Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I welcome Dr Mark Browne, deputy secretary of the Department; and Joe Reynolds, director of Programme for Government and Delivering Social Change. You are both very welcome.

Dr Mark Browne (Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister): Thanks, Chair.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Mark, you are going to speak to us not on purely monetary matters for the first time.

Dr Browne: Yes, there has been a slight change in my responsibilities. I still have responsibility for monetary matters, but I have picked up Delivering Social Change and other responsibilities.

Thank you for the opportunity to update the Committee on Delivering Social Change signature programmes. The Committee will be aware that Delivering Social Change is the Executive's comprehensive delivery framework set up to tackle poverty and social exclusion. It seeks to coordinate key actions between Departments in order to deliver a sustained reduction in poverty and associated issues across all ages; improve children and young people's health, well-being and life opportunities; and break the long-term cycle of multigenerational problems.

Delivering Social Change is about tackling multigenerational, area-based and multifaceted poverty wherever it exists. It also aims to address social exclusion on a number of fronts: for example, in relation to the exclusion of older people and people with a disability. We are, however, trying to ensure that issues are addressed early and effectively by Departments. This means that the early emphasis within the programme was placed on children and young people and their families.

You will be aware that, in October 2012, the First Minister and deputy First Minister announced the development of six significant signature programmes totalling some £26 million under the Delivering Social Change framework. These programmes are established to tackle issues such as improving literacy and numeracy levels, family support and pathways to employment for young people. Lead Departments were identified as being responsible for the development and delivery of each of the six signature programmes, with OFMDFM overseeing their implementation and evaluation. The delivery of the initial six programmes is significantly advanced, and I can now briefly update on each.

By way of the literacy and numeracy programme, some 232 full-time equivalent teachers have been employed to deliver one-to-one tuition for children in primary and post-primary schools who were struggling to achieve basic educational standards in English and maths. In the first year of the programme, some 9,700 primary school and post-primary school pupils received support.

The second programme has seen DE and DSD colleagues work together to provide 20 new nurture units. These nurture units help address barriers to learning among children arising from social, emotional or behavioural difficulties. To date, a total of 256 children have participated in the programme, and of those 150 have since been reintegrated back into the mainstream class.

Department of Health colleagues lead on the family support hubs and parenting support programmes. Family support hubs are coalitions of community and voluntary organisations and agencies providing early intervention services at a local level. By way of the signature programme, 15 of the existing family support hubs continue to receive support, and all 10 new hubs have now been established. Between April and December 2014, some 1,896 families were referred to the hubs, and of these some 1,822 were accepted and signposted to appropriate services. The parenting support programme has provided additional high-quality support to new and existing parents living in areas of deprivation, by way of four programmes. It is estimated that some 1,200 families will benefit from the outworkings of these programmes.

The Department for Employment and Learning has led on the pathways to employment signature programme for young people. This programme saw the upscaling of a DEL community family support pilot project and aimed to help young people who are not in education, employment or training and their families. The original pilot project, which was very positively received, assisted some 44 families. Through the signature programme a further 720 families were supported across the five health and social care trust areas.

In the sixth initial signature programme, DSD and DETI worked together to establish up to 11 social enterprise incubation hubs across the nine social investment fund zones. These hubs offer a range of business advice and practical support to social enterprise entrepreneurs. To date, some 26 test traders, as they are called, have made use of the premises, and there has been use of the available hot desks in those enterprise hubs.

Each signature programme is subject to ongoing evaluation by the lead Department to assess its success or otherwise. In addition, an outcomes-based approach has been used to provide definitive information to OFMDFM on the impact the programmes have had on the participants. This information is presented in the form of report cards, and copies have been provided to the Committee in advance of today's meeting.

Regarding the potential continuation and future financing of the programmes, I highlight that, when the initial announcement was made by the First Minister and deputy First Minister in October 2012, Departments were made aware that the central funds allocated to each lead Department should be viewed very much as seed funding, and that it would be for those lead Departments subsequently to maintain the programmes within departmental budgets should they be deemed successful. With this in mind, we have asked the lead Departments to identify their intentions or otherwise for the mainstreaming and continuation of these programmes, where evidence clearly shows they have had and continue to have a positive impact. DEL colleagues have advised that they intend to continue with the delivery of the community family support programme. Forty per cent of the required funding will come through the new Northern Ireland European social fund, with the remaining 60% made up of DEL and DHSSPS funding. DSD and DE have advised that support from the change fund, which was established by DFP, from July 2015 to March 2016 will ensure that provision under the nurture units programme is sustained while research is completed and future policy developed.

These initial six signature programmes were first developed with the intention that they could lead to a real difference to the lives of some of the most vulnerable children and young people and their families. Whilst the formal evaluation results and the associated statistical evidence are still awaited and, indeed, in some instances may take some time to come through, we have been reassured by the very positive feedback we have received from those involved in their delivery, as well as some of the children, young people and families who have benefited from the services that they have provided. Positivity about the impact of the programmes is also starting to be further reflected in the draft departmental outcomes-based report cards, which members have had sight of.

Following on from those initial six programmes, a small number of other signature programmes have since been announced. In October 2013, junior Ministers announced proposals to enhance play and leisure opportunities for children and young people. Given the budgetary constraints, officials are currently working with stakeholders to embed play within existing relevant policies, programmes or strategies to the mutual benefit of the existing schemes and the play and leisure signature programme. In addition to that, a range of potential actions are being developed that can be taken forward as and when funding allows. More recently, in September 2014, the First Minister and deputy First Minister announced the development of three further signature programmes. These programmes focus on dementia, early intervention and shared education and will be co-funded by Atlantic Philanthropies. Progression with the development and implementation of those programmes is ongoing and is being monitored through the Delivering Social Change Atlantic Philanthropies programme board.

Chair, I hope that that has been reasonably comprehensive, and I hope that the Committee has found the information useful. Joe and I are happy to expand on any of those aspects or to deal with any queries that members may have.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Mark, thank you very much. I am not sure whether you will be able to answer some of the questions, given that there are lead Departments involved in all these initiatives. For example, you said that 9,000 school-age children have had help with literacy and numeracy: do you know what the global figure is for school-age children who need that sort of help?

Dr Browne: I do not have a figure for that. However, I can say that, in the schools that were supported by the Delivering Social Change programme in 2013-14, where the benchmark is grade A* to C in five GCSEs including English and maths, the proportion of young people who are achieving that rose from 39·3% to 45·4%. That is an increase of 6·1 percentage points. I do not have the precise figures here, but I know that that is greater than the average across all schools.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): So the evidence is that it is making a positive difference.

Dr Browne: The evidence is there — well, it seems to be there. We have to await the full evaluation, but when you look at the global figures, you see that there seems to be a clear indication of a positive impact.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): With regard to the scorecards, it is useful that you are going for an outcomes-based approach, and I always support that. However, I am a little confused. For example, under "Incredible Years" it says:

You have the category, "Is anyone better off?". It gives three percentages: 42% of managers are completing fidelity training; 7% of practitioners are enrolled on peer coaching schemes; and 1% are achieving next step accreditation. Is that good?

Dr Browne: What we are looking at there, Chair, is progress, and we have to see what the initial baseline was around that to be able to answer your question. I cannot answer it at this point.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Have you got it there, Mark?

Dr Browne: No, I do not have it. I have the same scorecards as you have — the 42% of managers completing fidelity training and the 7% practitioners.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): When you read that headline, "Is anyone better off?", and it is there as a question, you want to see evidence that it is positive — evidence that says yes. However, it says that 1% of practitioners are achieving next step accreditation.

Dr Browne: What we need to start with, Chair — this is why these are works in progress — is the current position. As I understand it, those are the numbers who, through the programme, are completing their fidelity training. We need to know what the need was at the outset, whether all practitioners needed that training and whether it is building on an existing foundation. We need to come back to you with some information around that.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I am just finding it hard to read, Mark. In fairness, there are bits of it that are very useful. For example, there are some that are costed: "Unit cost per pupil £378". That is useful to know but, again, maybe it would be more useful if it were benchmarked. There is certainly a lot of information on those scorecards.

Dr Browne: These are scorecards in development. What you have is an example of some of the indicators that have been identified. They need to be baselined to show the progress against the baseline and to give the range of information. They are based around the concept of how much was done, what the productivity was, how well it was done, what the measures are around it and whether anyone is better off, both at the level of the individual programme and the level of the population. It takes time to build up the range of data and, at this point, these are not complete scorecards.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): We will probably need some more time on this. I am just looking at one child outcome, based on 48 families who have graduated, with data missing for six families. That is probably not the robust set of figures that you would hope for.

Dr Browne: That was a pilot initially. That is why it is small, but it will build up to be larger.

Mr Maskey: Thank you, Mark and Joe, for your presence here today. I have a wee query. In the programme success section of the report, which is on our page 50 —

Dr Browne: Is this on the family support hub?

Mr Maskey: It is, aye. I am actually getting correspondence from some organisations and, in the context of the family support hub, you mention there that there has been support to maybe four parenting support programmes.

Dr Browne: Which one are you speaking of, Alex?

Mr Maskey: I am just looking at a wee paragraph that says:

It is on our electronic page 50. I do not see a page number on it.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): It is under "Programme progress".

Mr Maskey: You have a heading there, "Programme progress".

Dr Browne: On the family support hub?

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): It is your annexe B. It is under "Programme progress", and it is the third bullet point down, beginning "Significant progress".

Mr Maskey: I would not expect much detail on it, but it refers to parenting support programmes delivered through the Public Health Agency. Do parenting teens come into that as well? It can be a troubling period for some teens and parents, given the issues that they are dealing with such as leaving school or going into training, going on to university, going to work, or not as the case may be. Does parenting teens come into that as well? I do not see the detail of it here.

Mr Lyttle: It is on page 6.

Mr Maskey: It is for parenting teens, if you know what I mean. Parents supporting teenagers.

Dr Browne: I will have to get back to you on that. We are having trouble cross-referencing what you are looking at with what we have in our papers.

Mr Maskey: It is in and around family support, but I am also looking for a wee bit more information on the support programmes for parenting and teens in particular.

Dr Browne: There has been a support programme for teens, yes.

Mr Maskey: I was just wondering where that was, but I can come back to it.

Mr Joe Reynolds (Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister): The first phase of that has gone through and been completed. They have worked through that, and we are looking at the evaluation of it. We have not got all the evaluation data back from that. As Mark essentially suggested at the beginning, we are running this as a pilot to test whether or not the model works. We do not have the complete evaluation data, so I do not want to give you a promise that is not borne out by the facts in due course, but the early indication is that the evaluation data suggests that it has been successful. I know there has been interest from other agencies as well, and not just our evaluation but academic evaluation of the project suggests that it is successful.

Mr Maskey: I saw that. There seemed to be quite a lot of evidence to support the sense and logic of it. I appreciate that.

Dr Browne: There is a scorecard on parenting your teen as well. It sets out information about an eight-week parenting support programme drawn up and delivered by Parenting NI.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): That is page 64 of the pack.

Mr Maskey: Thank you.

Mr Reynolds: That programme is complete now. It has run its course, so we are subject to the evaluation data. It will then be a matter of going back to the lead organisations to see what the continuation of that will be.

Mr Maskey: That is helpful. Thank you.

Mr Lyttle: Following on from that, Parenting Your Teen was a parenting programme commissioned by the Public Health Agency. I think it was funded at around £240,000 for two years, which ran out on 31 March 2015. There were 14 parenting programmes across the region, which improved parenting relations and social skills amongst young people, contributing to improved education and employment outcomes as well. You said that that has come to a close. This is the first time that I have heard the form of words "seed funding" around those programmes, which would then require mainstream funding by Departments. Forgive me if I should have heard that before. How exactly are any of them going to be sustained in the current funding climate? Have we raised expectation and capacity across a number of organisations that have been commissioned to deliver those and now left them in the lurch?

Dr Browne: The first thing to say is that the whole Delivering Social Change approach and the approach of the signature programmes was to try to identify areas where Departments could come together, where perhaps that possibility is not there at the moment, to intervene at an early stage to demonstrate new ways of working. The intention was that, if that was effective and was demonstrated to be effective through the outcomes that were produced, those Departments would seek to build that into their mainstream expenditure. I think it was always envisaged that that expenditure would be that kind, whether you call it seed funding, initial funding or demonstration funding — funding that would try to prove a concept or demonstrate that something was effective. Then it would be for Departments to consider whether they could fund it from their mainstream funding. However, I am sure members will be aware that that approach is commonly used and that there is always a problem with mainstreaming at the end of the process.

At the moment, we know that there are plans to continue a number of those programmes and to either get alternative funding or to mainstream. For example, I mentioned that, for the community family support programme, DEL has identified funding that it can get from the new European social fund, and it will continue the funding through that. The nurture units signature programme from DSD and DE has managed to access some funding from the change fund, so it will continue for another year through that.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Sorry to interrupt, Mark, but the change fund is presumably under threat if we cannot agree a Budget.

Dr Browne: The change fund allocations were in the Budget this year, and I think applications to it have been approved. I do not know whether actual allocations have been made, but, obviously, the whole financial situation is somewhat difficult to describe at the moment. They have been successful in the bid to that, so, assuming that that fund continues, there will be funding there.

In relation to literacy and numeracy, we are seeking to see whether there is the potential for assistance to extend that on slightly further through a bid in June monitoring. In relation to family support hubs, DHSSPS is looking at the evaluation of that programme again and considering — it is early days at this point — whether or not funding can be found from within existing resources. The same applies to the social enterprise hubs. So a range —

Mr Lyttle: What is the status of the parenting support programmes then?

Dr Browne: I will just go through the details here. The Incredible Years will continue until December 2015. There has been investment in infant mental health training, and that has enabled the development of a regional infant mental health plan. It is proposed that there will be further phased training for early years staff across the sectors beyond the current scale of training resource under DSC, so that has led to a slightly enhanced programme. Strengthening Families, which is another part of the parenting support programme, will be continued in the Belfast Trust, Southern Trust and Northern Trust areas in 2015-16 through DSC funding, and continuation costs beyond the signature programmes are being considered by those trusts. The DSC funding for Parenting Your Teen concluded at the end of March 2015, and Parenting NI has presented a business plan to the Public Health Agency and other funders to secure a minimum-level requirement of £60,000 per annum to provide 14 programmes across Northern Ireland.

So, some of the programmes have identified an alternative source of funding, and some of them are under consideration by Departments as to whether they will continue, but the reality is that, as members will know, those programmes are competing with other priorities for funding in what is a very difficult financial context, so there can be no guarantee that they will all continue.

Mr Lyttle: The perennial problem of short-term funding for organisations that are delivering key programmes seems to persist. We do not seem to have broken that cycle just yet.

Mr Reynolds: On the specifics, I know that we have been asked about the Parenting Your Teen programme in particular. I have met Parenting NI to discuss that because there is a bit of a hiatus at the end of the funding that was agreed through the signature programme. It is two things probably, including the provision of the evaluation material that we want to see for that programme, which, as I say, has not been available to us. We have recognised that, and there is certainly no disagreement with Parenting NI that the initial information from other sources suggests that that is a successful programme that has run through. Nevertheless, I think that some of the statutory authorities would want to see the independent evaluation that was programmed as part of that project before they consider that. In seeking to have that continuation funding, it is competing with the other programmes that those authorities have responsibility for. We have spoken to them about ways in which we might be able to assist in finding other sources of that funding. I would not say that we have given up on that, but, clearly, as you said, Chairman, it is a very difficult environment.

Mr Lyttle: How were the themes selected for the new Atlantic Philanthropies-funded signature programmes? They are, roughly speaking, dementia services, early intervention, shared education and evaluation support.

Dr Browne: Those came forward. I will have to come back with the detail of it. My understanding is that they came forward in discussions with Atlantic Philanthropies and the interdepartmental group that the Department had established around Delivering Social Change, which was trying to identify areas where there was a need for a cross-departmental cooperation and where it could make a real difference to clients who fall within the scope of the programme. It emerged out of those discussions.

Mr Lyttle: That is, roughly speaking, £22·5 million from Delivering Social Change funds and £25 million from Atlantic Philanthropies.

Dr Browne: Yes, and a further £11 million from Departments.

Mr Lyttle: Is the £22 million from Delivering Social Change funds an OFMDFM line item or a centrally held amount of money?

Dr Browne: That is an Executive commitment that was agreed in terms of overall funding in a paper that went to the Executive. We draw that down from a central source or, in others words, from DFP.

Mr Reynolds: Can I come back on your question about the selection of the topics? As Mark said, they were in agreement with Atlantic Philanthropies about programmes that they wanted to co-fund with us. In his opening remarks, Mark talked about the issues that might be identified and that you might be able to address. They are specific to the themes that we have identified but are also about looking at how we encourage and develop cross-disciplinary work. In attempting to do that, we are looking for some themes where that might be able to be evidenced. That would have influenced some of their thinking, I am sure, when they came to the table with those suggestions.

Mr Lyttle: The £22·5 million is obviously a significant outlay. Was any consideration given to what that £22·5 million would do for the existing signature programmes or did it have to be for new, I presume, pilot programmes?

Mr Reynolds: The £22 million leverages something closer to £60 million in total expenditure, because we have some input from the Departments and from Atlantic Philanthropies. That was a significant consideration when we were deciding on that.

Mr Lyttle: They are fairly narrow themes compared to the previous signature projects though.

Dr Browne: They pick up on key themes, particularly around dementia for example, which is of significant interest and concern.

Mr Lyttle: It is getting £6 million of the £60 million.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): If Atlantic Philanthropies is putting in £24·65 million, it would expect to have a say in where the money goes. We took a look at DSC early last year, and our recommendation was that, if there were to be future signature projects, there should be comprehensive consultation with practitioners in the relevant fields. From what you have said to date, I am not hearing that that happened. Will you confirm whether that happened?

Dr Browne: In relation to both the initial signature programmes and, as I understand it, in the decisions about Atlantic Philanthropies, there were discussions with the cross-departmental board, which had members from all the Departments. In turn, they consulted within their Department on what the key areas of need were and where the potential was for areas that met the criteria —

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): But they are not practitioners.

Dr Browne: They would have then negotiated with Atlantic Philanthropies

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): But they are not practitioners, Mark.

Dr Browne: There are some practitioners in the Health Department, for example, such as the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer etc, so there would be some. I appreciate what you mean: you mean out in the actual professional community.

Mr Reynolds: Chair, a distinction also has to be drawn between the extent to which those folk were involved in the selection of the projects, which I think was the original question, and the extent to which they were involved once the projects had been selected. There certainly was widespread stakeholder engagement with those types of stakeholders whenever we were talking about the design and the delivery of what would take place. There were two different stages to the process.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): So, once you decided that dementia services was going to be a new signature project, consultation would have been undertaken with practitioners.

Mr Reynolds: There would have been that level of engagement.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): OK, thanks. Chris.

Mr Lyttle: Thanks —

Mr Reynolds: Sorry, can I go back on one other point that was referred to, which was the allocation of funding to the new, additional projects rather than a reconsideration of whether the available resources should have been applied to the original six programmes? One of the ideas with the original six programmes was that they were essentially time-limited exercises. So, using those resources to continue something that should have been time-limited would have, in some way, undermined the original suggestion of what we were trying to do.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): That was another of our recommendations:

Mr Reynolds: I do not think that what we said is at odds with that. The commitment to the DSC framework remains. That is why you would have additional programmes and try to investigate whether using that methodology, that model and that approach is informative and helpful, not least in the way that the Executive operate centrally the Delivering Social Change programme in our Department, but also in the way in which that is used to leverage new ideas from other Departments with their functions and responsibilities.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I think that it is at odds. We referred to "on these complex issues" rather than "these and other complex issues". It was specific to the six signature projects in the initial tranche.

Dr Browne: The general approach in Delivering Social Change has been to highlight and identify different ways of doing things. In the longer term, that cannot always be with additional money. It has to be about directing existing funds in the best way to address the issues that have been identified.

As you said, Atlantic Philanthropies did have a say, because it was its money. It was a substantial amount of its money, and it wanted to direct it in particular areas to test particular approaches. It was very important that the signature programmes and the subsequent programmes that were funded proceeded to a point where they could demonstrate their value and were capable of demonstrating to Departments how best they might use their existing mainstream funding.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Was there a tension between what it wanted to focus on and what you wanted to focus on?

Dr Browne: I am not aware that there was a significant tension, Chair, but I was not involved in the detail of that at the time. The areas that it identified — early intervention and improved integration of early years services — have consistently been identified as being critical for the development of young children. Dementia is a huge and growing issue on which there is a focus, and the funding that it was able to make available was very welcome in enabling us to move forward on that.

Mr Lyttle: I take the points about using additional funds to find new ways of doing things, but the additional funds in the new round are £33·8 million, of which £11 million will come directly from Departments, and £22·5 million, which is in a central fund and on which, I presume, Departments or Ministers will have made some sort of agreement. That is a significant amount of money to invest in additional new ways of doing things when we seem to be struggling to mainstream the last new ways of doing things.

Dr Browne: In all this, we are always seeking to find better ways of delivering the services that we currently deliver. So, inevitably, once you have completed a project, you evaluate it and you take learning from that. You either extend it on in some sort of a pilot to get new learning or you move to another area. If we are talking about continuing the funding to do the same things, we are not demonstrating new approaches. So, there has to be a point at which you say, "This has been tested. This works. Are we going to mainstream it or not? If we are going to mainstream it, we mainstream it, and if we have additional funding, do we want to move to new areas?" There are always other issues that need to be addressed. So, it is a question of refreshing the whole policy-making and implementation process.

Mr Lyttle: I have one last question. Is there any detail around the exact nature of the £25 million programme for the shared education element of the new Atlantic Philanthropies match-funded signature programme?

Dr Browne: Yes, I can give you some detail on that. There was a first call for applications in November 2014, and 32 shared education partnership applications came forward, involving 72 schools. Those have now been approved. There was a second call for applications issued in March, and all the applicants will be notified of the outcome before the end of June in order to enable successful partnerships to commence their projects from September. To support the process and to support groups in coming forward with their applications and taking forward the actual implementation, 10 shared education development officers will be in place by the end of May. Those officers will provide effective, local, on-the-ground assistance, working with shared education partnerships to promote, plan and implement shared activity. The Education and Training Inspectorate has been engaged to evaluate the programme as it proceeds.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Was the decision to mainstream influenced by the interim evaluation?

Dr Browne: I think that the intention for all the signature programmes was that they were demonstration projects. The intention was always to mainstream, to identify new ways of working, and if they worked, to turn the focus of existing funds in that direction. It can either be fully mainstreamed, partially mainstreamed or you can bid for more money, but you have to demonstrate that the new approach actually works. This will be the demonstration, and then you will look at different ways of doing it. Mainstreaming is one way; the other way is extra money, but, as we all know, we cannot always rely on extra money coming in.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): OK. Let me turn the question then. How influential was the interim evaluation in defining the way forward?

Dr Browne: Are you referring to an individual project or all the projects? Each project is evaluated —

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Did it not take place? Was there an interim evaluation scheduled for March 2014?

Dr Browne: The evaluation, as I understand it, is ongoing by the lead Departments who are taking that forward. In addition, we have taken forward the outcome-based accountability approach to try and bring consistency across all of them. It is that ongoing oversight and evaluation undertaken by Departments that is influencing whether or not to evaluate. On a number of these, the results are not actually there in full to enable a decision to be taken on mainstreaming. I referred to that earlier for a number of the projects.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): The Programme for Government delivery plan says that there is a commitment to:

It says that there will be an interim report in March 2014, led by OFMDFM, with input from the relevant Departments. Are you saying to me that that did not happen? That is a Programme for Government commitment.

Dr Browne: I would need to come back to you on the detail of that. If you excuse me, Chair, having just taken over this recently, I am not aware of the history. I will come back to you on that, but I will make the point that the evaluation of the programmes is being taken forward by lead Departments. We have taken forward the other element that you describe about outcome-based indicators. You have the score cards around that, and that evaluation is ongoing. All that is feeding into decisions that Departments will want to take around mainstreaming. In some of the signature projects, ongoing data goes out. For example, in numeracy and literacy, I was able to point to GCSE results because those come out and are available. Over and beyond that, there are much more detailed indicators which the Department will want to look at to assess how best to take the programme forward.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I stress that that is a Programme for Government commitment.

Dr Browne: I will come back to you, Chair, on the position on that.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I would appreciate that.

Ms McGahan: Thank you for your presentation. I want to ask about the social enterprise model and how you have performed there. I am looking at the number of people who progress to employment and the percentage seems to be quite low. It is 2%.

Dr Browne: Which figure are you looking at?

Ms McGahan: It is entitled "Is anyone better off? Social enterprise".

Mr Reynolds: Social enterprise in the outcome-based section?

Ms McGahan: Also for those people who have progressed into employment, can you give any further information in terms of whether it is sustained employment or what type of employment it is? I think it is also positive when you have vacant properties used too. That is very interesting, and it is something that we should look into more, because vacant properties are a big issue for most of our towns.

Mr Reynolds: In fairness, I think it is probably too early to answer your question as to whether that is sustained employment. Some of those social enterprise hubs took longer than others to establish. There was a difficulty about identifying appropriate locations for them and then for having those locations appropriately equipped to be able to accommodate the needs of what we had intended through a hub. Some of the early attendance at them has also differed from what we might have anticipated initially in terms of who might have come in and what type of usage it might have been put to. We are working on the data that we have at this stage. In respect of that particular programme, because there was a delay in establishing all the hubs, that data is not as full or mature as we would have wanted it to be. In particular, even if it were the case that they had they been operating for longer, or for the full time of the Delivering Social Change programme, I am not sure that we could, with any great confidence, say that the employment that had been gained from that could generally be called sustained, because it just takes time to get the data through. Some of those people will have been helped to develop business ideas that they already had. In other cases, they have been asked to develop new business ideas. So that is why the data indicates that we are trying to measure a range of different outcomes and activities from that. If we were only measuring it in terms of sustained, long-term employability, we would have to agree with you that the numbers, at this stage, remain low. However, it is early days.

Ms McGahan: Regarding the 1% of people who have been referred on to other programmes and interventions, what was the rationale for that?

Dr Browne: Sorry, where are you taking that figure from?

Ms McGahan: "Participant outcomes".

Dr Browne: Again, those are the figures that are coming out of —

Ms McGahan: Was this intervention not working for them? Is that why they were referred on?

Dr Browne: It could be that this particular post was not appropriate for that individual and that there was some other labour market programme that would have helped them to benefit more in that case. This is really about providing an environment within which those who have an entrepreneurial idea can come and use the facilities and develop that idea through them. It may or may not work; that is part of what we are trying to test. It is also about making desk and computer facilities available to those who want to use them to develop ideas.

The key point is that some of these ideas might not work. That is a part of what we are testing. These are ideas being put forward to see whether there are different ways of tackling some of these problems. The reason for having the measurements is that, if they do not work, we either change the approach or we discontinue them and do something else. So, some of these, we expect, will not be successful, or not as successful as we would wish. That is the purpose of this evaluation.

Ms McGahan: This is a very important model, and I would like to see it upscaled because it is all about being self-sustaining. I am impressed, even by the way the vacant properties have been used up. That will benefit the local economy as well.

Mr Reynolds: Chair, if I may, one of the things that we have to look at when we are undertaking evaluation is this: without wanting to move the goalposts in the middle of the game, there is nevertheless identification of benefits that arise from the delivery of the projects. As was said, this is an exercise in testing some models, so you might find that other benefits arise out of that that either we did not identify at the beginning of the programme as something that we wanted to have a benchmark for and measure progress against or, in other cases, some of the interventions that we tried may not be as successful as we would want them to be, and it may well be that the data reflects that.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): OK. Are members content? I have just one last question, Mark: have you any assessment of how the reorganisation of Departments will impact on DSC delivery?

Dr Browne: OFMDFM will continue to have the lead responsibility for Delivering Social Change. The funds will continue to come centrally to be drawn down. Therefore, theoretically the configuration of Departments does not affect the delivery, but obviously there will be issues about making sure that continuity is maintained as functions are transferred between Departments. The model of DSC being based in OFMDFM with central funding will continue and will sit above whatever the configuration of the rest of the Departments is.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): OK. Mark and Joe, thank you very much.