Official Report: Minutes of Evidence
Committee for the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, meeting on Wednesday, 25 March 2015
Members present for all or part of the proceedings:
Mr Mike Nesbitt (Chairperson)
Mr Chris Lyttle (Deputy Chairperson)
Mrs B Hale
Ms B McGahan
Mr J Spratt
Witnesses:
Mr Henry Johnston, The Executive Office
Mrs Grainne Killen, The Executive Office
Dr Denis McMahon, The Executive Office
Programme for Government Commitments 31, 32, 33, 34, 37, 38 and 67: OFMDFM Briefing
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Papers in respect of today's briefing were received in the Committee office at 10.19 am today and are in tabled packs at page 29. We are joined by Grainne Killen, Henry Johnston and Denis McMahon. Denis, 10.19 am — why? How can we scrutinise these papers?
Dr Denis McMahon (Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister): All I can say, Chair, is that, once again, I apologise. It is not acceptable. That is all I can say.
Dr McMahon: I know. I am afraid that is all I can say.
Dr McMahon: The papers were under consideration in the Department. It took that time to get them to the point where they were in a position to be released to the Committee.
Dr McMahon: As I have said before, Chair, I cannot distinguish between officials and Ministers. We are all working as a team in the Department. They were under consideration generally, but, obviously, all papers have to come through Ministers before they come here.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): OK. Would you like to talk us through them? You will have to assume that at least some members have not read them. I certainly have not.
Mr Lyttle: Chair, may I add that I have been at the Committee for Regional Development all day prior to the OFMDFM Committee, so I have not had a chance to look at them either? It would be different if this were not a regular pattern, but it is. It is hard to conclude that it is anything other than contempt for the Committee and the public we are meant to serve in scrutinising progress.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I get you, Chris. I do not think that we can throw anything more towards Denis, because he has apologised and explained. I think he has said all that he can say. Has any member present actually had the opportunity to study them? You have five members, and it looks like nobody has had that opportunity. Could you talk us through them?
Mr Spratt: I did not speak, Chair, so you are making assumptions about what I was thinking.
Mr Spratt: I am happy to hear what the officials have to say, and I am sure that I will find a couple of questions —
Mr Spratt: Do not make assumptions about other people unless you know the facts.
Mr Spratt: It is not for the Chair to make assumptions and put words in people's mouths.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Anyway, Denis, will you talk us through them on the basis that at least four of the people here have not had the chance to read them?
Dr McMahon: By way of background, although this is about the commitments against my directorate, it is probably worth saying that, overall in the Programme for Government, there has been continuing good progress across Departments. For information, approximately 80% of the commitments are on track overall compared with 70% at the same stage in the last Programme for Government. Roughly a quarter of commitments have been completed at this stage. That is just a bit of general background.
Starting with commitments 31 and 32, the main point is around the resources that have been allocated. At this stage, £50·2 million of the £80 million social investment fund (SIF) has been committed to 33 projects. This is approximately 63% of budget: £23 million of capital and £27 million of revenue. In the first tranche of projects, there are six revenue projects at tender stage, two projects are completing drafts of their specifications and various projects are at other stages. On capital projects, we have one project onsite, namely Bryson Street surgery, and five projects tendering for design teams. In tranche 2, which is the next set of projects, nine projects were announced on 28 January, and we have two letters of offer issued under revenue and six letters of offer issued under capital.
The thing to say overall is that the programme is moving on. Letters of offer have been issued, and we are now going to the next stages of getting the projects up and running. Obviously, that means that there are still more projects that need to be approved in order to get the full £80 million committed. That is where we are at the moment. I am happy to take any questions you have on that.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Thanks, Denis. Could I just take you back to your first comment? Just give me those figures on the overall Programme for Government again.
Dr McMahon: Overall, £50·2 million has been committed to 33 projects, which is approximately 63% of the available budget.
Dr McMahon: Sorry, you are talking about the original Programme for Government. Eighty per cent of commitments overall in the Programme for Government are on track as opposed to 70% at the same time in the last Programme for Government.
Dr McMahon: At the same point in the Programme for Government, so at quarter — what quarter is this?
Mrs Grainne Killen (Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister): Quarter 3.
Mr Henry Johnston (Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister): Quarter 3 of the final year.
Mr Johnston: This was based on responses we commissioned from Departments just before Christmas and is meant to be based on the 31 December position. We have just commissioned a further and final update from Departments for quarter 4 which is the end of —
Mr Johnston: The end of the current Programme for Government.
Dr McMahon: Yes, there was.
Dr McMahon: The commitments were reviewed and, indeed, one of the Ministers is looking at it as part of considering whether to extend the Programme for Government and some commitments for an additional year.
Dr McMahon: I do not have the exact date. Henry, do you want to —
Mr Johnston: I do not have the exact date. I think it was March last year when we commissioned the first pieces of input from Departments. We refreshed those over the summer period and more recently, I think, in January.
Mrs Killen: They were updated again in January.
Mr Johnston: We asked Departments to update their view of what their deliverables would be against the initial 82. We also sought ideas around a limited number of new commitments for a one-year extension.
Mr Johnston: Yes, it was past the mid-term point.
Dr McMahon: The intention is that we have a draft extension to the programme that Ministers are going to consider. That would allow us to extend the commitments to the end of this Assembly term.
Dr McMahon: That is one of the issues that have been taken into account. One of the things that Departments have been asked to do is to look very carefully at all their commitments to see to what extent they can extend them in the current budget situation.
Mr Johnston: It is also to what degree they can deliver further in the final year. A number of the commitments have been achieved, or nearly achieved, to date, and it is whether Departments can go further within their budget positions to deliver additional whatever it was in the final year of the programme. Departments obviously needed to take a view on what their budget was likely to be before they could finalise those. The intention is, we assume, that after it has been agreed within the Department it will go round the Executive for a final assurance that people are still content with what their Departments are signed up for.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Given that we are looking at a one-year extension to the Programme for Government, speed should be of the essence, I would have thought. Is there any deadline for publishing the new Programme for Government or the extension of the Programme for Government?
Dr McMahon: Obviously, it is something that is under consideration. Ideally, the sooner and nearer to the start of next year — which we are coming into now — the better, because it would allow people to plan, but, obviously, Departments have been planning on a provisional basis on the basis of the existing commitments and extending them out. As soon as possible, really, is the answer to that.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Is there a timeline for that, Denis? Is there a bit of paper that says, "Departments respond by x date; further consideration by y date"?
Mr Johnston: Departments have already responded. There was a timeline for the input from Departments. Some Departments were able to meet that deadline. A number of Departments did not meet the deadline, but we now have all inputs in from all Departments. That is what is now under consideration within the Department.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): We will look at the commitments in groups, starting with 31 and 32 on the social investment fund. The milestone target for 2013-14 was not met. Remind us again, Dennis, of where we are.
Dr McMahon: As I said, right now we have £50 million committed to 32 projects. That is £23 million capital and £27 million revenue. We are seeking to put the additional projects through the approvals process. The projects we have already put through the approvals process are now either being tendered for or are going through some additional planning work by the lead partners, but they are all moving ahead and all of the £50 million is subject to letter of offer, so now it is really a case of making sure that those projects are implemented.
Dr McMahon: It is hard to give a hard-and-fast figure, but I am very hopeful that, over the next six months, those will be moved. We have worked very closely with finance colleagues to try to improve the processes and get the projects up and running.
One of the issues we have had is about the information coming back from projects in some cases. In fairness — and I have said this before — that reflects the fact that they are very different processes from the sort of thing you would see normally. Normally, you would have those projects well worked up long before they ever got to the business case stage, whereas, in this case, Ministers wanted to get the ideas from the community and get them through the approvals process to the point where they could be designed. There is no point denying that it has been a difficult process, but I am hopeful that, over the next six months, the majority of that funding could be allocated.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Allocated and then spent? Do you expect it all to be spent by the end of 2017-18? I think that was the previous position.
Dr McMahon: The current profiles are that the majority of it will be spent, but whether all of it is spent depends on a number of factors. Once we have got these through the approvals process and people have started looking at them again, we could find that some of the projects have gone up in price, just because people started to do the design work at a level that they would not have done before the money runs out.
I would expect the majority of it to be spent by that stage, but I could not give you a cast iron commitment that it would all be spent by that stage. What I can say is that Ministers have expressed a very clear view that these projects need to continue until they are completed and that the £80 million will be committed overall.
Dr McMahon: I do not have the exact figures of the profiles in front of me, but we can get them for you and give you a precise estimate as to where we are at the moment.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): To keep a bit of shape to this, I intend to open up the meeting for questions on each group as we go. Deputy Chair, Chris Lyttle, at this point.
Mr Lyttle: Denis, the budget for the social investment fund for Programme for Government 2011-15 was £80 million in total. At the end of this period, no money whatsoever has been expended on actual projects.
Dr McMahon: There has been some money expended but not large amounts. The vast majority of it has not been spent.
Mr Lyttle: It would be remiss of us not to give that fairly robust scrutiny. How would you characterise that scale of failure in relation to that project, which was dedicated to tackling social deprivation during a time of recession and lack of resources?
Dr McMahon: The term "failure" —
Mr Lyttle: Sorry, I keep forgetting to declare an interest as a member of the social investment fund area steering group for east Belfast.
Dr McMahon: Just to be clear, we did not meet the original commitment. There is absolutely no doubt about that, and I am not going to make excuses. It is worth having a look at the process and thinking about what we were trying to achieve. Ministers were very clear that this was not going to be business as usual. They did not want us to fund projects that may have been sitting around for years, and there is no doubt that some of the ideas had been around for years. They did not want us to come up with ideas at the centre or ideas by officials or arm's-length organisations; they wanted them to come from the ground up, from the communities themselves.
That was a different process to what normally happens in government. There is no doubt that it led to a number of issues, and, if I were doing this again, one issue I would want to look at would be the fact that the programme was developed without necessarily having the delivery partners identified. Again, that was about having the communities driving this before delivery partners were selected, because Ministers did not want us setting the agenda for communities. The idea was that communities would do this for themselves.
The other side of that is, while you do not have the delivery partners from the very beginning, you will get more creativity and different ideas and things that would not necessarily come up, and it means that, when you get to the detailed planning stage, it makes it very difficult to say exactly how you are going to implement the idea and exactly what it is going to cost. It makes it very difficult to get it through the approvals process. That is what we found.
That was then compounded by the fact that we found it very difficult to get information from people to inform the business case. All those things definitely did not make for a process that ran smoothly or easily, but it depends on the criteria. It is worth saying that, from the beginning of this process, we have put this to external scrutiny, in the form of gateway reviews, and had people looking at the process to see how we can improve it. I am not, for one minute, saying that we did not learn a lot, or that the process would not be very different now than what we tried a number of years ago. There is no doubt about that.
There is a recognition that taking a programme of this scale forward to the stage that we have got it to, with as few staff as we have — and we are not talking about the sorts of numbers that would be taking forward the likes of neighbourhood renewal — has been a huge achievement for the team involved. However, notwithstanding that, the bottom line is that we failed to meet the original commitment. I am not trying to hide that; I am just saying that that is what we have learnt from the process.
Mr Lyttle: I appreciate the response. Is it possible to access any of the gateway reviews?
Dr McMahon: Typically, they go to the senior responsible owner. They are not normally released, but it is something that we can certainly take back and have a look at.
Mr Lyttle: Obviously, I welcome investment in the Bryson Street surgery in east Belfast. From a Committee point of view, did it really take a four-year process to work out that investing in the health of people in a neighbourhood renewal interface area in Belfast was a good thing to do?
Dr McMahon: No, it certainly did not. There is absolutely none of the objectives of any of the projects that anybody here could argue with. If you look at the list of projects in SIF, you could not say, "Well, actually, we don't need this" or, "We don't need to tackle that particular objective". The problem comes when you start to look at the numbers. You have to go through a very rigorous process to say, "OK, this is public money, and we have to look at all the options for spending it, including the preferred option that people have come forward with". We then have to do a full cost-benefit analysis of that and look at all the potential implications. Going through that process takes time, whenever it is done. Given the large number of business cases that we are looking at in this case, it has placed particular pressures on people.
One of the things we have found with a lot of the projects — and I am not saying that this was the case necessarily with Bryson Street — is that people will say, "This is a great idea. This is a way of tackling a particular aim". If it is a physical asset in particular, they will say, "There's a particular level of demand for that". The problem is that, when we try to assess that level of demand, it is difficult to do that without the actual asset being in place. We find that you will get letters of interest going to projects, but that is where we find that the challenge comes to us to say, "Well, are those letters definitive enough? Do they give it the level of support to be sure that, when this particular facility is built, it won't be a white elephant? Will it be fully utilised?".
Mr Johnston: There are two challenges for us. The first is the sustainability issue, which is particularly germane to the capital programmes, where we had to be certain that it was not a white elephant that sat there with the door closed; there had to be a realistic revenue stream to keep it in operation. The second issue was the sheer number of business cases we were developing, sometimes with groups that had very little experience in that area. In many cases, they were not the usual suspects. We were asking questions to volunteers and small management committees who found it very difficult sometimes to get the answers to those questions. There is an issue in terms of how we could have supported people better through that process. That is one learning point.
The second learning point, which we did a bit of, was trying to network expertise between stronger areas and weak areas. People were really good in terms of identifying issues and problems in an area but less good at identifying solutions. Maybe we need to provide a wee bit more support for people, although it was a bottom-up approach, such as a few more ideas and things so that they could say, "Well, I like that one" or, "I like that one". We did a bit of that, but, with the benefit of hindsight, we should have done more.
Dr McMahon: In the early stages, in particular, there was a nervousness, if I am being honest, amongst officials to not be seen to be coming in with our own ideas or trying to push a particular set of departmental processes. That is a learning point for me; you can have a bottom-up process, and that is a really good thing, but there is a balance to be had. When we started engaging with people and brought the lead partners in, they were delighted to engage with us. In fact, some of them were relieved to have that level of support. There are a lot of things that we would definitely do differently in this, and that is one of them. There should be much more two-way communication and closer working.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): When it is done and dusted, Denis, leaving aside the merits and value of each individual project that is going to be funded, if you take the helicopter view of the map of Northern Ireland, will there be hotspots and cold spots where the programme has and has not reached?
Dr McMahon: There is a tremendous amount of value in this. Our statisticians are working through an evaluation process, which is much more than an academic-type exercise; it is really about understanding what sort of measurable impacts we can expect to see out of all of this.
When you take a look at some of the areas, such as literacy and numeracy, which we will come on to in Delivering Social Change later on, they all seem like quite small projects in the grand scheme of things, but they can have a tremendous impact; there is no doubt about that. So, notwithstanding the fact that this has definitely been slower than any of us would have wanted and has not necessarily worked out in the way we would have hoped for or envisaged, one of the key pieces of this is that it is being implemented in a much more joined-up way. We will get better outcomes as a result of that.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Moving to commitment 33, which is on childcare. I am just getting to look at the latest papers that were received this morning, Denis. On page 36, it says that commitment 33 is to:
"Publish and Implement a Childcare Strategy with key actions to provide integrated and affordable childcare".
To "Publish and Implement a Childcare Strategy" within this Programme for Government, which finishes on Tuesday.
"I can confirm that, while there has been slippage...this commitment is...achievable".
Dr McMahon: These documents were produced for an earlier period; they were up to date as of 31 December.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): So, to cut to the chase, you provided us with papers at 10.19 am today that say that you can publish and implement a childcare strategy by Tuesday, but you are now telling the Committee that that is not true.
Dr McMahon: I am saying that these papers are at a point in time. The position with the childcare strategy is that we published a childcare framework document, which was the basis of a series of actions that we have taken forward, including the Bright Start grant programme. We have produced, in consultation, engagement and co-design with stakeholders, a draft childcare strategy. That is under consideration in the Department as we speak.
Dr McMahon: That is correct.
Dr McMahon: We will not meet the original objective, as worded. Again, I am not trying to say otherwise, but we have produced a strategic framework document. That set out what needed to be done as a first step. Ministers were very keen, instead of producing a strategy and putting it on the shelf, that we would produce the framework document and get work under way. That work has happened; a lot of different actions have been taken forward under it, and we have developed a draft childcare strategy. That is the current position, but we have not met the original objective.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): No.
The other thing missing, as far as I can see, and which was in previous versions of these updates, is the risk management register. There is none for commitment 33. Is that because it is a failure and you do not want us to recognise that?
Dr McMahon: No, the risk register does not change the level to which we have met the commitment.
Dr McMahon: The decision by the Department was to remove those risks.
Dr McMahon: There were three risks. One was no improvement in access to affordable, accessible and good quality childcare, and the Bright Start scheme is up and running. Another was the potential for the process to be lengthened. That is not risk; it is an actual issue as it has happened. The last one was the potential for underspend in the childcare strategy development fund. Ministers have made a commitment that the full £12 million will be made available and will be spent, and £4·7 million of that has been committed.
Dr McMahon: No, I have it in the original. It is —
Mr Johnston: That is for the previous quarter.
Dr McMahon: Yes, for the previous quarter, but it has been deleted.
Dr McMahon: No, in the version that you have, it has been deleted.
Dr McMahon: Honestly, I cannot say. My view is that it is good to look at the risk. Some of the risks are either past the post or are no longer relevant, but it is useful to look at the risks, and we will continue to do that as we move forward with the programme.
Dr McMahon: That is why we have included risk registers up until now. We maybe need to update this risk register. There may be new risks now. I agree with the point that you made at the start about how things have moved on since the original statement of the commitment. That is the key thing.
Ms McGahan: Thank you for your presentation. I had some engagement with officials from DARD about rural childcare because there was some confusion about who is funding it, and I am concerned about that. You may not be able to answer it now, but will you come back and clarify how much DARD will get from the childcare strategy from OFMDFM? I am picking up on a blockage and some confusion between OFMDFM officials and DARD officials. I would appreciate it if you could come back to me on that, Denis.
Dr McMahon: We are happy to look at that. The only thing that I would say to give you a bit of reassurance is that we have a programme board with DARD officials on it. DARD officials were specifically tasked with producing a report that was to include their proposals. I think that did come —
Dr McMahon: It was presented at the last programme board. Those proposals need to be considered by Ministers, and the level of funding needs to be set on the back of those proposals.
Ms McGahan: The confusion is around the funding. I know that there are issues around the proposals, and that is fair enough, but where does the funding come from? They do not appear to be clear about who will fund rural childcare.
Dr McMahon: That is a fair point. Ministers will need to first consider the proposals and whether they are happy with them. Alongside that, there will need to be a discussion about funding. That is where we are at the minute. I suppose that what I am saying is that I do not think that there is a problem. If appropriate proposals come forward that fit —
Mr Johnston: I am not aware of that. We had the project board with DARD. Phase 1 has gone out, and there are phases 2 and 3. There was a rural focus in it. There were suggestions about trying to support the creation of rural childcare networks, with childminders maybe working back to a fixed facility in small towns or villages, and we are continuing to address that. We will talk to DARD.
Dr McMahon: Has that been raised with us?
Mr Johnston: It has not been raised with us at all.
Ms McGahan: I raised the matter because I wanted to see where rural childcare was. The comment that was made to me was that there is some confusion around who funds rural childcare.
Dr McMahon: I am surprised at that. We will iron that out. There is obviously a communication issue there. We will bottom that out.
Mr Lyttle: Not only did we receive the papers late, but there has been deletion of references to information and a removal of evidence of a lack of progress and the impact of a lack of progress on key issues such as childcare.
Dr McMahon: In fairness, I could not say that portrayal is accurate. The risks are not to do with the progress. The progress is in the milestones and the original commitment. That is still there.
Mr Lyttle: It is about the potential impact of a lack of progress.
Dr McMahon: OK. That is fair point. Sorry, I maybe misunderstood.
Mr Lyttle: OK. The Chair has exhausted the question of why they have been removed, and he did not get an answer, so I will not rerun it.
By this point, the target was to have expended £12 million on childcare and to have achieved key milestones on a childcare strategy. We know that we do not have a childcare strategy, but can you confirm how much of that £12 million has been expended at this point?
Dr McMahon: Yes, £4·7 million has been committed. I do not know the exact amount of expenditure, but I would image most of that [Inaudible.]
Against that, there has a been a lot of different initiatives, but the main one that we are funding through OFMDFM is the Bright Start initiative, which is being procured.
Mr Johnston: Phase 1 has been awarded, phase 2 has been evaluated but not yet awarded and phase 3 is in development. Phase 3 is about trying to encourage new providers to enter the market.
Mr Lyttle: Surely today was your opportunity to report in some detail the work that has actually been done. There is nothing really to go on in that respect.
Dr McMahon: That is certainly something that we can look at. We can get you more detail and give you an opportunity to have more of a look at that.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): We move to commitments 34 and 37, which relate to DSC. Denis, last week, some concern was expressed that the racial equality strategy would be subsumed into DSC. Can you tell us what the plan is?
Dr McMahon: The racial equality strategy and the work on racial equality stands alone in its own right. A lot of work goes on within Delivering Social Change, but it stands alone in its own right. Delivering Social Change was not so much meant to be about what we do but how we do it.
If I understand it correctly, some of the concern came from some of the governance structures, because we had proposed that work would be reported through the Delivering Social Change programme board, which is chaired by junior Ministers and has deputy secretaries from across the Departments. The only reason for that was that, in the past, various groups have been set up on an ad hoc basis with champions on them. What happens is that you get very senior people coming along to the first meeting and then, six months later, it tails off. With Delivering Social Change, we set up a standing group of senior officials from across all Departments who will meet and discuss social policy issues on a regular basis.
Mr Johnston: Deputies are not allowed.
Dr McMahon: Yes, if people do not turn up, their nameplates sit empty in front of the Minister. That has been a really good way of doing business, because people do turn up. They also turn up because they know that we mean business and it is an important enough meeting to go to. That was the idea, but I think that the concern was, if that is all being done through the programme board, where that left the racial equality panel or those other specific structures.
I would like to assure the Committee and stakeholders that we are not proposing to do away with those other structures and replace them with the DSC. It was simply that the strategy identified that key Departments need to do certain things and, in order to get those Departments to respond to that at an appropriate level, we decided that we would do it through the DSC programme board. That is really it. I do not know whether that offers any reassurance.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): That is very clear, Denis. Speaking personally, that cross-cutting principle and getting the right people at the right time in the right place is probably the biggest challenge, and you have indicated that you have done that.
I want to seek assurances from you about the minority ethnic development fund. People are concerned that, as this financial year runs out, there may be some sort of hiatus. Will groups that are currently funded continue to get funding while you work through the 2015-16 solid state?
Dr McMahon: Yes, that is the intention.
Dr McMahon: On that point, it is nice to have a reasonably good news story to talk about. The signature programmes have made a lot of progress. They obviously have their challenges, particularly around money and how they will be prioritised in the future. However, if you take a look at what has happened so far, you will definitely see signs that the work has made a difference. For example, while I would not want the signature programme to take full credit, if you look at the 2013-14 education statistics, you will see that the percentage of non-grammar school pupils in year 12 who gained five-plus GCSEs, including maths and English, has gone up in quite a spike. We will have to see whether that continues. Typically, it has been going up by about 1·5% per annum, and, last year, in 2013-14, it went up by 6·5%. That is an important development. The Committee has looked at this before, and it might be worth looking at it again in more detail than this session allows. That is one example. The nurture units in schools are also showing differences in the Boxall scores, which is a way of showing how children's behaviour is changed and how their socialisation skills are developing.
Do you want to talk about some of the other developments, Henry?
Mr Johnston: We had a Delivering Social Change programme board meeting this morning, and it was the first time that we brought together report cards. We have tried to evaluate these programmes in a very different way as opposed to waiting until the end to evaluate them. We are trying to capture information as we go through. We are trying to capture how much of it we are doing, how many kids we see and how many teachers are in place. Secondly, we are trying to determine the results. As Denis pointed out, one of the significant results, we think, was in relation to that spike in the increase in free-school-meals kids who are getting five or more GCSEs, including maths and English at A to C. We are also looking at the quality of the intervention. The final aspect that we looked at was the unit effectiveness: how much it costs and the percentage of the programme participants who saw an improvement.
It might be worth coming back to the Committee to talk with our statisticians about that process. We piloted it in the Delivering Social Change signature programmes, and we are rolling it out to all the SIF programmes. We are pushing it in relation to the work on child poverty, and we can see some useful benefits from it. Our statisticians were successful in a joint bid with Belfast City Council to do some further work on looking at metrics that will cut across a range of these programmes to allow us to evaluate one against another. That will be a very exciting bit of work.
Dr McMahon: I do not want to keep the Committee back, but one of the others is the community family support programme, which has been taken forward by DEL on behalf of Delivering Social Change. About 1,800 family members have gone through the programme, including 319 young people who are in the NEET category. Sixty-five per cent of those young people progressed to positive destinations, so there are definitely signs that we are having an impact on some of these deep, intractable problems that we maybe thought could not be dealt with. While it involves a significant amount of money, it is not necessarily so: in the grand scheme of things, when you compare it with the overall block, it is not huge. There are definitely signs that some of these things can make a difference. It is worth saying that.
Mr Johnston: There has been a commitment of £26 million over the period, but DEL put in some of its own money to co-fund the programme.
Dr McMahon: Absolutely. It was a good example of cross-departmental cooperation and collaboration.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I welcome you spending a bit of time on it, Denis, because scrutiny can too often be on the negative side of things, and it is important to highlight positives. In terms of budgets, then, if DSC is not about what you do but the way you do it, is it broadly protected from budgetary constraints because the impact will be on what you do?
Dr McMahon: It is not in the sense that, if you remember, projects were funded by £26 million from central funds. Partly, we were able to do that because of some of the delays in funding the social investment fund, for example, which we referred to earlier. The idea there was to try to achieve some of the same outcomes at an early stage, or earlier than we could get the projects through. That funding is coming to an end, but, that said, Ministers individually and collectively are looking very carefully at this and are trying to find ways to continue the good work. It is protected in the sense that, because it is working well, Ministers want to find a way of doing it, but there is no central earmarked budget for it.
Mr Johnston: Not at this stage.
Dr McMahon: That said, there are signs. For example, one of the projects has been successful in the change fund.
Mr Johnston: The nurture units have been successful in the change fund. We are now absolutely assured that all the nurture units will run until the end of 2015-16. DEL is pretty confident that the family support programme will be successful in its European Social Fund (ESF) programme. It is looking creatively at how to find the match for that. There are others where there will be more challenges. People will be aware of those challenges, particularly in the Department of Education and the pressures on its budget.
Flowing from those programmes, we also launched an initiative with Atlantic Philanthropies, which has taken some of the early intervention work that we sponsor under this and rolled it out on a bigger scale and also through some shared education work.
Ms McGahan: Yes, I just want to make a quick comment on the NEETs. We had a Committee for Employment and Learning meeting this morning, and we were told that the NEETs category has risen since last year. I think that there is another issue where you have highly skilled individuals increasingly filling jobs that require low skills/no qualifications, and people in the NEETs category cannot get a foot in the labour market. So, that is an issue for DEL to look at. We probably need regional strategies, even west of the Bann, to drill down on that and try to fix the problem. I hear what you are saying: I represent a neighbourhood renewal area in Dungannon, and there is also Coalisland. You are doing good work, but there is a bigger problem here.
Dr McMahon: I totally accept that. I am talking about 319 young people in that particular example. There are still young people flowing into that situation. It is about trying to stop people becoming NEETs. I do not even like the term. Sometimes, young people do not like the term because they feel that it is judgemental.
Ms McGahan: And there are some highly skilled young people in the NEETs category.
Dr McMahon: It is probably worth saying that a lot of the initiatives should knit together. One of the initiatives that DEL is doing some great work on is United Youth, and I know that we will come back to that when we are talking about the Together: Building a United Community work, but that presents a real opportunity to do things differently. We engaged with a lot of young people and stakeholders in the development of that programme, and one of the things that came out of that was that a lot of the programmes that are there at the moment are fine if you have a certain level of skills or if you are healthy, but if you have particular psychological problems, you have been excluded or you have had drink or drugs problems, there is no point in putting you into a training programme and hoping that you will survive. It is almost starting from where the young person is. That is one of the things that is very exciting about United Youth. DEL is to be very much commended, and it has worked very closely with us on that.
Dr McMahon: In the beginning, it started off as "status zero", which was even worse.
Dr McMahon: It was in the very early days. People did not have any term for it because they were being ignored in a sense. People realised that there was an issue, and young people were not necessarily appearing on the unemployment register but were, in effect, being marginalised.
Mr Lyttle: The numeracy and literacy signature programme seems to have had a positive impact. Is there an ongoing budget to sustain that programme or will it come to an end?
Dr McMahon: There is no central budget at this point in time. The Education Minister is looking at that.
Mr Johnston: We have a commitment to provide funding until the end of the education year for that programme, so that is the end of the June. We will need to discuss with the Education Minister what he will be able to do going forward. The positives are that a significant number of young teachers have now been given two years' experience.
The other positive is that there are a lot of established teachers who were given refresher in-house training, particularly around literacy and numeracy, so, even if the programme comes to an end, some of those skills will still be retained in the system.
Mr Lyttle: There is work to be done to try to find a long-term budget for that.
Dr McMahon: There is. There is an issue here in the sense that people could say, "Great. We can prioritise that". However, we will have to take the resources from elsewhere, so what do we not do? Again, though, look at the amount of funding in the grand scheme of things. We also need to see whether the trend that we saw last year continues. If it does continue, that is potentially closing the education gap. Closing that education gap would make a huge difference. It is impossible to say exactly how many young people benefited; the evaluation needs to do that. If, however, we are talking about even 600 young people who would not have got five-plus GCSEs being in a position to apply for work and a whole load of things, that is —
Dr McMahon: You cannot put a price on that, to be honest.
Mr Johnston: The programme costs something over £6 million a year to run. We gave the Department of Education something like £13 million over the period, and the Department of Education put some of its own money in on top of that.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): As we move to age discrimination legislation and commitment 38, I will resist the huge temptation to ask why young people were excluded and ask instead what you can tell us about why young people were excluded.
Dr McMahon: Ministers reached the decision that the new legislation will apply to young people aged 16 and over. This is broader than similar legislation in the rest of Ireland and Britain. The view was that it was the best way to take this forward, given that — and Ministers were very open about this even to the Committee — there were differences of opinion about the right approach. The view of Ministers was that this was the best way to deliver the legislation within this term.
Dr McMahon: Yes, potentially through accelerated passage, but that is an "if". Clearly, a consultation process needs to be gone through, and then, depending on the outcome, a decision would need to be taken about accelerated passage. It is not possible to do that through the normal legislative process.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): So, it can happen this term only through accelerated passage. Nobody is giving a commitment to that because we need to have the consultation. Are both sides of the Department, FM and dFM, open to looking at accelerated passage?
Dr McMahon: They are open; they are absolutely open to looking at how to deliver that within this term. While a lot of stakeholders want this legislation to go through, it will come down to the view of stakeholders and Ministers, ultimately, on the best balance. On the one hand, it is good to put the legislation through quickly and it is good that there has been a lot of thought given to this by various stakeholders, so there may be scope to do that. On the other hand, it may be that, when the consultation has been done and the proposals have been looked at in the light of that, people decide that it is not a good way to make new law.
Dr McMahon: The consultation document will be produced within the next month. It will go out for consultation.
Dr McMahon: Into the beginning of the summer, yes.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): OK. Members, anything on that before we move on? I think that this is the final one this session, Denis. It is on Together: Building a United Community.
Mr Lyttle: Chair, I will just come in very briefly on the age discrimination legislation. Was there work done at any point to identify the issues that would arise for people under 16 and to identify exemptions that could have allowed legislation to progress for under-16s? Did political disagreement mean that we never even got to that point?
Dr McMahon: Some work was done internally, as far as possible, looking at existing work elsewhere and talking to Departments, but, because there was not an agreed approach, it was not possible to do the sort of stakeholder consultation that we wanted.
Mr Lyttle: Sorry, Chair, if I am repeating this: is the Department ruling out extending the legislation to under-16s at some point?
Dr McMahon: No, there has been no ministerial decision not to look at the issue again.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): We move to commitment 67, which relates to Together: Building a United Community. Although, in the papers you gave us, the commitment is still to publish the cohesion, sharing and integration strategy. My goodness, it has a risk register: 3,5,3,5,3,5.
Denis, we had correspondence today giving some information about the summer camp pilot schemes. We had pilots in 2014, and we are having pilots in 2015. At what point do the summer schemes stop being pilots?
Dr McMahon: That is a fair question. It is probably a matter of terminology as much as anything. The intention is still to run 100 summer camps. I suppose, in fairness, we are trying to learn as we go through the process and then apply that learning. We are aiming to do 100 summer camps this year, which would comply with our commitment. It is more terminology than anything else, to be honest.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): At one of our stakeholder events for our inquiry into T:BUC, which we do hope will be helpful, I found myself sitting beside somebody from the youth sector, and she expressed her disappointment. She said that summer camps were what she did, and, when T:BUC was published in May 2013, she thought that her phone would light up in a week or two when you called her to come and talk about summer camps. I think that she waited 18 months for the call. You say that you are still learning and developing, but do you feel that there is a little bit of reinventing the wheel here?
Dr McMahon: The 100 camps are going to go ahead. It is difficult to say; it would probably be worth hearing a bit more or getting more information about the specific experiences that the stakeholders expressed to you, so that we can understand a bit better. The bottom line is that we are going ahead with the 100 summer camps; that is what we committed to do. We funded a raft of activity last year as well, and we evaluated that to learn from it. You are right, I suppose, in the sense that you can always be innovative. There are always new innovations you can use with these things, but a summer camp is a summer camp to some extent, so I accept your point.
Mr Lyttle: Chair, I will just build on what you have said. Denis, you say that a summer camp is a summer camp. Well, what is a summer camp? What will these summer camps look like, so that they contribute towards improved relations?
Dr McMahon: The summer camps will have a range of different activities, including sports, arts, adventure, drama, education, music — all with a significant good relations element. The idea is for young people to have the opportunity to engage with other young people whom they might not otherwise come into contact with. The idea is just to take young people out of their current environment and give them alternatives to explore different areas of interest.
Mr Lyttle: What is the budget for those 100 summer camps?
Dr McMahon: Sorry, I just — one second. I think I have got it here somewhere. I will just be one second trying to find it. Actually, I have not got the budget broken down. The full budget including all our activities is here. Oh, sorry: £1·2 million.
Dr McMahon: There will be a range of providers. I would need to check on how the grants will be issued. I do not have the detail in front of me.
Mr Lyttle: Is it not quite late in the day not to know how organisations will be invited to apply to deliver the camps?
Dr McMahon: People do know; I am afraid that I do not. Sorry, I just need to go away to get that. Apologies.
Mr Lyttle: I have one last question, Chair. It is a bit disappointing that, again, the progress report does not go into any detail whatever. There are obviously key actions and targets relating to Building a United Community. I would have thought that it was one of the most important strategies for the First and deputy First Ministers, which they would want to update us on. One target is to roll out buddy schemes in nurseries and primary schools across Northern Ireland. We are now two years on from that key target first being identified. Is there any update on that target?
Dr McMahon: I will have to get you an update on that. The Department of Education is still considering it. If it is helpful, I can give you a broader update, even just verbally, on the range of activities going on across the programme, but I do not have that specific thing. We can follow up on that.
Mr Lyttle: Maybe you could provide a more detailed written update in relation to that. I do not want to take up too much of the Committee's time, as other members have questions.
Ms McGahan: On the back of Chris's point, can you provide a geographical breakdown for the summer camps that are happening? I want to ensure that rural areas are [Inaudible.]
Dr McMahon: That is not a problem.
I will not give you a detailed brief, but obviously we have talked about United Youth, and there is work going on on urban villages around identifying how those projects are going to be taken forward. We have had a number of engagement sessions on that, and we have had an announcement about additional urban villages. There is work on shared neighbourhoods that is going ahead, and we have had some schemes completed and opened, and other schemes have moved forward. Obviously, there are interfaces coming down as well. So we are getting really good engagement with other Departments on a range of activities. I want to reassure the Committee on that, but we are happy to provide more information, even in written form, if it is helpful.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): As I mentioned the risk register, and this session is being formally recorded, let me go back to that, Denis. There are three risks identified with regard to finalising the detail, implementation and being effective in implementation. In the document we received this morning, the probability of any of those risks occurring, on a scale of one to five, was three. The detrimental impact for each and every one, should they come to pass, was five, which is very high. Is that out of date, or is it accurate?
Dr McMahon: Building on the points that members made earlier, you cannot argue with the impact point. There will be a huge impact if we experience significant delays on this. There is probably a higher probability of that happening; in some cases, there have been delays. There is no doubt about that. We are now in a better position because all of the projects have plans, funding has been issued to Departments and things are moving on. So we are in a good position from that point of view, but there is always scope for more delays down the line.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): The Equality and Good Relations Commission requires legislation. Last time we spoke, if I recall correctly, that was doable within this mandate, but road was running out and the timeline was tight. Are we still in that position?
Dr McMahon: It is probably a similar scenario to the age discrimination legislation on goods, facilities and services. If it was agreed now, accelerated passage would probably be the only way we could do it.
Dr McMahon: I would like to double-check that, but my honest view is that it is not doable without accelerated passage. I need to double-check that and get back to you.
Mr Lyttle: Can we get in writing confirmation of the actual spend in relation to childcare provision? You said that you think that £4·7 million has been committed, but can you write to the Committee with the definitive figure on what has been expended?