Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): We welcome Katrina Godfrey, who is director of the Programme for Government and the Northern Ireland Civil Service of the future, along with Joe Reynolds, who is head of Programme for Government and strategic policy. Katrina, I think that this is your first appearance in front of this Committee or, indeed, the legacy OFMDFM Committee.

Mrs Katrina Godfrey (Executive Office): It is indeed, Chair.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): You are both very welcome. Joe is to kick off, yes?

Mrs Godfrey: With your permission, Chair, I will make a few opening remarks and then hand over to Joe. I thank you for the welcome and for the early opportunity to brief the Committee on the outcome of the consultation on the draft Programme for Government framework. As you say, Joe will be a much more familiar face to you than I am, but I am very much looking forward to working with the Committee in my new role.

I will say a few words about the context in which the consultation took place before handing over to Joe. As the First Minister and the deputy First Minister explained when they were with the Committee on 8 June, the approach that we are taking to the Programme for Government's development and delivery is quite different from what happened before. It focuses very deliberately on outcomes and delivering improvements in areas that matter most to the public and on accountability for the delivery of progress against those outcomes. I think that you had a briefing from your research people on some of the approaches that others have taken to outcome-based accountability (OBA). The consultation provided an early opportunity to test whether that outcomes-based approach and the outcomes themselves resonated with people. The proposal that we would have an outcomes-focused Programme for Government supported by clear indicators that help us to monitor and measure our progress is one that clearly found favour during the consultation — Joe will take you through some of the key characteristics and findings of the consultation in a minute — and one that, as you may have heard from the Assembly research team, has worked well in other jurisdictions.

The final point that I want to make at the start is that, importantly, this is also an approach that, as we move to the next stage, will require all of us to work in very different ways, focusing increasingly not merely on individual actions or processes but on whether and how they contribute to delivering the outcomes captured in the Programme for Government that matter most to people. Those are the key characteristics of what is, as I said, quite a different and distinctive approach to the Programme for Government. In its review, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recommended it as an approach that it was important for us to adopt, moving forward. I know that the Committee will be particularly keen to hear what came out of the consultation, so I will hand over to Joe to take you through some of the details. Thank you for the opportunity for this early briefing.

Mr Joe Reynolds (Executive Office): Chair, I think that you have been provided with a copy of the report that we prepared for Ministers on the analysis of the consultation responses. I will go through some of the key points included in it.

The draft framework was agreed by the Executive on 26 May. The consultation began on 27 May and lasted for eight weeks, through to 22 July. The draft provided a change from previous Programmes for Government in that it recommended an outcome-based approach with a clear focus on creating the conditions for well-being, with impacts on the citizen at a population level being monitored to provide the basis for the assessment of progress. The ambitions described in the framework are generational in nature: they may, in some cases, take 15 to 20 years or even longer to achieve. Previous Programmes for Government focused on the delivery of outputs in a single mandate rather than the outcomes described in the draft framework.

The framework identified 14 outcomes, supported by 42 indicators, with one measure identified for each indicator, other than a poverty indicator, which had two measures. The consultation represented the latest stage in the process to deliver a detailed Programme for Government. Consultees were invited to offer views on the methodology as well as on the specific content around outcomes, indicators and measures. Responses were invited primarily by way of an online survey but also by way of written submission. Five public events were arranged by the Executive Office: Ballymena, Belfast, Derry, Enniskillen and Newry. Other Departments also arranged events specific to their sectoral responsibilities. Eight hundred and ten valid responses were received to the consultation: 479 by way of the online survey and 331 submitted to us in writing or by email. Three hundred and one of the responses — 37% — came from individuals, and 63% — 509 — came from organisations or representative bodies. Our analysis looked at seven specific aspects: the outcomes, indicators and measures; the delivery plans; the methodology itself; budget and funding issues; and equality impact assessments.

Attention should be drawn to the overwhelming support for the draft outcomes. In the online responses, it was easier to gauge statistically how people viewed those, and support ranged from 79% to 90% in favour of each of those outcomes being included in the final programme. No outcome attracted more than 4% of responses that suggested excluding a particular outcome from the final Programme for Government. The lowest support was for outcome 6, which is:

In my view, that may reflect an incomplete understanding of the term "better jobs", with a specific meaning based on research published by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) in July 2015 as part of the Department's open call for research. Overall, there was support for the intention in that outcome, if not for how it was expressed in the draft.

Support ranged from 63% to 78% across all 42 indicators, with five indicators attracting over 75% of responses agreeing to keep them in the final programme. Responses from those who suggested a change to the indicator ranged from 5% to 16%, and paragraph 28 of the report, which, I think, you have a copy of, describes some of the issues for which respondents argued for greater prominence in the final programme.

Support for the measures in the draft ranged from 48% to 69%, although for nine of the indicators the draft identified a need for data development rather than offering a specific measure. Two measures attracted support below 50%: a respect index for indicator 26 and the number of households in housing stress to support indicator 8, which is around improving the supply of suitable housing.

Overall, the trend of strong support for outcomes, lower support for indicators and lowest support for measures reflects our expectation in the approach to developing the PFG architecture incrementally and with support from a wide range of stakeholders. Lowest support for measures arrived in tandem with significant work being undertaken, not least by our technical assessment group, to improve the data that would help to deliver the most effective programme. Nevertheless, the response to the consultation suggests that the one-to-one relationship between indicators and measures is too simplistic and inadequate to support the monitoring requirements that many respondents expect to see as the programme is delivered. Comments in respect of specific delivery plans have been relayed to the respective senior officials charged with developing individual delivery plans. There was virtually unanimous support for moving to an outcomes-based approach, and when we asked about methodology there were no dissenting views in any of the consultation responses.

Specific comments on funding and, more generally, on the alignment of the Budget were also received, and we referred all of those directly to the Department of Finance to take account of in its work on the preparation of the Budget. Some queried whether the changed circumstances following the vote on EU membership would mean the need to review all the work that had been completed so far.

On equality impact assessments, respondents were asked for their view of the equality impact of what was proposed. There were very few replies that indicated the potential for a negative impact from the delivery of the programme per se, although a larger proportion suggested that there could be a lack of positive impact for groups according to sexual orientation and marital status. Other responses on equality issues were referred to senior officials in Departments working on delivery plans to consider how equality of opportunity could be improved in the proposals for the further iterations of the Programme for Government itself.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Joe, thank you very much. Clearly, we have an interest in the process and in the findings on the outcomes, the indicators and the measures. I would like to begin with the consultation process. Paragraph 61 of the Fresh Start Agreement makes it clear that the framework document was supposed to be prepared by the end of April of this year, and the suggestion seems to be that it was to be presented to the parties that were entitled to be in government post-election, which would:

That was then to go out to consultation. Effectively, there is now a three-phase approach: consultation on the framework will be followed by consultation on the draft, and then there is the sign-off. Were you prepared for that? Did you have the resources to go from a two-phase process to a three-phase process?

Mr Reynolds: Katrina's presence here suggests that we have continued to augment the resources available to us over the summer months. I do not think that we would have any concern: any additional resources that we have asked for have been provided to us. We certainly have sufficient resources to go through that process.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): That takes you to the next phase, which is a draft Programme for Government that, again, will be subject to consultation, beginning, I understand, in October.

Mrs Godfrey: The expectation is that we will have a fuller draft. One of the key benefits was to engage on the framework to test both the concept of the outcomes-based approach and the outcomes themselves. It is that discipline of having indicators and measures that transparently allow Assembly scrutiny Committees and the public to determine how progress is being made. That has been a strength of the process. It has given us a clear indication of where there is support but also where there is a different suggestion or a desire to see a slightly different model or the inclusion of an additional measure. All those processes will strengthen the next phase, which will be the detail around how the delivery of those outcomes and indicators will be affected and the interventions and evidence-based approaches that are capable of delivering the change that is implied in the outcomes. As you will be aware, that is a feature of the outcomes-based accountability methodology.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Indeed, so you have quite a body of work to do over the next six-odd weeks in reacting to how you reshape, if you do that, the outcomes, indicators and measures and then designing a much more detailed Programme for Government. It goes out at the start of October: will it be an eight-week consultation?

Mrs Godfrey: Yes, an eight-week consultation is the norm now.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): So you will have it back at the end of November, with a commitment to finalising the Programme for Government by the end of the year.

Mrs Godfrey: That remains the intention, but it is important to remember that a consultation process gives you information from the moment that it starts. We have benefited hugely not just from the consultation in the survey and the correspondence, which Joe mentioned, but the engagement that was happening at the same time on a number of levels. It was happening not just in the meetings across Northern Ireland that you mentioned but through Departments taking areas of the Programme for Government and going out proactively to stakeholders to shape the thinking for the next stage on an ongoing basis. I was involved in that directly before I moved to my new role. It has been a very powerful means of gathering not just views and opinions but ideas and suggestions on how the next part of the process can be improved.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): So the consultation on the next document has de facto begun.

Mrs Godfrey: We see the consultation process running all the way through from start to finish. You would not expect us to stop and deal with one set of information when, throughout the process, we have had a far richer conversation with stakeholders that we can use to inform the next stages and test those again.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I am interested in how the public and the stakeholders have inputted, so that they have had sight of the draft Programme for Government as well as this framework?

Mrs Godfrey: They have been looking at the framework. As part of the engagement and in the conversations that have been happening throughout the summer months, they have been asked not just what they think of the framework, outcomes and indicators but, from where they sit, whether that is in government, in a non-governmental organisation (NGO) or in business, what their views are on the interventions and actions that would, to use OBA language, turn the curve and deliver the sea change in improvement that Ministers want to see.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Did any sectors that you wanted to hear from not respond in the process?

Mrs Godfrey: We had a fairly wide-ranging response from across all the key sectors that we would have expected to hear from.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Thirty-seven per cent of responses were from individuals: to what degree did the individuals focus on single issues?

Mr Reynolds: They did not; they covered many issues. It is our intention, following this meeting and with the agreement of Ministers, to publish tomorrow both the report that you have seen and the list of consultees who responded to us so that people will be able to see who responded. Organisationally I would not have thought that it would be too difficult to detect the issues that have been brought to our attention through that process.

With regard to widespread consultation, as part of our public events we invited any sectoral interest that wished to express a view to us or wanted us to have a conversation with them to invite us to do so. Wherever we were invited to do that, we took them up on that opportunity. We were out and about and spoke to groups and sectoral interests. Also, as Katrina suggested, in the development work that is going on across Departments with individual delivery plans, each Department would have organised within its own range of sectoral interests stakeholder engagement events across the summer looking at the delivery plans. They also had an opportunity to express their views about the work that we had done on the framework. Many of those views would have been fed back in the conversations that we had with them over the summer.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Does the fact that support for outcomes is better than for indicators and for indicators better than for measures indicate that this will get more difficult the more detailed the plan becomes?

Mrs Godfrey: It is fair to say, Chair, that that is not an unexpected response. One of the issues that you will, I suppose, always encounter in an outcomes-based approach is debate — quite helpful debate — on how, if you are using a small number of measures to determine progress, you make sure that those are the best measures. As Joe said in his opening remarks, how do we make sure that the relationship that we had of one indicator supported by one measure is not, for some indicators, too limiting an approach? That is one of things that we are looking at in evolving the model.

That is a common issue that others who have introduced an outcomes-based approach have discovered. If you take the world that I was previously familiar with in education, we know well that an indicator around attainment does not sum up the whole of what happens in an education system or in a school. We know that it is what it is described as: an indication of how well our system serves children and young people. Those are the tensions that it is very helpful to have debates on, and that came out clearly during the consultation, when people felt able to say, "I think that, actually, maybe an extra measure or a slightly different indicator would give you a better sense of progress in this area".

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Let me —

Mr Reynolds: May I add to that,Chair? As Katrina says, it reflects what we would have expected, but it is helpful to us because it also shows that, where we had focused most of our work and attention over the past 18 months before getting to have a draft that the incoming Executive could look at, we got greatest levels of reassurance. Following the methodology set out in the OBA approach suggests that we ought to have greater stakeholder engagement on identifying the measures by which we could gauge progress towards achieving those outcomes and that we had further work to do.

The draft that we set out had only 33 of the possible 43 measures in that structure that we would have wanted, identifying 10 areas for what Friedman calls his data development agenda. It is not surprising that people said, "I don't like that. I would like something more than that in the document", because we had not actually given them something to agree to.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Let me, before I open it up, ask about outcomes. You say there were no strong calls for any of the outcomes to be removed. There were some suggested changes and additions of new outcomes — I think that you list nine new outcomes — but in that cluster of nine, there is no reference to victims. Did nobody ask for a high-end outcome for victims?

Mrs Godfrey: I think for all the outcomes, Chair, what you will have seen is huge support for what is there, and I think and understand —

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Sorry, Katrina, the question is very specific: did nobody say, "I would like to see an outcome for victims"?

Mr Reynolds: Chair, it may be a question of interpretation. Outcomes are conditions of well-being that attract towards constituencies in the population. Now, victims are a particular constituency —

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Yes, but so are older people, and they are in it.

Mr Reynolds: Pardon?

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Older people — that is your point 3 at paragraph 22.

Mr Reynolds: It was not expressed in that way to us; it was expressed in terms of outcomes for people.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): But this is your document, Joe.

Mr Reynolds: I understand that.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): It says of the nine new additional outcomes that were suggested, one is an outcome for older people.

Mr Reynolds: Yes —

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I am asking a question —

Mr Reynolds: It was explicitly —

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Did nobody say that victims should be a category and outcome?

Mr Reynolds: It is not my recollection that it was expressed in that way in any great number of responses in the way that it would have been by —

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): So the answer is "Yes, some people did call for it".

Mrs Godfrey: Yes. Certainly, in the responses — you will be familiar with at least one of them — there was a reference to the need for the Programme for Government framework —

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): That was not difficult, was it?

Mrs Godfrey: — to include a focus on victims. That came out in the consultation.

The point that Joe is making is that, when you lift an OBA up to population level, you find that the needs of individual groups can be very clearly accommodated in the outcomes framework that we have. If you look at the outcome

which is the most strongly supported outcome at, I think, 91%, you see that that is very clearly relevant to the needs of victims. Other outcomes are equally relevant. One of the key things about the approach is the focus at population level, which is supported by performance indicators that allow you to look at the needs of individual groups at a different level, feeding into the overall outcome.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I know that the Older People's Commissioner asked for older people to be included as an outcome. What about the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors? Did she ask for an outcome for victims?

Mrs Godfrey: We will have to check that detail, Chair, and come back to you.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): And the Commissioner for Children and Young People?

Mrs Godfrey: There is an outcome for children and young people that was warmly welcomed by the Commissioner for Children and Young People.

Mr Boylan: Thank you for your presentation. Joe, you talked about data, and Katrina talked about it being a live, fluid situation that has been going on for a long time. I take it that each Department is responsible for its own consultation. I have to say that "consultation" is not a word that I am totally comfortable with; I would rather use the word "participation". Leading on from that, my question is this: what engagement have you had with the private business community and the voluntary sector, given that they also have a part to play in this? Clearly, you will gather the data, and that will inform it all at the end of the process. I am trying to tease this out. The Chair has asked a number of questions already, but I to want to get a better understanding of exactly what engagement you have had with stakeholders in particular.

Mrs Godfrey: That happened on a number of levels. You mentioned the departmental events. One of the things that characterised them was that, by their very nature, they were joined-up events, in the sense that, if you wanted to look at, for example, the needs of business, you wanted to make sure that you focused on infrastructure, skills, economic development and the supply pipeline coming from education. All those events were about having much wider conversations than perhaps we have been used to in the past in taking a single-Department agenda. That was a real strength of the engagement that happened over the summer.

We have had substantial engagement with the voluntary and community sector. I know that the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA) has also played a lead role through its relationships with its constituent parts in the sector in helping them to come to an understanding of what an outcomes-based approach means and how you make sure that you have the right focus on outcomes, which is something that they very much welcome.

As for the business community, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and others have been actively engaged and are keen to make sure that their views on the economic indicators and where they sit in the wider Programme for Government are heard. Joe, you might want to pick up on some of the more detailed engagement.

Mr Reynolds: As well as the five public events that I mentioned that we organised, there were over 30 other events or meetings at which we spoke to different groups or interests. You mentioned the voluntary sector: on the first day of the consultation document's publication, 27 May, NICVA was quick off the blocks and had already organised a meeting of its member organisations. We participated with them in talking about what was proposed in the draft and which areas they could comment on and influence. We helped them through that process. At that and other events, including the five events that we organised from the Department, we invited anyone in the audience who had a particular interest to contact us if they wanted us to talk to a particular interest group. As I say, I have a list here of over 30 other meetings or engagements that we participated in with different people right across Northern Ireland to tell them what it was about.

As far as the private sector and the business community were concerned, we spoke to the Chamber of Commerce. We spoke to the Department for the Economy's economic advisory group. In other areas of the community sector, we spoke to the West Belfast Partnership Board and the Holywell partnership up in Derry and went to events organised by the National Children's Bureau. We had a succession of events, as well as attending the individual events for sectoral stakeholders that the Departments organised. We had representation from TEO at those as well to explain what we intended through the framework.

Mr Boylan: We are going back out to an eight-week consultation soon. Is there any process for going back to them with feedback on their original responses and initial ideas?

Mr Reynolds: The consultees?

Mr Boylan: Yes.

Mr Reynolds: As I have suggested to the Chairman already, after today's meeting, we intend to publish on the Department's website our report on the analysis of that consultation. That should be available from first thing tomorrow morning.

Mr Lynch: Katrina, you said from the outset that it focused on areas that mattered most: will you elaborate on that?

Mrs Godfrey: Before I joined the Department, a lot of work had happened on gathering information on the issues that the public were telling us mattered most to them. That was very much used, Seán, to develop the original outcomes framework that Ministers published as part of the Programme for Government framework. We took 14 areas and tested them with people. We asked them whether those were the sorts of things that reflected what they had told us in various iterations mattered most to them or reflected the sort of society that they most wanted to see developing in Northern Ireland. That is really the genesis of the outcomes.

To pick up on Joe's point, at one level, that may be why it is not surprising that they had the support that they had. It is fair to say that they are not in many ways that dissimilar to what you might see in other countries, nor would we be surprised about that. Economic growth, sustainable development and good health and well-being skills are all things that any Government looking to advance an economic and social agenda will have very much to the fore. It was very encouraging that the language, the aspiration and the coherence of the vision that they presented resonated so well with so many groups in society, not just with one or two.

Mr Lynch: Finally, how does the engagement compare with that for previous PFGs?

Mrs Godfrey: You may want to say something about the response to previous programmes, Joe.

Mr Reynolds: I think I had suggested previously that it might have been 10 times as high; in fact, for the previous PFG, a number of campaigns were organised, so, numerically, there were in the region of 400 replies. We have doubled that number this time. Considering that, as far as we could detect, there was no noticeable campaign, there were 800 individual replies. That is a substantially higher level of engagement than we have had before.

Mrs Godfrey: The other thing that I will add to that is that it was not just the statistics but the type of engagement. Having been part of them, I know the sorts of discussions on children and young people and on innovation and the economy that happened around tables over the summer. They were very real and, in fact, quite different in the outlook that people were taking around the sort of collaboration that we need to have. That is collaboration and cooperation not just across Departments but between government, the business sector and the voluntary and community sector. Together, what is it that we could do more of or differently to deliver the outcomes and results that we want to see? A number of people said to me that those conversations felt noticeably different from conversations that they had had with Departments in previous years. Sometimes, the qualitative is as good a test as the quantitative, and that would seem to bear that out.

Mr Kennedy: Katrina and Joe, you are very welcome. Thanks for your presentation. I am always interested in public meetings and the level of interest out there, which historically has not always been great. What were attendances like at the public meetings?

Mr Reynolds: It varied. We organised five events, and participation in them went from, to be honest, single figures through to scores of people. Compared with previous events, attendance was nevertheless significantly higher than it was in the past. What we found at some of the events was that we were speaking to some in attendance who were representatives of organisations and wanted to follow up with us going to speak to a particular sectoral interest.

Mr Kennedy: What was the actual number at the five public meetings? Are you able to —

Mr Reynolds: I do not have the number with me. I can provide it to you.

Mr Kennedy: It would be useful to see it.

Mr Reynolds: We also have a readout. Some evidence was collected at each event on its value, what participants thought of the information provided to them and how worthwhile an exercise it was.

Mr Kennedy: I am always slightly concerned that events of that nature and public consultation through public meetings very much attract the usual suspects, lobby groups and groups that have a particular interest. How do you satisfy yourselves you can reflect overall opinion? I suppose that the answer is that, if people do not turn up or respond in any way, you have to deal with the responses that are left. I am never comfortable with the fact that we make public policy and spend fairly vast sums of money on the basis of the opinions of a fairly confined section of lobby groups or individuals who seem to make themselves busy enough. I am not discounting their contribution, as, clearly, they have an important contribution to make. Are we satisfied that it reflects what Northern Ireland society truly wants and expects?

Mr Reynolds: I think that it is fair to say that the response to the consultation more generally, in the written responses and in particular in the online survey responses where the opportunity afforded itself, will have given us a broader sweep of the population as a whole, not just of people who attended the events. Attendance itself at the events did not constitute a response to the consultation. People were then directed either to submit something to us in writing or complete the online survey. Given the scale of the responses, I think that it is a more accurate reflection of what you would expect to be the general view of the public.

Mr Kennedy: OK —

Mr Reynolds: The public events themselves are information events. They are there to describe and to provide an opportunity to ask questions about any of the mechanics, methodology or detail underlying the questions that we are asking.

Mr Kennedy: It would be interesting to compare the old process and the new process to see whether the same individuals or groups were effectively doing the same amount of lobbying.

Mr Reynolds: I do not have the figures in front of me, but I am in no doubt, having participated in most of the events, that we have had a significantly higher level of engagement and participation than we have ever had for an exercise of this type.

Mr Kennedy: I have a couple of other quick points. On the 42 draft indicators, it is difficult, for instance, to object to increasing the proportion of people in work. Those things are hard to object to, particularly if you are seeking public office. There are also ones about reducing poverty. This Executive and previous Executives have spent fairly large sums of money in efforts to reduce or at least alleviate poverty, given that, based on how it is sometimes measured, it can be alleviated but not eradicated. How much further on will we be in eradicating some of those issues?

Mr Reynolds: That takes us to the crux of the matter. We are trying to promote an outcomes-based approach, and the measurements that we have set out in the draft and the methodology that we are applying ask, "What is the difference when it is considered in terms of the impact on citizens?". Previous Programmes for Government would have set out a series of actions that needed to be taken, and those might have been couched in terms of expenditure or levels of activity. Those measurements can still be undertaken, but what we will look at and what will be part of the public face of the monitoring — I have no doubt that the Committee will have a role to play in looking at the impact of the delivery of the Programme for Government — are measures of impact on citizens and particular constituencies within that, whether those be older people, younger people, people in poverty or people in different circumstances. We can detail that. In the development work that we are doing at the moment, especially around the measurements, we ask Departments to make sure that they have the facility available whereby they can do that analysis.

Mr Kennedy: Ultimately, you think that this system will give us better benefit for our buck, if you know what I mean.

Mrs Godfrey: That is certainly the intention, and the evidence, Danny, bears it out. As Joe said, previous approaches may have seen us listing things that we were going to do; the key difference here is that we are checking back to see whether they are making the difference that we thought they would.

Poverty is a good example. Look at the commitments around jobs and economic inactivity and, equally, at child development and educational attainment. We know that, if you are taking a generational view of the changes that you want to see, those are crucial. They may not alleviate poverty right now, but think of the impact in a generation's time if children have thrived and done well at school and are ready to take a place and break that poverty cycle. This is not just about taking a small number of short-term activities but about reinforcing a programme that looks at what can help in the short, medium and long term. That is what makes it more powerful.

Mr Kennedy: Long after we have left office and the people have either rejected us or forgotten us, we can expect benefit.

Mrs Godfrey: The concept of taking a vision that goes far beyond an individual political mandate is proven to be very effective.

Mr Kennedy: Very good. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Joe, you mentioned the role of the Committee going forward: do you have any sense of how you will engage with us, such as the frequency or format?

Mr Reynolds: I do not in particular.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Are you going to leave that to us?

Mrs Godfrey: It is an interesting point, Chair. One of the key features of the Programme for Government as Ministers intend it to be designed is that it does not lay down an individual approach for any Department. I suppose that includes us, although we have a slightly different role in making sure that it not just knits together but is delivered. It begs a number of questions on how scrutiny of that sort of outcomes-based approach is best undertaken, but that is best left to the Assembly.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): We are certainly conscious that, if Departments are moving away from silos, Statutory Committees have to find a way to do the same thing; otherwise, we will get left behind and limit our ability to scrutinise.

Mr Reynolds: On that point, we are here to talk about the analysis of the consultation, and, as I said in my opening remarks, it was clear that the responses agreed that this helped us to move away from that silo-type approach. There was overwhelming support for that; indeed, many people said that this was the first time that there was a reaction that reflected the will of the people to move away from that silo approach. I have no doubt that you will be aware from your staff that staff in our Department have had conversations with officials in the Assembly about the way in which an approach may be developed around that. Ultimately, though, the decision on that rests with the Assembly authorities.

Mr Stalford: Although we have yet to hear the critique of it, I very much welcome the idea of an outcomes-based approach, and I can think of a couple of reasons why shifting the focus is better. I remember when, for my sins, I worked for the Member for North Antrim Mr Allister when he was a Member of the European Parliament, and we constantly raised the point with the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) and others that the same 10 wards in the Noble indices — the most deprived wards in Northern Ireland — got millions upon millions pumped into them but, at the end of the funding cycle, were still the most deprived wards in Northern Ireland. There was no tangible improvement in the lot of the people living there. Looking at a lot of the indicators — reducing crime, reducing health inequality — it sounds like motherhood and apple pie, but government exists to reduce crime, to reduce health inequalities and to improve housing. I take on board what the Chair said about some of the indicators and others that he would like to see in. If you are setting yourself an indicator and a measure, it does not need to be when Danny is off in the House of Lords wearing ermine before we get a measure of it. It can be measured at the end of next year. It can be measured at the end of the five-year term.

Mr Kennedy: There is a more pressing appointment in China apparently.

Mr Stalford: That is right. Do not be taking the slow boat. [Laughter.]

I am really enthusiastic about this model. It represents a genuine shift in how government does things, so, in that regard, it is good.

The Chair questioned you on when we would have the final Programme for Government: does the fact that we published a draft framework and had a consultation on that make it easier to meet the December deadline? If the deadline for the final one is the end of December, has the fact that we went through this initial stage of engagement, rather than publishing one draft and then publishing the final draft, made it easier to achieve the level of engagement that you got from people?

Mrs Godfrey: I think it does. The next part of the process takes us into more detail. The pre-engagement — not just the volume but the quality of it — leaves us in a far better place. I have spoken individually to my colleagues in other Departments who are leading the process of the delivery plans, and they have all said the same thing, which is that the quality of engagement that they have had and the number of people who are saying to them, as I said earlier, "These are conversations that we have not had before", is helping them shape delivery plans that will be much closer to what people tell us from evidence is most likely to work. The process, in theory at least, should be much smoother because of that quality of engagement. The point about quality is absolutely critical. Colleagues have talked to me about ideas coming forward and about that sense that you get of people from different sectoral interests together bouncing off one another and coming up with solutions that possibly would not have been arrived at if people had been in separate rooms or conversations.

Mr Stalford: We are just reporting back on the draft PFG framework. We will then have another opportunity with the draft Programme for Government when it is published. We have doubled the level of engagement, and the people engaging in the process effectively have two bites of the cherry to make their views known.

Mrs Godfrey: They are telling us that they are having a different sort of engagement to previously, so it is a triple win.

Mr Stalford: Yes. Regarding the level of consultation that people had vis-à-vis previous Programmes for Government, this is at a completely different level.

Mr Reynolds: It is of a different order.

I maybe should have picked this up in respect to the earlier question, but the level of engagement between central and local government and between central and local government respectively and the voluntary sector has also changed, so that the multifarious way in which people in different places can come together in order to effect the outcomes that are suggested in the draft is also of a completely different type and level. It is important that we state that. The methodology around OBA requires us to have constant interaction with stakeholders throughout the process. Whereas previous Programmes for Government would have been around deciding what we were going to do and then, to a greater or lesser extent, leaving Departments to get on with doing it, this requires an ongoing engagement to make sure that we do the right things and that it has the effect that it is designed to have.

Mr Stalford: I think that the figure was 800 respondents.

Mr Reynolds: It was 810.

Mr Stalford: How many of those do you think were new?

Mr Reynolds: I have no idea. We can have a look at that for you.

Mr Stalford: Danny Kennedy made a valid point that the same groups will always respond to any consultation, but, if you are getting new groups or certain individuals, it reflects positively on the efforts to engage people.

Mr Reynolds: I do not have that number, but, as I said, I am in no doubt whatever that, while we certainly had people who would always have responded to us, we stimulated a higher level of interest in a far wider audience.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Even anecdotally, Joe, given that you went to most of the meetings, did you see fresh faces?

Mr Reynolds: Yes.

Mr Dickson: Thank you for your presentation. It is often said that there are — what is it? — "lies, dammed lies, and statistics". How does this methodology dispel that myth? How genuinely fresh is it, or is it basically rehashed balanced scorecards or a previous methodology that some guru dreamed up?

Mrs Godfrey: From what we have seen of the model, not just as we developed it here but as it applies and works in other countries, one key thing that comes out strongly is transparency. If you are focused on outcomes and each outcome is supported by primary indicators, that can be reported on. You have maybe seen examples already of how reports go to the Scottish Parliament, where there is a level of transparency. There is also a level of reporting that keeps the focus on the thing that matters most. Rather than a Committee or the Assembly asking, "Did you do the 642 things that you said you were going to do?", the key question is "Did they make a difference?". That is what makes it different: it is not only a much richer process in terms of effectiveness but a much more transparent process in terms of the sort of information. It says up front that these are the indicators that we will use to tell us whether we are making progress. It has the data available very transparently to allow others to look at it, question it and ask, "How do you know that that is there or that it has reached that level?" and to have the underpinning evidence below it. That seems to be a much more transparent process from a number of perspectives, and it allows us to test that what we do actually makes the difference that we intended it to make when we said we would do it.

Mr Dickson: Outcomes are clearly important, but we should not be fixated on them. From that point of view, this will be a very interesting process. If we overweigh ourselves by becoming fixated on the outcomes, we perhaps lose sight of the inputs of resource, time and effort. Is it right? Is what we are doing balanced? It goes back to the Chair's point: was everybody's voice heard? If everybody's voice was not heard, why was that? Maybe it was the fault of the organisation, or it may be that the pickers and choosers at this end chose not to highlight it. We will find out those things. I have a grave concern that inputs are every bit as important as outcomes. If we do not look after the pounds and pence and ensure that we either adequately resource, under-resource or, indeed, over-resource many of the outcomes, as we have often done, we simply do not get it any better. What is your view of how we should look at inputs?

Mrs Godfrey: The critical thing is this: what was the purpose of putting the inputs in? What result did we want to achieve from that? Both the First Minister and the deputy First Minister made that point when they were with the Committee on 8 June. This is, by its nature, a living process. It is a Programme for Government and an approach to a Programme for Government. Other jurisdictions have found that. With some examples in Scotland, people will tell you openly that they changed a number of their indicators as they went through the process because they recognised that those were not the right things to test whether they were having the impact that they wanted to have. The strength of this approach, as both FM and DFM said when they were here in June, is that it is a living approach that allows us to test constantly whether we are having the impact that we intended to have and, if not, why that might be and whether it means that we have to adjust inputs or activities to get a better outcome. You do not divorce one from the other.

Mr Dickson: Of course, but one person's adjustment is another person's interference. Is that what this is all about: allowing people to interfere if they do not think that they are getting the right outcome?

Mrs Godfrey: The evidence will be the key test, which is why the transparency of the approach is a major strength. It allows you to demonstrate whether you are having the impact and delivering the scale of improvement that you intend.

Mr Dickson: We know that not every input is perfect; it may be under- or over-resourced, or it may just be that it is inefficiently organised and run. Is this an opportunity, for example, to influence — adjust — the outcome because somebody got it wrong and you do not like it?

Mrs Godfrey: No. The outcomes are the core plank of the framework; they are clearly what is being signed up to. There is a good point there, because, if we are to effect the sort of change that Ministers want in areas like health, education, the environment or business, it is not just about the resources, inputs and activities that Departments provide. It also requires resources, inputs and activities from other parts of society. One of the key differences with this approach is that it allows all contributions to be more obviously recognised so that it is not just the inputs of, say, a Department, but an understanding of the roles and contributions that make the biggest difference in delivering the outcome that you want.

Mr Dickson: Is that just another way of saying that you can blame everybody if it does not work?

Mrs Godfrey: I do not think that that is the case at all. In looking at something like health or education, we know that it is not just teachers and classroom assistants who affect how well a child does at school and it is not just doctors and nurses who affect the quality of our healthcare. It is much more complex than that and requires a more collaborative and partnership approach.

Mr Reynolds: Of the 810 responses, none of them thought that this was an inappropriate or mistaken methodological approach.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Not one?

Mr Reynolds: Not one.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): That would suggest that those who engaged have a pretty mature understanding of outcomes-based accountability government and are very supportive. And why not? If you define success and then build a road map, it seems to be a way to do government. Basically, you start at the end and work your way back. One of the dangers of that is that you end up measuring what you need to record success rather than measuring what you need to do to take people to a better place. From what you said, Katrina, the Scottish Government were aware of that and were able to change.

Mrs Godfrey: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Are you alive to that danger?

Mrs Godfrey: We will all learn as we become more adept at implementing an outcomes-based approach. This is very new to us, as it is to you and many others. One of the strengths of the process is —

Mr Dickson: Not to the 800, obviously.

Mrs Godfrey: They were very supportive of an outcomes-based approach, but, as the Committee will no doubt tell us, the devil will always be in the detail of how effectively we deliver the outcomes. You are right, which is why it is so important to get the indicators right. If you focus on the wrong things and claim success but it does not look or feel like success to a member of the public, then yes. That is where other Governments learned as they have gone along with this approach, and they had the maturity to consider that perhaps it was not the best measure, because it told them something that, intuitively or evidentially, was not what people thought. That is what a mature approach to the outcomes-based Programme for Government will look like, Chair.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): In fairness, you acknowledge the danger as early as paragraph 5 of your analysis paper where, in talking of outcomes, indicators and measures, you say:

How do you react, then, when the Community Relations Council (CRC) suggests that, while the indicators are broad, the accompanying measurements are narrow in a way that is disproportionate and potentially damaging to the process?

Mrs Godfrey: That is one of the points that have come out through the consultation on the framework. We have to look at that one-to-one relationship between an indicator and a measure between the process of completing the consultation and finalising for Ministers the next iteration of the draft. That is a live issue for us. How do we make sure, first, that we keep the focus on the outcomes and, secondly, that the indicators supporting the outcomes are, when taken together, a reasonable spread of measures of progress and inspire confidence among the public, particularly in those who know the area best?

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): We have spent a lot of time talking about the public's attitude to this, but this is also transformational for the Civil Service. What about officials in the NICS who have been used to focusing on inputs, spending their money, deploying their resource, putting their effort in and talking annually about outputs, such as, "I ran five conferences and 800 people turned up". It is a cultural revolution for them. How is that playing out?

Mrs Godfrey: It is, and one of my other roles that I have in the context of the NICS of the future agenda is to make sure that we have the leadership and cultural skills needed to work that way in the future. I have to say that I detect a significant and hugely positive appetite. Stakeholders tell me that they are having different types of conversations, as are my colleagues in Departments. Look at the logic of an outcomes-based model. The first Programme for Government indicator that supports the outcome of giving the best start to children and young people is one related to maternal health and the strongly correlated measurements for healthy birthweight. If I were still in the Department of Education, I might not be used to thinking about that territory too much, but as the person supporting the permanent secretary for delivering the outcome for children and young people, that becomes hugely important to me. How can I make progress in other areas of child development if we do not get that one right? It requires very different conversations between the Departments of Health and Education from those that might have happened in the past. This is a new way of working for us, but I detect that there is excitement about working differently and taking our contribution up a level by looking at outcomes not just at a narrow aspect, whether it is children and young people or economic development, but at something much broader.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): One of your roles is imagining the Northern Ireland Civil Service of the future.

Mrs Godfrey: One of my roles is supporting the development of the skills that we need to give effect to the vision that we have for the Northern Ireland Civil Service of the future, which is a Civil Service with a clear focus on its people and on delivery of the Executive's Programme for Government.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Are they both looking forward to this streamlined world of the future?

Mr Stalford: I want to take up the criticism by the CRC that the definitions of the measures are too narrow. I think that, if any Government anywhere could, at the end of five years, indicate positive progress on all 42 indicators, they would have quite a platform to stand on. When it comes to revising those measures, I assume that submeasures arise from the main measures.

Mrs Godfrey: The approach generally allows between three and five key indicators to measure progress at outcome level. You are absolutely right, however: below those, there are what are referred to in the terminology as "performance indicators", as opposed to population indicators. They are really useful. If you are looking at what interventions are needed to effect change, there will be areas and approaches that you will want to target, and the submeasures allow you to monitor your progress in that way and to make sure that they aggregate up to the impact that you would them to have.

Mr Stalford: Once the sub-measures, measures and indicators are defined, I am of the view that it should be like the Gettysburg Address: we should engrave them on the wall outside the Chamber for everybody going in so that they remember what we have committed to. The measures are not going to change once they have been set, are they?

Mr Reynolds: In the nine years of the Scottish model, I think, they have changed about 20% of their measures. As Katrina said, it may indicate that you are making progress down a particular data set but it is not having an impact on the constituency that you are trying to make a difference to, the group of people whom you want to see —

Mr Stalford: Is a revision of the measures relatively rare?

Mr Reynolds: It is relatively rare, but it is not impossible. To reflect on the Chair's remarks and the comments that you get from respondents like the Community Relations Council, we are moving away from the simplification of one data set per indicator towards the possibility that you might need, in methodological terms, to triangulate a number of sets of numbers to identify that you are making the progress that you would want to see and measure it in terms of impact on the citizen.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Is the process Brexit-proof?

Mrs Godfrey: Any Government will want to set out a vision for the future. That vision will always be impacted by stuff that happens. Some of that will be very significant, some of it will be very different, and some of it will be more expected than others. The key issue of having a direction of travel — a vision of the society and economy that we want — is the most important thing. That remains very much at the forefront of the work on the Programme for Government. The path that you take to get to it may have more obstacles than might have been anticipated. That is true for every Government dealing with lots of events across the world. It becomes, at times like this, even more important to have a clear vision and a set of aspirations for the future.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): At what point do you start or have you started to engage with the Department of Finance on the money side of the piece?

Mrs Godfrey: We have been engaging with Finance colleagues throughout the process. You will have heard the Finance Minister speak very clearly at Question Time yesterday in the Chamber of his confidence about the alignment. The Programme for Government sets the direction of travel; the Budget is the means by which that direction, over the Budget period, is funded. He made his confidence about the alignment of those processes clear yesterday. There is ongoing discussion. As I said, the Programme for Government sets the agenda, and we are working closely with colleagues in Finance throughout the process.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Are you confident that it will be complete by year end? Can you update us on the economic, investment and social strategies?

Mrs Godfrey: The intention of Ministers is that the Programme for Government will be supported by an economic strategy, a social strategy and an investment strategy. They are being developed as we speak for the next iteration of consultation. Obviously, the Finance Minister has set out the position on the Budget. Those are key planks of the supporting infrastructure for the Programme for Government, but they also allow — this picks up on some of the points that Members have made — for some further detail to be seen clearly in how they underpin the key outcomes in the Programme for Government. They will be very helpful in that regard.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Thank you both very much. Joe, of course, is a regular visitor; hopefully, Katrina, you will become so.

Mrs Godfrey: Thank you, Chair.