Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): I welcome Mark Browne, the director of strategic policy, equality and good relations, and Gareth Johnston, the director of equality, victims and human rights. As usual, we are being recorded and broadcast live. I pass to you for your presentation, after which we will take some short questions from members.

Dr Mark Browne (The Executive Office): Thanks very much, Chair, for the invitation to be here today. I will give a brief update based on the briefing paper that we provided on the victims' payment scheme.

The First Minister and deputy First Minister are entirely committed to delivering the scheme. On 24 August, the Executive Office designated the Department of Justice (DOJ) as the Department to exercise the administrative functions of the victims' payments board on the board's behalf under paragraph 2(1) of schedule 1 to the Victims' Payments Regulations 2020. The office also agreed to provide grants to the Department of Justice to establish the administrative arrangements for the scheme. That will allow for the recruitment of board members, IT developments and other steps that are necessary to establish the board. The Justice Minister indicated to the Assembly that her aim is for the scheme to open for applications in early March 2021. A substantial programme of work is under way with DOJ; TEO officials regularly meet with DOJ compensation services and have discussed their respective responsibilities and input to the implementation of the scheme following the designation of DOJ. That regular liaison will continue throughout the implementation of the scheme.

The Lord Chief Justice expects the funding issue to be resolved promptly. In anticipation of a formal appointment, he has made a judge available to help with the development of the scheme. DOJ officials are liaising with the Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Commission (NIJAC) on the details required for job descriptions, terms and conditions, and the numbers and complement to enable the appointment of board members to progress. TEO and DOJ officials are also engaging with a potential assessment service provider on the design and development of an assessment methodology. The discovery stage of the IT solution commenced on Monday 21 September. It will include exploring ways to ensure that the applications interface is as intuitive as possible for people who are applying.

TEO and DOJ officials continue to engage with all the relevant bodies in terms of evidence gathering and information sharing. That includes the drafting of evidence-gathering protocols and service-level and information-sharing agreements for the consideration of the board. Officials have also had a number of meetings with sector representatives. Discussions will continue on a fortnightly basis for the foreseeable future to ensure that the sector is fully informed of developments and has the opportunity to input as implementation progresses. The Secretary of State's guidance on exceptions was published on 14 August.

It is recognised that significant challenges remain, which need to be overcome to deliver the scheme successfully, including adequate funding for its duration. In accordance with the normal government budgeting arrangements, a request will be made for the necessary funding, which is set out in paragraph 9 of schedule 1 to the regulations, with the Department of Finance as the need for that funding falls due. The First Minister and deputy First Minister, along with the Finance Minister and the Justice Minister, will continue to seek additional funds to the block grant from the Secretary of State and, through him, the Treasury to address the financial pressures that are created by the scheme. That is in accordance with the Treasury's statement of funding policy. Yesterday, on 22 September, a meeting was held between the First Minister, the deputy First Minister, the Justice Minister and the Finance Minister to agree the approach to be made.

As we have discussed before with the Committee, it is difficult to estimate the cost of the scheme with any precision, given the uncertainty over the number of eligible applicants who may come forward — in particular, the number with psychological injuries and the extent of those injuries. While the initial estimate of 2,000 recipients was based on figures for victims and survivors who were in contact with existing services, and the total number could exceed that significantly, the fact is that no comprehensive record is available of those who were injured in Troubles-related incidents.

Officials are pursuing further information with a consultant psychiatrist at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) on those who may have been severely psychologically injured in a Troubles-related incident. That work is still in progress, but it suggests an estimated figure of between 3,500 and over 7,000, some of whom will have been double counted in the initial estimated figure of 2,000.

Work is ongoing to scope out the figures for the number of individuals in Northern Ireland who are in receipt of injury pensions from the armed services. Officials are finalising detailed scoping work to model the potential range of costs, which will then be used to inform the administration of the scheme.

Those comments are by way of introduction, Chair. We are happy to take any questions.

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): Thank you very much for that presentation and information. It is one of the most sensitive and, at times and in places, controversial elements of your work, but it is one that needs to be progressed. Movement is needed on it.

Your paper mentions that the Justice Minister has said that she hopes to have the scheme up and running from March 2021. How can you prepare for that and say that it will be up and running in March? What will happen if you do not have the funding? Can you progress everything up to the point of saying, "This is how much you will get, but we do not know how much money is in the coffers to hand out"? How much of the process will take place in the absence of knowing how much money is available?

Dr Browne: As I said, the First Minister and deputy First Minister have made it clear that they are committed to the scheme, as has the Justice Minister, and that any request for the required funding will be made as it falls due. In other words, as the anticipated costs start to become necessary and to crystallise, the Executive Office will bid through the Department of Finance for the funding that is required. A sum of £2·5 million has already been made available this year to allow initial preparations for the scheme to be put in place. We will work with the Department of Justice to help it to put those arrangements in place to ensure that, as far as possible, the timescale that has been set out by the Justice Minister for the opening of applications from March is able to be met.

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): I appreciate that there may never be answers to some of my questions, but, from the Executive's perspective, "on the hoof" is not exactly an awe-inspiring answer when one asks how they will prepare without knowing how much money is needed. Does that mean that you get to the end of one month and realise that you need £5 million, so you go and ask for it? The next month, it is £20 million, and you ask for that. Where do you ask for the money from if it exceeds the amount that is in the pot?

Dr Browne: The intention is to seek the money from the Department of Finance in accordance with normal government budgeting arrangements. We are coming up to a budgeting outlook of three years, whereby the need for funding over the next three years will be set out by all Departments, and the Executive will have to consider what allocations can be made. As part of that, estimates will have to be put in for the cost of the scheme. Of course, the Executive will then have to make decisions about the funding that will be made available in the light of all the bids and requests that they have received. That is the process. Ministers have agreed that the necessary costs will be put forward as part of that process. If it turns out that allocations are made and either all the funding is not required in any one year or, indeed, the opposite — additional funding is required — the normal monitoring arrangements provide for additional bids or, indeed, easements. The Department would seek the funding for the scheme as part of that process.

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): Quite often, those normal monitoring rounds are generally for, "We need an extra £1 million for this programme or an extra £3 million for that". Sometimes, in Health, the figures can be a little more significant — maybe £20 million. This scheme could run to hundreds of millions of pounds extra. In my experience of monitoring rounds since I have been here, there tends to be between £80 million and £100 million available, and that has to go across the whole Executive. This programme has the potential to zap up all that money for the next number of years, meaning that nobody will be able to get anything else, if you just use monitoring round funding for it. Is that a potential outcome?

Dr Browne: There is no doubt that this scheme will create financial pressures that will have to be dealt with and considered alongside the other financial pressures. That is why the First Minister and deputy First Minister and, indeed, the Finance Minister have made it clear that they will be seeking from the Treasury, through the Secretary of State, additional funding to the block grant to help to defray some of the costs associated with this going forward.

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): Is that additional money based on there being 2,000 recipients or 7,000 recipients? That is quite a variance. How do you prepare a bid when there is such a vast difference in the estimates?

Dr Browne: In the Executive Office, we are working alongside DOJ officials to scope out the costs and get a greater understanding of how the costs might arise and what the range might be. We will then have to make our best estimate of the likely number of people coming forward and take into account the likely pace of determinations and decisions, because it is only when determinations are made that the actual costs crystallise, other than the ongoing administration costs. We will have to make judgements around that, but that is where the flexibility in the system comes in and enables us to bid within a year and either bid again for more or to ease if those assessments are not in line with what happens in the determination.

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): The British Government legislated for this, pushed it forward and have left us in a scenario where we have to open a scheme without knowing how many people can apply for it, and then we have to pay for it. That is where it is at the moment. That leads us back to saying that the British Government should be making a substantial contribution to the scheme because of the scenario that they have left us in.

I have a final quick question. You say in your report, and you mentioned it in your update, that the Lord Chief Justice expects the funding issue to be resolved promptly. Does he have some inside knowledge, or is it just his expectation that it will be resolved promptly?

Dr Browne: The Lord Chief Justice is working on the basis that the First Minister and deputy First Minister have made it clear that they will seek the funds through the Department of Finance, in line with normal procedures. On that basis, when the funding is there, he will formally appoint the president. He has already identified a judge, who is working with us on some of the details.

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): It is his wish that it will be prompt rather than that he knows that it will be prompt.

Dr Browne: It is his hope and expectation but, yes, he does not have any inside knowledge.

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): He has no inside track.

Dr Browne: Not that I am aware of.

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): Good response.

Mr Beattie: Thank you, Mark and Gareth, for being in front of us. The issue is contentious. We know that, and we will all have our views on it. I did not catch the point about the board members; I might just have missed it. When do we think that we will have the board members set up and ready to start, making sure that they are trained and ready?

Dr Browne: Work is ongoing with NIJAC to work through the detail of the job specifications and the processes for recruiting board members. The Justice Minister has said that she hopes that the scheme can open for applications by March. The expectation is that the board will be in place to receive applications and make determinations as soon as possible after that. We do not have a precise timetable yet, but we hope that it will be as soon as possible after March.

Mr Beattie: Right, OK. Is the aim not to get them in before March so that they can be a board, be trained and go through everything?

Mr Johnston: That is certainly the basis on which the Department of Justice and NIJAC are working. The arrangement in this legislation is different from the one that we had in the HIA legislation whereby the Chief Justice appointed the judges and then the Executive Office appointed the other members, which maybe gave us a little bit more flexibility. In this legislation, all the appointments are judicial and are done through the Judicial Appointments Commission, and that has an impact on the timetables. Certainly, the aim that we are talking to NIJAC about and working to is that members will be available in advance of applications going live, so that they can settle things like the policies for the board and so on that need to be settled in advance.

Mr Beattie: It is about giving confidence as well. People will be looking at the make-up of the board and who is on it. We need to make sure that the whole of society has confidence in the board.

I am not going to touch on the money side of things; the Chair covered that quite well. What I will say is that I am in absolute agreement that the UK Government should be stumping up a sizeable chunk of this, because it is a UK-wide scheme and there are victims right across the world, including in Canada, Australia and other places. I will remark, however, that it is because of our failing in the Assembly that Westminster had to do this in the first place. That is why the legislation came through Westminster and not this place; it is because we were not here, so it is slightly unfair to blame them for that.

My last question is on information sharing. How will information sharing with the police work if somebody who was involved in something terrorist-related in the past applies for the scheme and divulges information as part of his application form? Will that information automatically be sifted by the police to make sure that there is no new evidence from past crimes?

Dr Browne: Gareth, do you want to pick that one up?

Mr Johnston: A discussion has started with the police about evidence-gathering protocols and what exactly those look like. From the conversations that we have had with the sector about the format of an application form, my expectation is that people will be invited up front to disclose if they have a conviction that needs to be taken into account under the terms of reference of the regulations. I expect that that will be subject to some kind of check. The exceptions are grounded in the various kinds of convictions that people may have. The Department of Justice obviously has access to the criminal records viewer that allows those things to be checked. We anticipate that there will be some kind of check as part of the eligibility.

Mr Beattie: Thank you.

Mr Sheehan: Welcome back, Mark and Gareth. I do not know how many times you have been here now.

On the timescale of early March, I am slightly concerned, given the complexities of this, that we might be raising hopes just to dash them. Are you confident, Mark, that it will be up and running in early March, with applications coming in then?

Dr Browne: That is the time frame that the Justice Minister set out. She is hopeful that it can open for applications at that point in time. In our discussions — we have been in close contact with Department of Justice officials, and we will to continue to work closely with them on this — we have looked at the requirements for the scheme and at our experience with the HIA in setting up a similar type of board, including some of the processes and the time that it took. All that is fed into the broad assessment of the time frame.

Mr Sheehan: Are you optimistic that we will hit the target?

Dr Browne: I think that the target is achievable. It is a challenging target, but we will do our best to achieve it. We can open for applications, and we will want to be able to make determinations as soon as possible after that. It is possible that there may be some further processes that need to be put in place after the applications open. Not everything might be completely in place, from start to finish, but we can still work towards that time frame for opening the applications.

Mr Sheehan: Is there a possibility of a fairly long time lag between the receipt of applications and the payment at the end of the process?

Dr Browne: A whole range of factors come in there, Pat. All the arrangements will be set up, the board will be in place and the processes agreed, and we will work with all the necessary agencies to try and make sure that that is the case. However, in order to make a determination, an application has to be received and checked for eligibility as a Troubles-related incident. Other aspects of whether any exceptional circumstances apply have to be worked through. Then, if necessary, there potentially has to be a medical assessment, depending on what records have come in with the application. At that point, you can make a determination. A whole process has to be in place to allow the determination to happen. Some cases will be more complicated than others. We expect that, as with the HIA, in some cases, victims will have very extensive records — medical or other — will be in receipt of services and will be able to put in an application that will be relatively straightforward for the panel to consider and make a determination on. There will be a number of those that could potentially have early determinations. On the other hand, there will be others where all the records are not there, including the medical records, or there are difficult decisions around eligibility, and some of those will take longer. It depends on the application and the amount of information, and on the appropriate systems being in place.

Mr Sheehan: Just going off on a wee bit of a tangent, with regard to all the discussions that are taking place around this process, what engagement has there been between the NIO and the Executive Office victims teams?

Dr Browne: We engaged at an earlier stage, when we had an oversight board; NIO was represented on that. That engagement, now that the legislation is in place, has been reduced, but we are still in contact where we need, for example, any information that they might have, or advice on how we might get information. For example, we wrote to the NIO recently to find out about how many military veterans receive a pension and to get more information around that pension. So we have some ongoing contact like that but, in the main, it is now ourselves and DOJ who are taking forward the delivery of the scheme.

Mr Sheehan: OK. I will move onto the situation with regard to the courts. Has there been any discussion around how the courts will interpret the NIO guidelines? What impact will the remarks of Brandon Lewis have on the issue around the independence of the board — his assertion that the British Government reserve the ability to exercise a power to intervene and seek reconsideration of decisions by the board?

Dr Browne: The guidance, as you know, was drafted, finalised and agreed by the Secretary of State, and the NIO determined that. The president of the board will have to have regard to that in reaching his determinations. He will have to look at that guidance and interpret it in an appropriate way. With regard to the comment by the Secretary of State, I understand that the Minister of Justice has written to him asking him for clarification around that point, and we await a response.

Mr Sheehan: Is there any discussion around how the courts will be impacted operationally around the appeal of decisions and so on? Has the Lord Chief Justice any fears that the system could be adversely impacted by this particular scheme, given the lack of clarity around the guidelines, as well as Brandon Lewis's utterances?

Dr Browne: Part of the process that the board will have to go through, as indeed HIA had to go through, is to look at its processes and procedures. It will have to look at the guidance and come to an understanding of how it believes that guidance needs to be interpreted and applied. That will be something for the president to do.

I do not know whether you have anything further on that, Gareth.

Mr Johnston: Appeals on individual decisions will be dealt with by a different panel within the victims' payment board. However, there is always the possibility, as there has been until now, of judicial review challenge, whether that is of the Secretary of State or of matters closer to home. Certainly, appeals on individual cases will be dealt with by the board rather than the wider courts system.

Mr Sheehan: OK. Finally, I wanted to discuss the design and development of an assessment methodology. Can you flesh that out a bit? In particular, I was wondering what role victims' groups would have in all of this. It is probably essential that there is co-design and co-production in this whole process. Nobody knows the victims' sector better than the representative groups such as WAVE and Relatives for Justice and so on. For example, what role do those practitioner groups have? Have their premises been considered as assessment centres? Will there be any sort of quality assurance and oversight of the assessment methodology? When you take account of all the difficulties that there were with the likes of personal independence payment (PIP) — the complaints and the number of cases that were overturned on appeal and so on — we do not want to go back down that road again. I know that there is a lot there, but I would like to hear your views on it.

Dr Browne: Gareth has been on the detail of that, so perhaps he can pick up on it.

Mr Johnston: Yes. A certain amount of the assessment methodology is already available, because the scheme mirrors a lot of the aspects of the industrial injuries scheme, for example. There is material there; there is a handbook on industrial injuries that we will be able to borrow and use. That is probably better spelled out in terms of physical injuries, which is what people who sustain industrial injuries most often experience. It will need some more fleshing out on psychological matters, where there are broader indications of the different levels, but what exactly falls within 14% to 20%, 20% to 30% and so on needs some more work.

The plan is that we will work with the Department of Justice and Capita to develop the assessment scheme and roll it out. In the discussions that we have had up until now with Capita — DOJ is not yet in contract with Capita — there has been some debate about what has been learned from PIP. How do we bring forward the victims' focus, which is written into the legislation as a key principle? The need to prioritise and be responsive to the needs of victims of Troubles-related incidents is the first of the principles that the board has to have regard to. How we do that is one of the key areas that we have been discussing with Capita. It has been open about what it has learned from the PIP experience, in liaison with the Victims and Survivors Service (VSS) and with victims and survivors groups, and it is very keen to bring that to the way forward and to consult with groups as part of that.

We, in the meantime —.

Mr Sheehan: I am sorry to stop you for a second, Gareth. There is a difference between consultation and co-design. Are you saying that they are just going to consult?

Mr Johnston: Well, I think that different parties will bring their respective expertise to that.

Therefore, we expect psychiatrists who have been working with us to bring expertise in psychiatry, as we expect victims' and survivors' groups to bring their expertise in trauma to help us make a scheme trauma-focused. In respect of how you run an assessment methodology, and what kind of practical issues you come across, Capita will bring that to the party. I think that we can bring all the aspects together into the design and respect the contributions that different people can make.

Mr Sheehan: I have a final short question. Thus far, we have no concrete figures or estimates for what the scheme will cost or how many people will benefit from it. When can we expect to see something in black and white?

Dr Browne: We are still interrogating the figures. As I said, we have written to the NIO to get a contact on the MoD to get some sense of the war pensions, how generous they are, compared to victims' payments, and to see whether anyone in receipt of a war pension would be likely to claim or whether their spouse would be likely to claim in the event that they passed away. That would help us to clarify that area of uncertainty. It is the same in respect of police pensions. There are some uncertainties there that we need to clarify. We continue to work with the psychiatrists at Queen's to get a better sense about the numbers there.

I hope that, over the next three to four weeks, we would be in a position to get the best estimate that we are likely to get. I made the point before to the Committee that we are never going to get an estimate that is right. We will get a best estimate, and, as numbers start to come in, we might start to refine it, because experience tells us that either more or less of certain categories will come in.

We have looked at all the eligible client groups, and we are looking at the range of numbers that might come forward. We have to make assumptions about the average level of award. There are a lot of moving variables. As I say, we will end up, essentially, with a table that will have a number of assumptions down one side and costs down the other. In light of that, we will make what we consider our best central estimate. We will give a lower estimate and a higher one. We did that with Historic Institutional Abuse (HIA) redress, and we are waiting to see whether that is right, although we do not know yet. We will do that with this one.

The other difficulty, even when we get to that central estimate, will be profiling the financial requirement for each year, as that depends on the numbers that come forward, when they come forward, what the characteristics are of those who come forward, and also whether they go for lump sums. There are a lot of things that are quite tricky. All we can do is make the best estimate that we can and bid for the appropriate funding. If the funding turns out to be too high or too low, we will adjust it through the normal financial processes that I described earlier.

Mr Sheehan: Do you think that we will have your best estimate in four or five weeks?

Dr Browne: We are working to try to get that within that time frame because we realise that, with an opening date of March, we need to be able to give Ministers the best information that we can so that they can approach the Treasury about the detail of the funding that it might provide.

Ms Sheerin: Thank you both for your presentation. I have a short question on evidence gathering and information sharing. Many of the people involved in incidents during the conflict, who perhaps suffered police brutality or were caught up in the middle of a riot or something, did not report it at the time because of the nature of the place at the time. What is being done, retrospectively, to counteract that under-reporting?

Mr Johnston: The board will be open to all the evidence that someone can bring. It is not the case, in the legislation, that, if somebody did not report something at the time, they are not be eligible. In the sort of situation that you mention, there might be medical records, either contemporaneous or of medical treatment that people have sought since. There might be other kinds of records.

We are drafting an evidence-gathering protocol for the board's consideration that will probably say, "OK, for starters, you go to the police and see if they have records". If there are records there, great, the case will move on. If not, they may go to the health service and, if not, you will look at, for example, other published sources, newspaper accounts; those kinds of things. There will be a protocol to be gone through. There will also be support for people, and we are talking to the Victims and Survivors Service about what exactly that will look like. There will be support for people in getting evidence together, and we are looking at how that will be delivered through the existing victims' and survivors' groups. There will be support for people to get evidence together, but, ultimately, the board will look at whatever people have and whatever they can gather. It will not have to be from a particular source.

Ms Sheerin: Thank you.

Mr Clarke: I thank both gentlemen for their presentation. I suppose that we are united in something: the paymaster should be the UK Treasury.

The thing that strikes me as difficult is that it has been a long road, but we still have not quantified a cost. I wonder how you go with the collection plate to Westminster and say, "We need you to pay, but we do not know how much". We do not know how much they should put in the plate. I do not mean it personally, but your work, and your credibility, will be diminished by not having those answers. We are all collectively saying that Westminster should stump up most, if not all, of the money, but we do not know how much it will be. We hope to open the scheme in six months, but we do not know how much to ask for.

Some of your responses have been useful, apart from the fact that some of that work could already have taken place. Records for the number of pensions from the police and others were already there, and I wonder why some of that has not been quantified.

You talked previously about best guesses and estimates. I am scratching my head and wondering why, six months out — there is a debate about who should pay, and we are all collectively saying who it should be — we do not know how much to ask for. I fear that they may pay something but that it will be terribly short of what they should be paying. At what stage will the real figure be on the table? When will the real ask come about?

Dr Browne: There is probably a range of points to make in response to that, Trevor. The first is that, on having a clear estimate, the expectation is that the body or organisation that would bring forward the proposals should cost it. In that case, it was the NIO.

Mr Clarke: Fair enough.

Dr Browne: The NIO should have costed it and brought forward a business case that would have set out the costs, benefits and so forth. We would then have had the figures from the outset. That is why we are coming from behind to try to make up ground. The NIO prepared some estimates based on the 2000 figure, but we believe that that that is well short of what is likely to come forward. We have been trying to make up ground on that by building on the 2000 figure.

I explained earlier that we hope to move it on in the next number of weeks. It will be a negotiation with the Treasury and, in going to the Treasury, we want to provide, as best we can, a breakdown to Ministers of how the costs emerged from the various client groups and what number and so forth might come forward. There can then be some discussion about that.

I will not get into the detail of how that negotiation might work, but there are different ways in which it can be done. There are some uncertainties about the numbers that might come forward, and there can be an argument about what costs the Treasury should pick up. We will try to break down the costs as best as we can and put that to Ministers, and they can then decide how they want to engage with the Treasury.

As you say, it is difficult to know what figure to go for if you are not certain about what the outcome might be. Whether you go for a figure, a category or a group in terms of who picks up the cost is, again, part of the negotiation, but it all has to be worked through and decided on. All that we can do is make the best estimate, with as much breakdown as we can, and set out the range. Ministers will then need to make a judgement as to how they engage with the Treasury.

Mr Clarke: It is a fair point about the NIO. I appreciate that, Mark.

Mr Johnston: Ironically, we are making a case to Westminster, but some of the information that is needed to do that the Executive do not have; Westminster has. So, that will be part of our discussions.

Mr Clarke: That is fair enough. On the structure of the board, did I pick you up right that running costs will be £2 million, or did I miss something in your opening remarks?

Dr Browne: No. Two and a half million is the amount that was made available through a monitoring round this year in order to meet the initial set-up costs for the rest of this year.

Mr Clarke: What do you see the annual cost being?

Mr Johnston: I would not like to speculate at this stage too much on the annual cost, because it depends on the numbers that we predict and what the flow is likely to be.

Mr Clarke: I will tell you what: just go ahead and give us your best estimate.

Dr Browne: There is a bit of chicken and egg in this, as Gareth is alluding to. If we know that there are lots of numbers coming forward, we will have to look at how many panels we need. You might want more panels to try to increase the flow. There is a bit of chicken and egg as to how you go about it.

Mr Clarke: Mark, with the greatest of respect, you have to have a number because there is a budgeting process. We are not going to get off scot-free here. We are going to have to do something on this side, so you have to have a number.

Dr Browne: That is part of what we are working through with the Department of Justice, as I said. Part of the work that we are doing on the overall costs, which we hope to have sorted in the next matter of weeks, will include administration costs.

Mr Clarke: Do you know what size this board will be?

Mr Johnston: Again, that will depend again on the numbers of throughput that are anticipated. What we might do — and we have had this —.

Mr Clarke: Sorry, how can it be driven by the throughput if you hope to have the board in place before the applications go out? That is contradictory.

Mr Johnston: Maybe I should have clarified this earlier; apologies. It similar to how we did things with HIA. You can establish a board to make the decisions necessary to open the scheme with a smaller number of people. As long as you have a president and at least one legal member, medical member, ordinary member, you can establish a board. You can then add to that board as the number of cases starts to increase and you need more panels.

On HIA, we started off with a small shadow board that was able to make decisions, and then, fairly quickly, we added to that further members who had been dealing with cases. So, we are planning for a small board. However, how many additional appointments are likely to be needed will depend on the estimates that Mark has been talking about.

Mr Clarke: How big is the small board that you are talking about?

Mr Johnston: That will need to be discussed with the president. However, it will probably be between four and seven people.

Mr Clarke: What is the remuneration for that?

Mr Johnston: The Department of Justice is responsible for that matter. In the legislation, the Department of Justice is required to set the terms and conditions for board members. I understand that it is considering that and is in touch with NIJAC.

Mr Clarke: What is your best estimate of what it would be?

Mr Johnston: Again, I would not like to speculate because it is not the Executive Office's responsibility under the legislation. That is for the Department of Justice.

Mr Clarke: OK.

Mr Lunn: On the question of potential payments and lump sum versus pension, presumably claimants will have the choice of which they want to go for. On calculation of the benefit, do you calculate an appropriate pension first and then extrapolate from that what the lump sum would be and would that, to some extent, be based on life expectancy? Is that fair?

Dr Browne: It is based on the pension, but it is based on rolling it up for 10 years and the 10 years' worth lump sum of pension being available and no further payments after that. That is when you reach age 60 or are terminally ill.

Mr Lunn: Last week, the Minister of Finance, in an answer to me that is now in Hansard, seemed to be in no doubt that the funding, as far he is concerned, all falls to the NIO. He quotes chapter and verse to justify it. It has something to do with whoever instigated the legislation.

Mr Johnston: He was referring to the statement-of-funding policy, which was agreed between the Treasury and the devolved Administration at the time that devolution happened. Essentially, it says that a policy-making Department is responsible for the costs of the policy.

Mr Robinson: Thanks to Mark and Gareth for their presentation. I have one quick question. Do you reckon that the board that is to be set up will include medical personnel? That would more or less be to distinguish from a medical point of view between people who have put in an application. Such a member of the board could assess the, hopefully, innocent victims.

Dr Browne: There are two aspects to this, are there not, Gareth? The first is the determination of eligibility, and that is where, in particular, the expertise is around determining whether someone is eligible for a payment. When it comes to the medical aspect, it is a requirement on the board to have an application assessed by a medical professional, and that is where the medical assessment that Gareth talks about comes in. That medical assessment is done through whatever arrangement is put in place, and at the minute our Department and the Department of Justice are talking to Capita about that assessment. The medical assessment will come through that route, unless, of course, there are existing medical records that the applicant makes available with the application that can determine the medical requirement.

Mr Robinson: Personally, I think that the Treasury should foot the bill because, year in and year out, there is a cut to the block grant. Whilst I welcome the fact that, at long last, victims are getting this long overdue payment, I think that the Treasury and the NIO should foot the Bill.

Dr Browne: That is certainly a view that is shared by the deputy First Minister, the First Minister, the Finance Minister and, I think, the Justice Minister. It is a fairly widely shared view locally.

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): Thank you very much, George. That brings us to the end of the presentation. I think that we are all aware that you have been left to implement the scheme and that there are a lot of outstanding variables. We will be able to work out what overall financial package is required only when those variables are in place. Of course, the difficulty is that we want to secure as much of that funding as possible from another source, and that requires us to know what the numbers are, and we cannot work out the numbers until we know what the variables are. We do not know what they are.

The fear being articulated today is that, under all of this, if we do not get the funding from the British Government, it will have to come from the block grant, which means that we will have to make cuts to health, education and to other sources. That is a real fear, and it will create a difficult situation in the delivery. There is a lot of information that needs to be worked out and progressed. All that we can do is wish you well with that in the hope that we can get some more information. I think that we will ask you to come back again because it is important that we track this and know exactly what the ramifications are and where the progress is in the delivery. Thank you very much indeed.