind you again that we are talking about only the two thirds that responded to the survey, so there may be more. The biggest point for me is the impact that it may have on services in the community, particularly with community development and infrastructure, and a loss of some of the soft skills that you asked NICVA about. CIF core funding allowed 24 of the CIF-funded groups to lever in a further £9 million to deliver other services. Those services are delivered across a wide variety of areas, not just geographical areas, and work in health, the environment and the economy. We can also think of groups funded by the European social fund (ESF) that are providing training for employment. Those are not soft options or outcomes but are quite concrete in the impact that they could have.

CIF core funding allowed 21 of the groups that responded to raise £7·6 million for their member groups. That is another significant pot of money going into the community sector. We do not necessarily want to focus purely and simply on the effect that it will have on the community infrastructure organisations, and we should remember that they have an impact on the communities in which they work, but loss of core funding could lead to over 70 redundancies immediately and possibly an additional 50 redundancies if there is a certain set of circumstances.

Some 60% of the organisations have been talking to their councils to discuss the transfer of CIF funding, and most of those meetings have been initiated by the CIF-funded groups rather than the councils. We understand that up to 50% of councils will deliver the programmes that we currently deliver in-house. Some will use a service level agreement, and 25% are considering tendering. We are very happy to engage in competitive processes. We are confident that we offer a professional and value-for-money service, but we want to highlight the danger of so many of the other areas in which we work being lost to the community and service provision in general.

Ms Karen Sweeney (Women's Support Network): Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to give evidence. I work with the Women's Support Network. We are a member of the Women's Regional Consortium, and I have gathered views from the wider women's sector, mainly on CIF but also from those who are involved in neighbourhood renewal and other community development frameworks.

There are currently 36 organisations. Of those, 12 are women's organisations, and 11 of those 12 are women's centres in some of the most deprived areas in Northern Ireland. It will not surprise you to learn that the average age of most of those organisations is around 27 years, because they are some of the original community development organisations. They are centres and organisations that provide a range of front-line services, such as childcare, training and development, advice, counselling and support, and referrals to other organisations and statutory bodies. As well as that social community development element, there is an economic element, because they are local employers and provide services that enable women to become employed through training, support and childcare, so there is also an economic value in communities.

When CIF was originally set up, its criteria was to fund core roles in organisations and a percentage of core running costs. In CIF-funded organisations, especially those in the women's sector, the average staffing level is about two or three people — usually a manager, a director and a finance person, with maybe part-time administrative staff as well as their running costs. As was said, core funding has enabled organisations to lever in more money. For some centres, up to £440,000 has come in for the provision of additional services in local communities.

If CIF was to go, and there was no more definition — I will get on to that — there would be an immediate loss of 29 jobs in women's groups, centres and organisations. The loss of 29 jobs could mean the loss of 107 jobs because of the knock-on effect of losing core funding. You would lose those who came in as a result of that funding and who are maybe members of the childcare and training teams.

Some points have been picked up on already, but other things about the Bill need to be highlighted. I will start with the DSD 'Urban Regeneration and Community Development Policy Framework', in which most of the references are to regeneration and community development. It is important to remember that those are two separate things. This is the Regeneration Bill, but community development is not mentioned in it. It mentions social need and, like Jim, I went on a wee hunt for that. Apart from it being called the Social Need Order in 1986, you can go from Maslow's social needs hierarchy to social policy to try to get a definition of what is being referred to. The policy framework established that it was the Department's structure for urban regeneration and renewal and community development activity and that it will:

It specifically mentions:

It never stops. It is just regeneration. The policy framework has a different wording to what is happening. As Lauri said, the document also sets out the importance of the concordat and how government and the voluntary and community sector should be working effectively in partnership to oversee this transition and the conferring of powers.

I will move on to the Bill. I found that only clause 1 refers to community development in any way, and it is kind of an all-inclusive statement. There really is no detail. One thing is different: it is almost word for word with the original Northern Ireland Order, apart from clause 1(1), where the words used are "financial assistance to any person". That is in the new Bill. In the Order, it was "any body and person". Is the money going to people? I have looked at the Bill, and there is no mention of community development. I read the Northern Ireland Local Government Association (NILGA) presentation, and it deals only with clause 2, which was originally in a planning Bill. It never even mentioned clause 1 and questioned the amount of scrutiny or oversight that DSD would have on different planning matters. It is not even mentioned that there would be any oversight in Part 1 of the Bill as it stands.

There is also the timeline and community planning. Many references have been made to a lot of the key functions and the delivery being picked up and that there will be detailed wording on how the money will be spent through the community plans. Draft guidance for the operation of community planning was out for consultation from December to March. I did a word search on that, and social need is mentioned once in the context of supporting the economic and social needs of a district in line with regional strategies and policies. Community development is mentioned just once in relation to local economic development and tourism, along with all their normal council functions. Again, there is nothing in there.

If we align that with the concordat, there is the development of community planning partners, who were going to bring forward community plans. The legislation states that it should be the likes of the education boards, the Health and Social Care Board and the Public Health Agency, but there is no requirement to have anybody from the voluntary and community sector. It advocates communicating with and consulting those in the community and voluntary sector who are:

It advocates that you can use those as support partners.

They are not full partners, and they should be brought in when you think that they should be brought in.

The document states that there should be a first draft community plan within 12 months of the new councils getting up and running. If we have no detail in the Bill of what will happen or how the money is to be used, we will not see it in any community plan for at least 12 months. That is where the concerns of the sector are: how can we regulate or see where the funding is transferred? If you take the example of the CIF money, it is a very small proportion. Maybe the sector is saying, "We won't get sight of where it's going to go or how it's going to be distributed". We are picking up from people who have been to the councils and have spoken to their council representatives that there is not much ring-fencing; it could be their pot, and they are not saying what it will be used for.

Has an EQIA been carried out on the Bill? I understand that the Bill is, essentially, an enabling Bill. It is a wee bit like welfare reform; it is to pass on powers and provisions. However, given the immense finances and powers that are being conferred, it should be looked at. I might have missed it if it is there. There could be a loss of community front-line services. Given the lack of detail, information and scrutiny in the Bill, in addition to the framework associated with the bedding-in of the new councils and the development of the initial community plans, we ask the Committee to support our proposal to the Minister and the Department that they separate out the two Bills again.

Maybe we can have regeneration and community development. Derry and Strabane and Belfast were a wee bit ahead of the other councils last year. Their idea was to phase it in; they were going to fund as is for two years while the community plans were being developed and then open up new funding. As DARD has not deferred any of its resources or powers, maybe it should be phased in and separated out. We ask that CIF, as well as neighbourhood renewal, or, if you like, the community development arm, remain with DSD if only for a couple of years to phase it in and see how the councils are going.

Ms Cathy Polley (Ards Community Network): I am not going to say a whole lot; I will come from the community point on this and speak about what is happening on the ground.

As you know, the Department for Social Development has lead responsibility for supporting the voluntary and community sector, and community development specifically. We ask the Committee and the Department to listen to what is happening on the ground at this time. So much change is going on, and communities are lost in all these Bills and things. I would like you to take time to think about what is happening on the ground. We are here as community infrastructure support organisations to support their assessed needs.

Sammy, earlier you talked about social needs and how you define them. If you look at the list of organisations that we represent, I can pick any one of them and tell you exactly how it is meeting assessed needs. The Causeway Rural and Urban Network, for example, is the key body delivering a social investment programme worth more than £2 million. That body is the lead partner for OFMDFM, and it is delivering on assessed needs that have been determined over the last two years with people working on the ground.

The Newry Confederation of Community Groups — Mickey is nodding — has led neighbourhood renewal for this whole time. The Department built up that infrastructure over the last 15 or 16 year. It did an absolutely amazing job; it has a fantastic resource in all those organisations, which are fulfilling everything that is set out in the urban regeneration and community development policy framework. It built it and got it working really well. It has such a breadth and spread across the region. It created a subregional infrastructure, which is what we call ourselves. We are not local or attached to the councils. We have been able to develop separately from the councils, but we have been able to build up the best partnerships with councils everywhere because we were not paid by them as such.

I cannot take my eyes off the sign behind Alex, which says "Ensuring Accountability". I really worry that that is what we will lose. I worry that we have had this independence — I do not like that word — and we do not like to be called "independent community development support", but we have been able to meet local needs unconditionally, so whatever the communities were bringing to us, whether it was something that the council was doing that they did not like or whether it was something to do with the environment, we were able to address it and sit down with the communities and find local solutions. That is what has been so lovely about the community infrastructure fund. It has been funded all these years by DSD.

The urban regeneration and community development plan says:

That is exactly what the community investment fund did. It built up a brilliant infrastructure that links local people through local networks and support organisations to the Department, yet allows us to work with the council and feed everybody into what has already been local community planning on the ground. We have five local community plans in neighbourhoods and estates, as do many of our other networks, where we can feed the information into councils. Our concern is that if our money is transferred to councils — and we know for a fact, and I am going to use my own example — I met our council yesterday — Ards and North Down, as it is now called —

Mr Wilson: Is it not North Down and Ards?

Ms Polley: No, Sammy, it is not. The "A" comes first: it is Ards and North Down. It is not "East Coast Cooler" or whatever else. We sat with their officers and discussed what will happen next year and what we will do this year. The three of us from our urban and rural networks sat with our mouths falling because they were talking about their 30 programme activity workers and their four community development officers, but they were not talking about the needs on the ground, which is what we concentrate on. They were talking about the council structures and their officers and what they might do and how they might come in and work in Ards, and we were thinking, "This has already all been done. DSD has invested in it for the last 15 years. This has all happened. Let's not spend our time and precious resources redoing something that already works. Let's get down to really good community planning." The infrastructure already exists, plus that infrastructure is worth only 3·8% of the total DSD budget that is transferring, so we would like the Committee to think about that.

We met the previous Minister and the head of ECU to discuss that to say that we are not local and that we do not fit into local infrastructure because we need to have accountability with our councils. We need to be a bridge between what local people are saying and what is happening in the new councils and in their community plans and being able to feed that into the urban regeneration and community development policy framework.

I just wanted to read one more bit from it. It says:

What I am saying is that the infrastructure is there. We have our new councils now. Great working relationships already exist with those councils, and I will not be rushing to send us all into the unknown next year when we do not know what is happening and we do not know what the priorities are. I have argued all along, as have most of my colleagues, that it will take time for the councils to bed in. Instead of getting caught up in that embedding process, we would like to focus on community needs, community capacity building, community social and economic development and all the things that you will see in the report that we do so well as infrastructure organisations. We would like to be a link between local councils and the Department, which has this role, remit and responsibility for urban regeneration and community development.

I am quite sure that I was supposed to say something else. Hold on. [Laughter.]

The Chairperson (Mr Maskey): You said you were going to be brief; you are worse than some of the politicians around here.

Ms Polley: I also encourage the Social Development Committee to take a lead role in ensuring that the Assembly and the Department for Social Development honour the concordat with the sector. We urge the Committee to protect community development work and make sure that everything that DSD has already invested in is not lost, come this time next year.

It is time for the Department to look at the implications of the Regeneration Bill to our most deprived, disadvantaged and impoverished communities, which is what we focus on. We could add neighbourhood renewal to the mix, but our real interest is in protecting the infrastructure that has already been built up in the Department.

The Chairperson (Mr Maskey): If I am right, your key point is that the organisations that you listed, which are in receipt of CIF, would retain that for three years. Is that what you are formally proposing as a way of ensuring that there is community support? I take it that that is your key proposal.

Ms Polley: Yes, and, again, it is only 3·8% of the overall budget. It would allow everybody time and space, and, most important, it would allow communities to have a continued sense of support while all the changes take place.

Mr Wilson: Cathy, I will start off with the points that you made. I see your point about the retention of the budget for a period of years to allow you to go through the changes in the council.

I have two questions. In what way do you believe the Bill will dramatically alter a relationship that you have already described as existing with the councils and as, I think your own words were, the "great working relationships" that you have with the councils. If that relationship exists, and is a good working relationship, is there something inherent in the Bill that you believe will destroy it?

Ms Polley: Anybody else want to answer that one? Personally, we have had some not so good experience with the administration of Peace moneys, etc. It seems to be that the relationship is more difficult to sustain and be good when it involves money coming directly from councils. Take, for example, residents who do not want to see the closure of their park: the minute you start to fight with the people who are paying you, it becomes very difficult and you lose the sense of accountability that we can provide.

At the minute, because we are funded by the Department, we get to go with the real needs of the community. We are to be funded by councils, but, at the moment, councils do not have a plan, or corporate plans, that we can fit into. We hope that we can sit beside them when community planning is a bit clearer and that there is a clear role for us. At the minute, however, there is no guarantee on that, and, while I have an excellent relationship with our council, I do not have an excellent relationship with the other council. In some cases in Northern Ireland there is no relationship between the infrastructure organisations supported by DSD and councils. Councils sometimes believe that they will deliver services in-house, which is not best for the people on the ground. They build up a strong, trusting relationship with organisations, and then they feel that they can take anything to them. You cannot always do that with a council officer, especially if it is something they are responsible for.

Mr Wilson: The Bill does not encourage a council to absorb the present role of your organisations. From what you say, the practice in most areas indicates that councils value you as a kind of buffer between the role that they play and communities at ground level. Is that correct?

Mr McCusker: That is correct. However, in the research that we did we purposely asked the organisations, "What is going to happen? Have you had a discussion with your council?" Figures came back showing that while the relationship for some was good as an independent relationship, 50% of councils said that they would deliver this in-house.

Mr Wilson: Let us take for granted that the community network resource should be kept in place and that no change is needed. The Department built up that structure because it believed that it was important. Leaving aside the transfer of funding, what provision would you like to see in the Bill to ensure the continuity of the network?

Mr McCusker: It is very difficult because of how the Bill is worded. Picking up on Karen's point, it refers to social need but does not get into detail. What wording would do that, I am not sure, Sammy. I would not be able to answer that.

Ms Polley: There is nothing in the Bill about community development and no remit for councils to have a community partner; there is nothing in there at the minute to make any of that happen. Somebody said earlier, maybe it was Gregory, that having worked with a council for however many years, how likely is it that that is going to just suddenly happen.

I said that we have the best relationship with our council ever. Over the last 16 years we got maybe £10,000 a year from it in small grants. The money and core cost came from the Department. The £1·5 million for a new infrastructure building to house Women's Aid, the rural projects and the networks — we have 12 organisations in the one building — came from the Department for Social Development and its policies, assessment of needs and looking around Northern Ireland, thinking, "Coleraine needs an excellent hub in the causeway, rural and urban network. Newry needs it in Ballybot. Omagh needs it in Omagh Community House. Fermanagh needs it. The women's centres need it."

They built an infrastructure based on need — on actually determined, monitored and evaluated needs, on what needed to be put in place. The Department did all that and provided all that investment, physically as well as running costs. If we had been waiting on the council for anything that we have now, we would not have it.

Our money was, and still is, brought in from outside trusts, charitable trusts, regional bodies, the Departments, the Public Health Agency, and most of the infrastructure organisations. That is why we are different from a local community group. That money is being brought in from Departments or large bodies and trusts to meet specific needs.

Mr McCusker: We talked about £1·5 million for those 26 organisations or £2 million for the 30 groups, so we are talking £50,000 on average for each organisation towards core costs. Sometime you hear, "Well, does that just lead to these organisations then going to government to get more and more money?"

If you look at what the independent organisations here, and the others on the list, have been able to bring in, district councils cannot do that because they are statutory organisations. They cannot go to charitable trusts and say, "You know what, here in Ballymena we need a specified drug and alcohol programme, and we are asking x charitable trust for funding".

Mr Wilson: Lauri, is that not your safeguard in so far as councils are aware that there is funding that organisations like yours can bring in that they cannot bring in? So, why would they want to lose you?

Mr McCusker: That is a good question, but, from our research, in at least 50% of the cases councils will do it in-house.

Ms Sweeney: It is maybe not a case of, "Why would we want to lose you?"; it is, "Why would we bother funding you?". You mentioned relationships on behalf of the women's sector. Some of them have very good relationships with councils, and some have not so good relationships or bad experiences. The joining of different councils, especially when they are straddling areas, has caused differences of opinion. Cathy said that she spoke to members of your council yesterday. It is the same with some of the women's centres.

When the applications were going to come out from CIF last year when it was still supposed to move over from 1 April this year, you had some that were in council areas that were set up. As I said, that is the north-west and the new wider Belfast City Council. Others rang me to say that they had heard nothing. They said that they had spoken to the council, which said that there would be no applications or that it had not decided what it was doing with the money or that it was going to be ring-fenced or that it would have to look at its reduced budget first before it would know anything. That is the uncertainty. No matter about the good relations, when it comes down to it it will be about money and resources and not about the delivery of services and the social return on investment that these organisations have, which it should be about.

Mr Wilson: That is an argument for having no change. Change tends to bring uncertainty.

Ms Sweeney: It is just so sudden, "Let's put it all over there".

Mr McCusker: The other important to thing to flag up as this change is taking place is that, as I know from our experience with Fermanagh and Omagh Council, the councils that will now make up that council both had different policies on working with, or grant-aiding, external organisations. There was a discussion on the radio the other morning about different policies for charging into swimming pools and how councils are trying to align that in the new super-councils. The same is happening with the grant programmes etc, so they have to align two different policies and two different practices. That will take time, first to design it in the coming months and then to embed it. This will be thrown on top of that as well. That is something to flag up.

Ms Polley: At the minute, we monitor everything that we do and all our outcomes, and that is all reported to DSD. Effectively, we are meeting DSD's objectives in the Programme for Government as well as the urban regeneration community development policy framework. If we suddenly lose up to 50% of the infrastructure from next year because it might not work with the councils, I do not know how the Department will deliver on this policy framework. At the minute, we are a link between local communities, ensuring the accountability that you so badly need in government. It is like the discussion that you had earlier about how we make councils do it or scrutinise it. The infrastructure bodies are there as an alternative to that because we do know what is happening on the ground.

Communities can say when council programmes are working well or not working well. They feed it into us, and we are a bridge, working closely alongside councils to feed into the policy framework. It makes sense because everything is already in place to allow scrutiny, accountability and the excellent implementation of the programmes that you outlined and which we have already succeeded in delivering. Yes, when it fits with councils you can be sure that you will not lose all those support services, which will have a knock-on effect on the Public Health Agency and all the other Departments. We get our money from the Public Health Agency, OFMDFM and CIF. If the wee small bit falls, it is like dominoes: the whole lot goes, with infrastructure organisations that are so successfully delivering on this policy framework document falling down round you.

Mr Wilson: Lauri, when you introduced the views of your group, you said that the Government had failed to honour their commitment to work together with social partners and that there had not been any serious consultation with you when the Bill was being formed. It would be useful for us to know, had you had that opportunity, what specific changes you would like to see in the Bill that would ensure the honouring of the commitments that you feel were made and which are now not being honoured.

Mr McCusker: It is like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, to some extent. I would have asked departmental officials what is working, what is good and what is not so good. With the changes in local government, I would have asked them what it is that we should protect in terms of policy and practice that works and what it is that we need to discuss. I would have liked a three-way process with local authorities, community infrastructure organisations and the Department.

If the Department, in conjunction with the Committee and the Assembly, thinks about the value that you have built up through your investment in those organisations, should that be protected in the Bill or should it not? If the Department thinks that it should not be protected, it should tell us that and we can talk with our boards and our communities to decide what we want to do as organisations, but we should be respected as equal partners. That conversation needs to take place rather than a two-way process between the Government and local government; it needs to be between the partners that the voluntary community unit put in years of work to build up. The Bill needs to give time and space for those discussions to take place.

Mr Wilson: Regardless of the process by which we reached the Bill, we now have it. The issue that the Committee needs to address is that you have concerns about gaps in the Bill as a result of being left out, as you described it, of the process leading up to it. What specific issues do you believe need to be included in the Bill to safeguard the infrastructure that you are saying is important and to honour the commitments that have been made?

Ms Polley: The Bill is a very high-level document; it is way beyond most of us in the communities to understand the Regeneration Bill. It does not say a whole lot about communities in any way, so it is not of any interest to them. We made a response through Community Places, which was the only organisation that helped us to understand the Bill.

What we understood from it was that there was no representation for communities in it and that community development, and even this policy framework, are not given their place. It is very hard to comment on and respond to something that is not there. That is the difficulty: you cannot respond to something that is not there. It is not something that we totally understand, but what we do understand are the needs on the ground and the need for continuing support services for the most disadvantaged sections of our community. We need to find a way to get that across to the Committee so that you can find a way of ensuring that the Bill incorporates that and represents and meets social needs.

Mr McCusker: It might be something along the lines that good community development policy and practice in Northern Ireland should be — I am not sure which word I should use next — considered, where possible.

If it just goes the way in which NILGA and others want it to go, it will be one-way engagement between the Department and local authorities. It is then up to us to come to the table and see whether the councils are in a position to do it or are interested in doing it. It appears that, in half the cases, they are not interested.

Mr Brady: Thanks for the presentation. I declare an interest because I was employed by the Confederation of Community Groups for 27 years and am still associated with it.

To get to the point, purely and simply, it depends on the council. We talk about that relationship. For the first 17 years of the welfare rights project that I was involved in, the council did not give us any funding. You still had to justify your existence every year, but the council did not give us any funding. It was only when DSD put forward match funding that we actually got funding. Before that, we were funded by the old Department of Health and Social Services and then by the trust.

One of the points that Sammy and Mr Allister made earlier was about economic regeneration and physical regeneration. The confederation, which has been around since 1972, has had not only economic but physical regeneration in the Ballybot area. It took a derelict mill and turned it into a magnificent building. The confederation is now seen as a model of good practice, and people come to it from all over. Even the statutory agencies are sending people there to see how it is done.

The other difficulty with councils is that there is not always an interrelationship or networking between them and the community development workers that they employ, and that can cause problems.

The voluntary sector does an extremely good job. If the funding were to be removed, it would leave you in an impossible position, because the infrastructure that is in place cannot be replaced by any statutory agency. It is simple as that. Building a relationship with the super-councils could be quite difficult. Our council, Newry and Mourne District Council, will now go from Cullaville to Strangford, which is a huge area. Areas do not always have the same needs. The like of the confederation that I am very familiar with has built up a fantastic infrastructure that covers the whole of the Newry and Mourne area. It is cross-community, apolitical and all of that. It would be impossible to replace it. Unless the Bill takes into account the work that you have all been doing, all of that could be lost very easily. People may not be aware that their jobs are sustainable. Another issue is that you cannot replace experience.

Ms Moffett: I would like to respond to that. We work across the Causeway area, but we work far beyond that. Other funded projects are Northern Trust-wide. Our ethnic-minority support programme extends well beyond the Causeway. We work closely with organisations in Ballymena and Larne. We are going into the Causeway Coast and Glens District Council area. It is the only new council that will be made up of four existing councils joining together, and the four of them have extremely different ways of addressing community development.

We are based in Ballymoney. Ballymoney Borough Council does not even have a community development officer on its staff. It gives us no community development support or funding whatsoever. It signposts groups and people to us and does various other things, but the only funding that we get from it is for cohesion and community safety. In Coleraine, where we have a sister organisation called the Causeway Rural and Urban Network (CRUN), with which we now have a framework for agreement and cooperation, the council takes a different approach to community development. It has a service level agreement with CRUN and is very supportive of community development issues. Moyle District Council is a very small council with very few resources, but it has an understanding of, and believes in, community development. Limavady Borough Council takes a completely different approach.

So, there are four different approaches coming together in an area where there is some good infrastructure on the ground. North Antrim Community Network (NACN), which is one of the rural networks, also covers our area, but we are all doing different things. We have some core functions, but we are mostly doing different things. We complement one another. Importantly, the services that we provide and the professional skills that we now have in-house, which underpin some of the statutory provision not just for community development but for other trusts and foundations, particularly the Northern Health and Social Care Trust, the Department for Employment and Learning, and the Public Health Agency, will not be transferred to the council. They will be included in community planning to some extent, but they are not necessarily going to become a core function of council staff. That is something that we can continue to provide, and that is without even going into some of the Big Lottery projects across the areas that provide different services.

I am talking about just one area, yet that is replicated right across Northern Ireland by CIF-funded groups. We are really concerned about protecting the level of service provision, not just our own future and what might happen in it. It is really about what is going to happen on the ground for the communities that we serve.

Mr Allister: What I am hearing from you is that you think that you were neglected in the run-up to all of this. I take it that your organisations responded to the review of public administration (RPA) consultation, which was really the only consultation that covered the generation of this Bill and other Bills.

Ms Polley: We do most of that through Community Places, which gathers up all our information. It facilitates 22 of us — rural and urban networks amongst others — to feed in that information and respond. A lot of the time, it does not make great sense to us. That is not our line of work, whereas they has an expertise in all of that. Yes, most of us have responded through a joint consultation with Community Places.

Do you mean RPA 1 or RPA 2?

Mr Allister: The 2010 consultation.

Ms Polley: Yes, that will have been done through Community Places.

Mr Allister: You will have made the points that you are making today.

Ms Polley: Yes, and we have made those points all along. I was part of a team that made them to Minister McCausland. Jim Shannon was with me. We also met the new head of the Department's voluntary and community unit (VCU), Tracy Meharg. We have been through all of this. At the time, we were told that it was too late and that the train had left the station. That was 24 months ago. The train did not leave the station. It still has not left the station, and we have said all along, "Listen, you have a brilliant infrastructure. Don't lose it. Don't lose the support services on the ground that are delivering the programmes".

Mr Allister: There is concern that, for example, 16 organisations will have to close their doors. Is that because you perceive that you will be starved of funds or because councils will perform the functions themselves?

Ms Polley: It is probably because councils will decide to perform the functions themselves. I will give you an example. Ards and North Down councils are to come together. We have had a service level agreement with Ards Borough Council for the last 16 years. It was for a very small amount of money, because all that we needed was a small amount of money. We are two- or three-man operations. We get £60,000-odd from DSD, and that does us. The council gives us another £10,000, and the rest of it comes from programmes that we bring in. Those programmes are brought in not to top up our organisation's funding but to spend on the ground meeting needs. They are areas-at-risk programmes. We run two areas-at-risk programmes that are also DSD programmes. Those bring in another £150,000 for dedicated estates and areas that we manage. Most of the other bodies do likewise.

I have totally forgotten what I was going to say. We bring in all that money. The council was not providing that money. If we were waiting for council finances to do that work and meet the needs in our local community plans, it just would not happen.

Mr Allister: Part of your fear now is that councils will, however badly they might do it or otherwise, take on the provision of those services.

Ms Polley: When I asked North Down Borough Council yesterday how many workers it had, it said that it had four dedicated community development workers, not including the neighbourhood renewal workers that it employs. It then suddenly announced that it had some programme activity workers to whom it pays massive amounts of money. I asked how many programme activity workers there were to which the council responded that it had 30 programme activity workers. The council basically pays them to deliver whatever it wants delivered in areas. If it decided tomorrow to have an after-school programme, which is not borne out of the community's needs, it would say to a programme activity worker, "We are paying you for so many hours this week, so go and start up an after-school club". It is a crazy approach that has nothing to do with community development or transferable skills.

In Ards, we use our small amounts of investment to train people in order to give them the skills to put them through employability programmes to get jobs or to take on volunteering activities or volunteering roles in the community and develop community plans. They do it all voluntarily. You then suddenly discover that, after all these years, another council has been paying programme activity officers, and paying out a fortune. I am going to ask, under freedom of information, how much they have spent on them each year, because I want to know.

In terms of value for money, we are talking about having very small amounts of money that lever in very large amounts of money and physical capital, allowing people's needs to be met. There is no comparison between that and what it is costing councils to have development officers and programme activity officers, as well as the consultants and facilitators that they bring in on top of that.

Mr Allister: You will be aware that we are told that, as of next year, there will be a Department of Communities.

Ms Polley: Absolutely.

Mr Allister: How do you see that fitting in?

Ms Polley: It will be very welcome, as long as this policy document, which is very good, has a framework and an implementing structure to allow that framework to be delivered. However, that already exists. It is all sitting there and ready to sit nicely under the Department of Communities. We really welcome that. It will provide complete accountability and will be a perfect implementation model. The Department has already done everything that it needs to do.

Mr Allister: Why is it that, if it is passed, this Bill will torpedo that?

Ms Polley: It does not mention community development, nor does it fit in with the existing community development framework. That is not in there. You are passing your infrastructure over to a local council, and then you are going to have a Department, so what will the Department of Communities do? Who will deliver its programmes?

Mr Allister: You need not ask me. [Laughter.]

Ms Polley: You asked me. [Laughter.]

Mr Allister: I was trying to get some light shed on it, because I cannot get much light from the Executive. [Laughter.]

The Chairperson (Mr Maskey): God help the new council. I would not tackle you anyway. [Laughter.]

Mr Wilson: I think that you will be safe enough with North Down and Ards District Council.

Ms Polley: Honestly, you do not know how much North Down Borough Council hates me, honestly.

That is the reality of this. We are in this position, and we can say these things because we have been funded by a Department that allows us to truly represent our communities. The minute that I, others and communities on the ground, are funded directly by our council, we will not be able to say the things that we can say now. We will not have that independent, community-assessed, actual need on the ground. We will lose what we have at the minute, and we have it at the minute because we are supported by a Department that is creating, in your words, a Department of Communities, which will have an infrastructure already there and working. Therefore, it does not make sense.

The Chairperson (Mr Maskey): You obviously have very fundamental concerns about the future, and you have put those concerns very eloquently to the Committee.

I will bring in Roy in a few seconds, but there are a couple of things that I want to say. Councils did not have that kind of money in years gone by. In fairness to them, that is a fundamental difference, although, since the outset of the discussion on RPA, there has been a concern. Regardless of whether it was to do with dealing with the arts or a range of other issues, there was a very mixed bag of take-up and engagement from a range of councils. There has always been a concern.

Ms Polley: Councils did have it in the form of the community support plans. If this keeps going as it is going, all that they are going to have is a much bigger community support plan. They did have the money, and we did not get it out of community support plans. There is not a council community support plan in the country that gave money to support the infrastructure of subregional organisations. It did not happen.

The Chairperson (Mr Maskey): In the early years, they did not have a lot of the sums. There has been incremental development over the years, which is fair enough. I agree with you, and all members present will probably agree with you, that there has been a mixed picture. There is no question about that. Your concerns are legitimate in that respect. NICVA made a presentation earlier and raised similar issues about there needing to be some kind of standardisation. You want to uplift this, not dumb it down.

Mr Beggs: Thank you for your presentation. First, I acknowledge that community development is a vital aspect of assisting areas of needs. It is something that you cannot put down simply to physical infrastructure. It is vital that there be a bottom-up approach, with the community being assisted to help themselves.

In my experience, there has been a wide range of statutory agencies involved in community development: DSD; the Housing Executive; councils; and DARD. Sometimes, there is a degree of overlap, so I can see the logic in trying to bring all of that together. Equally, the community and voluntary sector can be successful, but that depends as much on the individual as on the organisation. It is that individual's approach that can determine whether community development is a success.

I am open-minded. I would certainly share your concerns if it were to become an entirely in-house council function. Is there any sense that taking it in-house has simply been a way in which to protect council jobs during the amalgamation, despite all the pain and suffering being experienced in other sectors?

Ms Polley: That is all that we have seen lately. Peace IV is not on board yet, and so councils have just moved their Peace moneys staff. I know of a Peace III officer being made a good-relations officer to give that person a job in the meantime. The other Peace officer has just become the neighbourhood renewable officer for Kilcooley. That is crazy, but it is the reality of what is going on in every single one of our councils. They are just protecting jobs by seeing who fits what post and who is going to be left out. As far as I can see, there will be no cuts made. I have not seen a cut yet. They are just moving people about.

May I bring up another point? You referred to DARD, which we have not mentioned. There is another real inconsistency there, in that DARD is not transferring its function. It is retaining its functions. It is also retaining its programmes, and it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, because a lot of the rural networks also deliver European moneys. We are going to be left with a council that only gets half the picture. Rural development is not joining it, so it will get only half the infrastructure. Rural networks will no longer be working together, and that makes things very difficult. Twenty-four rural and urban networks from across Northern Ireland meet quite regularly at the minute. Half of them are going to stay with the Department, while the rest are not, yet some of us jointly bid to council. For example, I jointly bid along with a rural network to council for our money every year, small as it is. How am I going to do that when the rural network continues to get its core funding from the Department, while we are seeking our core funding from the council? We are going to have to split our joint strategy, which covers our rural and urban areas, because I am urban and do not do rural, and it is rural and does not do urban.

Mr McCusker: May I make a point about Housing Executive staff, development staff, council staff etc? The VCU pump-primed through core funding the development of infrastructure organisations across the communities here. I think that that was Joe Wright's vision, as one of the founding staff members in the VCU. As I said, we need to create infrastructure organisations on the ground. They can become community anchors and make a real positive contribution, whether that be to Cronin, Coleraine or Omagh. To think that we are moving forward, only for that to be flipped. We are reinventing the wheel. If this happens, a group of people will be back here in 10 years' time talking about establishing or reinvesting in community infrastructure organisations.

Mr Beggs: We are here today to talk about the Regeneration Bill, which could enable councils to continue to invest in the range of organisations that you have spoken about today and that you and your partners represent. Equally, they might decide to stop investment. How aware are the local councils of the roles of the groups in each of their areas and of the value for money that they are delivering by bringing in additional outside funding? I am not talking about the officers here, because the officers may, to a degree, decide things to suit themselves. My question is this: how aware are the councils and the councillors so that those who ultimately take the decision do so from an informed position?

Mr McCusker: From Fermanagh experience, Fermanagh councillors are very aware of the Fermanagh Trust's work and have supported us in leasing a site recently to help us develop our work. The councillors are aware of our work. Are they aware of the detail? Quite a number of councillors from all political parties are involved in the community development organisations that we work with, so, yes, they are aware of some of the support. Are they aware of the minutiae of the funding and finance, and what that means? No, they are not.

Ms Polley: May I add something? To go back to RPA 1, the support organisations held a conference in Cookstown, at which Simon Hamilton spoke. We worked very energetically at the time to make sure that we could tie in councils and their communities on the ground. For example, in Ards, we held five conferences and workshops, which we called "Planning Together for the Future". All the councillors and organisations came. There were perhaps 150 people in the room. We organised that with our chief executives and our transition managers. For us, it was about making sure that communities on the ground understood what we were trying to do, understood that community planning was coming down the line and understood how we could get organised and engaged. I know that the rest of our organisations have tried to do the same. I know that Newry had a big one with its new council. So we have done everything possible to make sure that people have access to the information and that they are aware of the changes and what is going on. In answer to your question, then: very closely. That works very well, but it does not guarantee that councils will let go of any of the money or invest.

Ms Sweeney: Everybody knows that the women's centres here almost started out through the councils. They gave us a spare council house, an empty prefab classroom, or whatever, and the centres grew out of that relationship. As I say, some groups have extremely good relationships with their council, while others do not. There is a wee bit of a perception that the centres are OK because they get lots of other money: they are perhaps drawing in PHA money, trust money and money from DSD. They have those relationships, but, as we mentioned, councillors would not understand the different pieces of pie and the pots of funding available, nor how they all interlink or how they can all fall down like a house of cards.

Mr Beggs: You are saying that, if the core funding goes, the whole organisation is at risk. That is what is coming across to me. If that is the case, it is important that there is a local understanding of that danger.

Ms Polley: I think that we confused the councils a bit. We have always sat with DSD, so councils see us as this bigger subregional organisation, not a local community organisation. What the councils understand is local community organisations, but it is those local community organisations that we support, train and put through capacity-building and employability courses, health initiatives etc. We do not fit very well locally, because we are larger subregional organisations that support the local level. That is why we fit with DSD. DSD created us like that.

Mr Beggs: Change is happening to councils and to Departments. Everybody has to be aware that change is happening, and we all need to reflect on that. Following on from that, my question is this: have you and your organisations attempted to adapt and change to that different world? One group at least — the ABC Community Network — is aligned to its new council area. Does it have a good relationship with the council? Is aligning with the council helpful?

Ms Polley: You have picked the worst example. [Laughter.]

The Department of the Environment funded the capacity-building programme in the councils through Community Places. Of the 11 new councils, all apart from Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon District Council took up that capacity-building programme. You have picked the one council that has done none of the work to date on the DOE community planning capacity-building stuff.

Mr McCusker: May I pick up on that from a Fermanagh perspective? We have had a conversation with our colleagues in Omagh, who are in a differently resourced organisation. They have told us that, if councils do this in-house, their group will close, because it relies on DSD. When the council has not even got its draft corporate grant aid policy in place, you are going into a vacuum to have a discussion.

One potential partner is uncertain about the future. You are potentially having a discussion regarding support with a council that does not have a corporate grant aid policy in place because its staff were put in place only last week, so it is a real vacuum. You mentioned change. One thing that our organisations do is change what is happening on the ground. We also change to reflect the opportunities that present themselves in order to impact on the ground, so we are not scared of change — absolutely not.

Mr Beggs: I can see service level agreement with councils being a possible way forward, but there needs to be a willingness to do that.

Ms Polley: At the minute, we do not know what that change is, because councils have not told us. Yesterday, when I was with North Down and Ards District Council, it said that it thought that the way in which it might get through the next six months is to have this brilliant thing that it has decided to call "pop-up community development". I have never imagined how you can use the words "pop-up" and "community development", which is something that is borne out of communities, in the same sentence. Therefore, somebody's good idea is to try pop-up community development in the meantime.

That is what you are dealing with. You are thinking, "Look at the investment and the energy that we have given to this", yet someone is talking about pop-up community development.

Mr Beggs: I have a final question. For clarification, where is the funding for 2015-16 for each of your organisations? Is it is in place?

Ms Polley: Letters of offer from the CIF were issued on Friday and received in the post on Monday.

Mr Beggs: There is a one-year window, essentially.

Ms Polley: Yes.

Is that the same for you, Karen?

Ms Sweeney: No, there is some difference. The women's centres' were also issued with their letters of offer from DSD on Friday for the childcare fund. The CIF issued its letters of offer on Friday. Even given that one-year window, there will still be nothing in writing, because there is nothing in the Bill to direct councils. They can basically do what they want under clause 1 of the Bill as it stands.

Mr Beggs: It is very important that, in that one year, you ensure that your local councillors — the council collectively, not just the officers — know what each of your organisations does and look at the value for money aspects of what you do compared with doing things in-house.

The Chairperson (Mr Maskey): Were you looking in, Sammy?

Mr Wilson: No.

The Chairperson (Mr Maskey): You have given us a lot of very solid food for thought.

There are a couple of fundamental issues that you have raised with us, including whether or not things transfer in the first place. You have put on the table a need for a longer period of transition to make sure that things bed in before functions transfer over. Some of that will not be within our gift to deliver for you, but we can deliver for you by taking on board all the concerns that you have raised. You heard some concerns raised earlier by NICVA, and there have been others. All members of the Committee have a very clear focus on those matters as well.

Thank you for coming here today. There is no doubt that you have very passionately and robustly put your concerns on the table for us, and in a very clear manner. We will deliberate, and we will deal with the Department, and some of its officials are here. We will drill down into some of the issues. Some of us clearly share a number of the concerns that you have raised, but we want to make sure that the functions are transferred over not only with the best intentions but with the best outcomes. Central to that has to be the value placed on a partnership with the community and voluntary sector. That is something that we have to have underpinned in whatever way we can.

I thank you again. No doubt, we will have an exchange with you again.

Ms Moffett: Thank you for the opportunity.