Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): We have Jayne Brady, the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS); Patrick Magee, a non-executive member of the NICS board; Neil Gibson, the accounting officer in the Department of Finance; Sharon Smyth, the chief executive of Construction and Procurement Delivery in the Department of Finance; Brett Hannam, the chief executive of the Strategic Investment Board (SIB); Dorinnia Carville, the Comptroller and Auditor General; and Stuart Stevenson, the Treasury Officer of Accounts in the Department of Finance. You are all very welcome to this meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Thank you so much for taking the time to meet us.

We have a number of questions that we would like to ask you today on a number of themes, which I will break down. I will ask some introductory questions, after which we will go into governance structures, oversight bodies and the investment strategy for Northern Ireland (ISNI), commissioning and delivery mechanisms of major capital projects, skills capacity, legal challenges and cost and time overrruns. Then, if time permits, the remaining areas are root cause analysis and ISNI delivery mechanisms.

As you can see, we have quite a lot to get through today. In order to make the most of our time, I will ask you to keep your answers as succinct as possible. Of course, members will do the same. I hope that you understand. First, Mrs Brady, I invite you to make your opening statement

Dr Jayne Brady (The Executive Office): Thank you so much, Chair and members. I will keep my opening remarks brief in order to allow time for questions. First, I thank the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) for its follow-up report on major capital projects, which provides a useful update on the Civil Service capital portfolio and identifies areas that we clearly need to consider and address. We are happy to be here before the Committee to discuss the issues that have been raised in the report and to provide evidence on improvements and progress that we have made.

Following on from the PAC's report on major capital projects, which was published in October 2020, the reporting and oversight mechanism for major programmes and projects has changed significantly. Since June 2022, the Civil Service Board has been provided with six-monthly reports on the delivery of major capital programmes and projects. Those reports have been developed by the Department of Finance's commercial delivery group in collaboration with the Strategic Investment Board — I am joined by representatives of both bodies today — and in conjunction with the investment strategy for Northern Ireland reporting. Those reports have increased the focus on transparency and the common strategic issues that Departments face when delivering major capital projects.

The appointment of independent non-executive members to the Civil Service Board on 1 February 2023 was a recommendation in the PAC's 2020 report on major capital projects. Those members bring exceptional international experience in key areas of focus for the Civil Service, including strategic organisational transformation, socio-economic policy development and Government investment. Patrick Magee, who is here with me today, is one of those non-executive members. He provides perspective and detail in his role as chair of the investment strategy for Northern Ireland subcommittee of the Civil Service Board. I established that subcommittee in anticipation of the publication of the investment strategy for Northern Ireland. We are accompanied by Scott Wilson from the Strategic Investment Board, alongside Brett Hannam, who is the chief executive officer of the Strategic Investment Board. Overall, though, we are already seeing that the new governance arrangements on reporting of the oversight of major capital projects has created a more cohesive working relationship between the Executive Office, the Department of Finance and the Strategic Investment Board.

I accept, however, that merely improving reporting and governance arrangements will not be sufficient to support the delivery of major capital projects, particularly given the challenges that have persisted over the past decade. In order to make sure that the Civil Service is better placed to deliver, a total of 105 recommendations from a number of reports over the past 10 years — some of which are referenced in the Audit Office report — have been analysed, and we have grouped them into 12 actions in the investment strategy for Northern Ireland's enabling action plan.

In addition, the Strategic Investment Board has also carried out a root cause analysis report on the reasons for the delays and cost overruns for the projects listed in the Audit Office's 2019 report on major capital projects. The root cause analysis report identified issues related to policy, people and processes that were hampering progress in the delivery of major capital projects. The recommendations from the root cause analysis report have also been incorporated into the ISNI enabling action plan. The work of the ISNI committee, which is chaired by Patrick, will be critical to monitoring the delivery of each of the 12 enabling actions, and we are confident that that will make a real difference in driving projects forward.

I hope that that has given you some assurance of my commitment to driving performance in the delivery of the Executive priorities. I am happy to take your questions.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Thank you so much for that. I will start with a few questions for you, and I will then pass over to John.

The Committee previously considered this report four years ago, and we are here today looking at a number of issues that are very similar to what was reported previously. The Audit Office found that the time and cost overruns persist. Current figures indicate that the overspend on the major capital portfolio is now £3 billion when compared to the original approved cost. You have touched on this slightly, but why do you believe that there has been such limited progress since the previous report?

Dr Brady: Thank you for the analysis of the report from four years ago. I was actually at the Committee three years ago — I am in post three years — and I took the opportunity, in preparing for this meeting, to look over the commitments that I gave to the Committee. I am happy to talk through those areas.

One of your recommendations was clearly to establish the Northern Ireland Civil Service Board and reconstitute that, and we delivered on that. There was also the appointment of expert non-exec members, and Patrick is here to represent those members. I talked about the recruitment of permanent secretary colleagues, and, on my right, I have a prominent economist from the island of Ireland who has brought the skills and expertise into delivering the governance structures and appropriate structures for Northern Ireland. We have also looked towards the investment strategy for Northern Ireland, which went out to consultation in 2022 in preparation for a restored Executive. However, you will know that, in two of those previous three years, we had no Executive, and we have had to deal with the implications of the war in Ukraine, which has led to a cost-of-living crisis but also, in an infrastructure setting, has caused massive increases in the cost of capital projects. Those issues must be addressed in terms of the implications of where we are from the capital projects.

When we look towards the areas — my colleagues can provide some further insights into the breakdown of that overrun — of the 44% overrun, and acknowledging that of course we need to do much better, the analysis from the Strategic Investment Board — from the analysis that it performed from data — is that around 50% of that 44% — 22% — was due to the inflationary costs within those capital projects. Again, when we unpick that further, the analysis that the Audit Office has taken and, rightly, is using the outline business cases —. Those go to a final business case perspective. In some areas, an analysis is at that point of actioning. There is a smaller gap between those areas. Also, most significantly, some of those major projects —. I am grateful that, since the restoration of the Executive, agreements and announcements have been made on Strule and, just yesterday, the A5. Progress has been made on those. However, the A5, in a sense, represented a significant proportion of that overrun, and it was estimated that more than 50% of those signature projects came from that one project.

Of course, those areas are multifaceted, and I think that that was the area that, to unpick the overall policy areas and some of those regarding the planning aspects —. Of course, policy matters are for Ministers to decide and to bring forward as part of those areas, and it is acknowledged in the Executive's draft Programme for Government that there needs to be analysis of the planning improvement scheme. Also, what is the work of the Civil Service? What do we need to do to deliver that? Obviously, we need to look at the key learnings across Departments. Some projects have been delivered on time and within schedule, but that has not been consistent across those areas, so a key aspect of our governance is establishing a subcommittee across the Departments with those represented in the major capital projects, overseen by Patrick, to take those common learnings. A second thread of that is people capability. A clear recommendation from the Audit Office's report is about the skills — sometimes, they are external skills — and training required so that activity is taken apart regarding Cabinet Office training, but also making sure that those skills are available.

I am happy to bring in some of my colleagues on some specific aspects. Patrick, perhaps you want to comment on the findings from the 12 enabling actions.

Mr Patrick Magee (The Executive Office): Sure. First, I am delighted to be serving on the NICS board. I have seen a lot of collaborative effort across the Departments to bring about systemic changes. What Jayne said is right: we have nine separate Departments, but we are trying to work as one Executive.

Capital projects are difficult the world over. When Jayne asked me to chair the committee, I said, "I know a fair amount about this, but I'll do some more reading". There is a book that I recommend people read called 'How Big Things Get Done' by Bent Flyvbjerg, who is a Danish professor who studies projects all over the world. The vast majority of these projects are within the tolerances that you see internationally, although the A5 and maybe the children's hospital have been extreme. He talks about things that have big tails and big changes from the initial estimates. I want to help to make things better. The roads and hospitals and all the other infrastructure that we need across Northern Ireland are incredibly important to our lives and our economic development. I am delighted to be serving. We are not the only country that has issues, but we need to be as good as we can be. I am happy to take questions about how we can help to deliver the Programme for Government and ISNI.

Dr Brady: As a final reflection, we are having Rafael Bengoa back in Northern Ireland next week. He will be really welcomed back as part of a renewed draft Programme for Government. We had all of our senior civil servants together yesterday, and we were reminded of his quote:

My colleague Neil was invited to present to the Committee. and I requested that we come together collectively, because this is not a problem that can be solved in the Department of Finance. It requires collective leadership, common learning and cultural change to break down some of the perceived silos and to learn from each other. Maybe this is a slightly larger panel than you anticipated, but we are grateful that you have allowed us to present. That is the spirit and the culture in which we want to be here. Again, it seems a very apt time, during the consultation on the draft Programme for Government, which talks about major capital projects and the need for reform and transformation, that we come here to hear your thoughts, take your learnings and make sure that those are fed in to what we, as officials, can do, respecting, of course, the constitutional realities of the positions that we hold.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Thank you for that. You have detailed what I call a cocktail of concerns and struggles. That £3 billion figure is phenomenal. What justification is there to continue to start those major capital projects when we do not seem to have made much progress and continue to run into time and cost overruns, which, of course, affect the public purse?

Dr Brady: Perhaps colleagues in Finance — Neil and Sharon — will come in, but, in decoupling those, the increase from the £5·62 billion to the £8 billion is a 44% increase. That was based on outline business cases, which are estimates. They obviously then go through the process. Larger projects will go to a final business case, which will come back to Finance to approve. The Department of Finance gathered information on those that went to a final business case process as opposed to an outline business case and saw that the deviation between out-turn costs and the final business case was 10%, versus 30% with the outline business case. There are many issues in those areas. If you look at that 44% increase and take that as the whole, you see that the estimate from colleagues who do independent analysis in the Strategic Investment Board is that 22% was capital inflationary costs, which were global forces that, obviously, were outside the control of officials and the service. In those areas, the overruns of the A5 were the most significant. It was agreed at just under £800 million in 2012. With a significant overrun, it will need to be concluded. Obviously, that will be commercially sensitive. Our estimates suggest that, out of the signature projects, it would be circa 50% of the overrun costs. We know that the underlying issue was largely down to the judicial review process, of which reviews and recommendations were put forward. There were hundreds of recommendations, but the key is how we unpick those and bring out the themes that we can address. There are policy areas, particularly in planning, social licence and those investment areas, where reform is needed. There are clearly issues with the process, where people, skills and characteristics are needed when it comes to training and procurement. We need to find a different way to address that, the cost estimates perspective of where we are placing those, and whether we have the right people.

In identifying the enabling actions of where we need to deliver, we will unpick those areas, but it is clear to see that there is no panacea to unlock those aspects. I am mindful of the need to reflect that, although we talk about the overrun being 44%, funding is not committed until it comes to the Executive in a Budget. Obviously, a Budget was not agreed until this year, so that was the first opportunity for us to do that. I am very mindful that, since the A5 was agreed, there have been 56 fatalities on that road. We had children from St Ciaran's College gathered in memory of their friend Kamile, and those crosses. I am very mindful that it is more than the financial cost, and also there is a lost opportunity cost. This is about real lives and about hospitals not being built and schools not being refurbished. We take that extremely seriously. That is why we are looking at the underlying areas that we can address. The Executive have agreed the inclusion of some of those in the enabling actions and the infrastructure in the draft Programme for Government. Subject to Executive agreement, other core aspects will be provided for in the investment strategy for Northern Ireland. We will, through the NICS board and the committee on the investment strategy, which reports to the NICS board and the governance structure, be there to provide those cross-cutting challenge functions but also those common learnings as we go forward.

The Executive have made significant progress in the past eight months. With support from officials, they have delivered an interim fiscal framework, a sustainability plan, a draft Programme for Government and a legislative framework. Work was done in preparation for an investment strategy for Northern Ireland, which will be for Ministers to bring forward. We have not had an investment strategy for Northern Ireland or a Programme for Government since 2011. We also have not had multi-year funding in any of the past 10 years in that trajectory. I acknowledge that there is much work to do, but core aspects have moved forward substantially to provide the platform for the next years in the mandate for the Executive.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Can you detail some specific improvements to or examples of delivery that have been made since the previous report?

Dr Brady: I will bring in my colleagues from the Department of Finance on that. My focus has been on the high-level systemic structures and aspects. It has been with regard to making sure that, when the Executive came back, the parties entitled to form an Executive were briefed widely on the incoming issues and implications. Their views are reflected in the Programme for Government. We cannot divorce the Programme for Government from the capital infrastructure areas. We need to address those, and they cannot be addressed through short-term measures. They are complex and interchanged. I talked about the appointment of the NICS board and key non-executive members who will lead that. A significant programme has been delivered on the skills and set-ups of the organisations. Obviously, there was agreement on the Strule campus and the A5. I will hand over to Neil and Sharon to detail the specifics.

Mr Neil Gibson (Department of Finance): Reflecting on your previous question, the honest truth is that we have to be able to do it. It is what our citizens expect, demand and deserve. The true cost, as Jayne mentioned, lies in the people who do not get educated in the way in which they should and in the lives that are lost. We absolutely require modern, up-to-date infrastructure, but the infrastructure world is getting more complicated. The environmental standards that, rightly, we must reach are making everything from planning applications to procurement procedures more complex than they have ever been. The challenges to upskill to make sure that we are able to deliver everything that we should are constantly increasing, but there is no other choice. If we are getting something wrong, we have to find ways to get it right. Avoiding having overspends by not doing the work is not an option. We absolutely require significant infrastructure investment.

We have improved many areas, but one of the quotes that Jayne mentioned is really important: it is people who matter. One of the main focuses in my time has been to look at getting the senior responsible officer (SRO) network together: getting the people who are delivering the projects in the same room to share their experiences, to talk about what went well and to feel that there is a colleague or a friend whom they can phone to say, "I have reached a particularly challenging stage of procurement or another process. Who has been through that before? Where can we make sure that we can rely on each other?". Running a major project, carrying the weight of it on your shoulders and worrying about ability to deliver, can be a lonely experience. We have done a lot there, and Sharon will speak about some of the training and development work that we have been doing to get people more qualified and make them more part of a network, a team and a family across the service so that they know that there are people to rely on. I point to that journey of training and development as one success: the new committee and the sense that there are more people to pick up the phone.

I do believe in a greater understanding as we have seen the narrative play out globally, whether it is children's hospitals in the Republic of Ireland, High Speed 2 or Hinkley Point. The fact that people do not feel that there are not lessons to be learned from other places —. These have been the most difficult times, with the journey of, rightly, improving environmental standards at a time of inflation that we have not seen in more than a generation, alongside a scarcity of money. That is a very difficult cocktail in which to operate, so one of the points that I point to as a measure of success is the enthusiasm that I see when I meet the SRO network. I encourage members to reach out and meet some of the people who run the projects, because it is ultimately their good work that will bring through the delivery. It is worth reflecting, Sharon, on some of the work that we have been doing in your team and others to increase the number of people going through commercial training and other things to help us to deliver.

Ms Sharon Smyth (Department of Finance): More people are going to universities in England to do the Major Projects Leadership Academy and the project leadership programme. That is about not just the training but networking with SROs in England, Wales and Scotland who deal with bigger programmes. We are smaller on the scale than elsewhere, but we experience the same problems. It is not all about scale.

The true testament is what has been delivered on the flagship project. The Belfast transport hub is an absolutely fabulous world-class hub for transport in Northern Ireland, but beyond that there is social value in the community and regeneration work that went on. The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service learning and development centre has opened and has gone through the gate 5 benefits realisation review. It is achieving the benefits that it was meant to. The Ulster University greater Belfast development is, again, a world-class building in a very deprived area of north Belfast, and it has regenerated the area. People can say that there was cost overrun and delay, and there was, but look at the regeneration and the benefits that that is delivering to the area through the student accommodation revitalising the area and taking away some of the issues that it experienced.

We really struggled to get Strule shared education campus across the line. As an example of issues with delays in projects — Brett and I sat on the project board for Strule — it was really difficult to keep an interest in that project because of the funding instability and there being no Executive. It is sometimes difficult to look beyond the front of a project and see exactly what is happening underneath that increases time and cost. Those things are related: if you have delays, you will have cost overruns as well. The onus is on us to make sure that we manage effectively the things that are within our control. Certainly, with the SRO network and the programme of training that we are putting SROs through, people understand the importance that is now placed on making sure that you deliver at pace, as quickly as you can with, obviously, the planning issues and everything else that goes with major projects. It is about giving people assurance that Northern Ireland is competent to deliver major capital projects. We cannot look like an unattractive proposition to people who want to invest here and who, hopefully, will tender for contracts. There has been a huge amount of work to learn and deliver the culture we are trying to portray for projects.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): I appreciate that. Thank you very much. I will hand over to John, who will take us through the next set of questions.

Mr Stewart: Thank you for coming to the Committee today. We appreciate your time. The next series of questions are on governance structures. You will be aware that recommendations 1 and 2 of a previous report from this Committee covered the role of the head of the Civil Service. It was revised to mirror the role in Scotland and Wales and to show leadership. Can you tell me how you have shown leadership on major capital projects since you took office?

Dr Brady: Thank you for the question. Maybe the first sign is that I asked to be at this Committee, having not been requested to attend, because I recognise the important role of leadership.

Mr Gibson: I was happy you came. [Laughter.]

Dr Brady: Also, I reflected on coming to the Committee three years ago, and I have fulfilled the commitments I made at that time, notwithstanding that there have been other issues and some things could have been done better in other areas. It is not something there is a switch to fix overnight. These are global issues that are structural and cultural with many different layers. I am making good on my commitment to deliver on the aspects that I provided, and that is core to me.

The recommendation for replicating the structure in Scotland and Wales to have a principal accounting officer — those recommendations went to the Ministers for consideration, and that was not accepted. That reflects the constitutional arrangements in the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, and the structures were designed and intended to be that way to give individual Ministers in a mandatory coalition a level of autonomy in their Departments. The permanent secretaries are accounting officers, and they are accountable to this Committee and work under the direction and control of their Ministers. I am responsible for their leadership and management, but not from a policy direction, and that reflects the constitutional realities. It is not for me to advise or propose constitutional changes to Ministers or the Executive. My role is to work with the issues I find to give the best advice to the Ministers that I serve, but also, within that framework, to make sure that the outcomes they all want to achieve are delivered. That is why I have created the structure of the Civil Service Board and the independence of the challenge function. Again, I am here to be challenged in those areas.

Mr Stewart: Thank you. You referred to the Northern Ireland Civil Service Board, which you reconstituted, and it includes yourself and the accounting officers. Can you tell me what you have done to demonstrate collective and collaborative leadership for capital projects through the board?

Dr Brady: Prior to my appointment, the Civil Service Board was the head of the Civil Service, the permanent secretaries and the accounting officers. When I reconstituted it and re-established the terms of reference, which I have recently reflected on with the non-executives, my commitment was that we needed to focus on a small number of areas. I analysed the Audit Office findings and reports on major capital projects, capability, capacity and the RHI recommendations, but also looked forward, with the guidance of the Executive, to the opportunities that I might advise the Executive to look at.

While we reflect on the problems and the lessons we need to learn, we also need to look forward to the opportunities, particularly in infrastructure, the ageing population, demographics and climate. We identified, with the permanent secretaries, three key areas to focus on. One was the people piece, because, as Bengoa said, the people and the culture are core. We established a strand to focus on the people issues. We have developed and delivered a one-year people plan. We are now engaging on a five-year people plan that aligns with the draft Programme for Government and the transformation piece.

The second area is public policy development and reform, and the areas we need to move forward with the Programme for Government. The reform and transformation strands will be focused on at an official level in that group. Third is the investment strategy for Northern Ireland, looking at how we bring in the skill sets and the funding as well as how we put the governance structures in place.

It was clear to me and it was your recommendation that we needed some external scrutiny and support to do that. I undertook a process, which was different from what we had done before, to target non-exec members who had specific skills in those key areas. That is what we wanted to do, and we needed support and constructive challenge to allow us to do that. Through an open and transparent process, we have recruited three non-executive members. Patrick is here, and, perhaps, he can give you his background; I will hand over to him shortly. He is leading the investment strategy aspect. He is based in London and has worked in Whitehall. Our leader for the people strategy is Laura McKeaveney and she is in the private sector. She is based in Basel. She has led people transformation in large organisations and significant transformation change. Our third representative is the former chair of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) in Dublin. She will look towards the transformation of public services and the further reform of that element. They now chair the subcommittees, and they have established working groups. Within those, permanent secretaries are represented, but they are chaired by the external non-execs to deliver and develop that change, as per the Programme for Government.

Mr Magee: I have been fortunate. I was brought up and educated here and then went off to the US for a couple of years. I had 18 years in investment banking, working and looking after big construction companies and utilities. I also floated an infrastructure fund, so I have had quite a good private sector experience of how infrastructure gets delivered. I then went to work in government — in Whitehall; worked for shareholder executives; headed up the British Business Bank; and became an executive on the board there and delivered significant programmes. I am now entering the third phase of my career. I have a portfolio of four commercial boards, plus government. I thank the PAC and the NIAO for the recommendation and Jayne's leadership for bringing us in. I believe that we are beginning to make a difference.

You asked about collective leadership. Let us take a journey on this. I joined the first board meeting in March of last year. We were already beginning to get another recommendation — major programmes and project (MPP) reporting — brought to the table on a regular basis. Sharon had done that. That was good, but I wanted to help take that further. Around the turn of the year, when the work was going on on this report, we said, "Let's formalise this more. Let's create an investment strategy". I asked the team about it. Full praise to Sharon and Scott Wilson from SIB. They have been fantastic in reaching across the Departments.

We are doing three things. We are developing a strategy: what will we spend the future capital on? That strategy is with Ministers. Hopefully, it will be published before the end of the year. It will be a great signal — the first investment strategy in a dozen years. My career has allowed me to focus on the big things. Importantly, we have had 13 or 15 reports and 105 recommendations. I am not sure that anyone can say how those all can come together, so I asked Scott and Sharon, and they agreed to do it. They went into a room with a group of like-minded officials and said, "How can we make this better?". We have created an enabling action plan with 12 actions. Brett came along and gave a presentation to the SRO network on the root causes. He had said that the main problems were people, process and policies. I got the team to group those 12 actions into people, process and policy. I can take you through any of those, if you wish. We are creating a pathway and a strategic way forward to how we make things better. It is a long-term endeavour, but it is exactly the right thing to be going on.

On leadership, it is not just Jayne's leadership; it is the leadership of the permanent secretaries around the table. Historically, they have been accountable to, and under the control of, their own Ministers, but they have agreed to share knowledge and expertise around the table and say, "How do we make things better?". I have attended every one of the SRO network events, and I am looking forward to coming back for the one on business cases, in November. You do have the right people there. I chatted to the person who delivered the Fire and Rescue Service project and the person who delivered the A6 project. We can say to them, "How can you help to deliver the A5?". We can ask, "How can help bring the like of the police college forward?".

It is about the people and getting those people together. Neil, Denis McMahon from the Department for Infrastructure and I tend to go to those events and show leadership and say, "We're here to create a strategic framework to take this forward". I do not think that I could have said that a year or two years ago. Let us hope that that strategic pathway takes us to a better future.

Mr Stewart: That is useful. The original reason for the recommendation was that there was a general acceptance that the private sector working alongside the public sector would inevitably save money and create better processes. Now that the three of you are on the board, can you demonstrate examples from the period that you have described of how that delivery has impacted on capital projects in terms of savings to date? I appreciate that you were talking about structures and processes, but does anything demonstrate evidence so far, or is it too early for that?

Mr Magee: It is early. As I said, pages 12 and 13 of the report show what has been delivered. Sharon mentioned some of the things, such as Belfast Rapid Transit. Driving up the A6 to visit the north-west is fantastic. Jayne asked me to host an investment summit with Senator Kennedy when he was here. We took the delegation to the University of Ulster campus, and he said, "Wow! This is really impressive". There have been successes. Can I draw a direct line from saying something in a committee to a door being hung better at the University of Ulster? Possibly not, but we can definitely make those lessons learned. We have some very good people, and it is my job not only to constructively challenge but to support the colleagues that I see in the SRO networks who have delivered the projects. They are proud of what they are doing and are more than happy to share the lessons that they have learned. I am filled with optimism, but I am always an optimist, and my glass is always half full, so apologies for that.

Dr Brady: I must say that Patrick is also very candid and always has been. It has been a constructive challenge.

Reflecting on your points, Mr Stewart, aspects of this are about how we work together and take common learnings. The Programme for Government identifies a reform and transformation unit that includes a delivery unit concept. Not everything can be a priority, but how do we focus on the things that we do prioritise? We can call things flagships, but what do we do, as a service, to make sure that we get behind and support them? For me, that is a key aspect as we move forward. The draft Programme for Government outlines that those will be reported on annually.

We have just published the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) well-being dashboard, which is independently staffed. There is nowhere to hide from that. There is also nowhere to hide from the reporting framework and identifying those areas. Unlocking them is about asking how you wrap around support, if you know that issues are coming, to give the common learnings. How do you resource it appropriately? How do you put the best people in the best places if something is going to be important? The journey to reform and transformation will be about making sure that bad things do not happen. Perhaps we can look towards delivery more on time, but that will take time and mechanisms to deliver. The Executive have indicated a commitment to report annually on key deliverables.

Mr Stewart: I have one more question, Deputy Chair, if that is OK. I will come back to you, Mr Magee. Given your authority as an independent board member, will you shine some light on what accountability you and the other independent board members bring to major capital projects?

Mr Magee: Authority is an interesting word. I was reading what Jayne said when she spoke to you a few years ago:

I do not have the authority to tell the accounting officer to do x or y; that is their Minister's job. Am I able to bring forward evidence and persuade people by asking, "Wouldn't it be good if we put this enabling action plan together?"? That is a different question. Discussions are ongoing about how we allocate the capital budgets, and that is how we make the enabling action plan. I do not see myself as having authority. I cannot tell people what to do. Non-executives should not tell executives what to do, but they can certainly ask the right questions. They can put forward evidence-based proposals and hope that people act on them.

Mr Stewart: Do you and the other independent members feel that your voice is heard at the level at which it needs to be heard?

Mr Magee: As Jayne said, I am pretty candid, so people know that I am there.

Mr Stewart: That is fine. Thank you very much.

Ms Forsythe: Thanks for being here today. As the Deputy Chair said, we are talking about an overspend of £3 billion on specific major capital projects, which were outlined, but I do not want to get fixated on those projects. It is the fact that billions of pounds are spent on such projects every year and that, as the Deputy Chair said, the same weaknesses have been reported, four years on.

My understanding is that the board that is now in place comprises you as the head of the Civil Service, all the permanent secretaries and the three independent members. Is that correct?

Dr Brady: In addition to that, we have established committees to the board. Two of them have been formally established at this stage. One is under way and looks at the draft Programme for Government. One, which is chaired by Patrick, looks at the ISNI, and a further one, on the people strategy, is chaired by the other independent non-exec.

Ms Forsythe: I am interested in how the board works. There is you, as head of the Civil Service, and all the permanent secretaries, and you have a lot of capital projects coming into a lot of problems, having a lot of weaknesses across them. Is everybody challenging each other or are you all just looking around at what is going wrong in everybody's projects?

Mr Magee: I will give you my vision of how the committee will work. We have had only four or five committees so far. I am quite repetitive sometimes — maybe a broken record — but I talk in threes, so I ask, "What are we going to do?". If I see a report coming in the future: "How we are delivering on priority projects within the investment strategy for Northern Ireland once it is published?". We have already established a dashboard on how we are getting on with the 12 enabling actions. If there is a blockage there, without telling people what to do, I will suggest, "Could you help me here? Could you help each other here?", so we will be challenging that.

We have had some challenges already, but we have got people to move forward with enabling action. There will then be the monitoring and governance. We will need to work that out with the delivery unit reform and transformation initiatives. That is the way we set up the terms of reference, thinking that it was a journey to take people on, because permanent secretaries are used to their own departmental boards, ministerial accountability etc., so it was to use that soft power. I like to support with a capital S and challenge with a small c, but I can reverse that if we need to.

Ms Forsythe: Thank you for that. That is good, and it is good practice going forward, but I am just quite concerned that, currently, a lot of money is being spent. Is there enough challenge? Should the board consider having commercial people on the board or interventions? If projects are running and clearly have problems, are people taking steps? Is someone sitting in Health looking across to the Infrastructure permanent secretary, saying, "That looks terrible. Are you going to take a step here?", or what is happening?

I am really concerned. As the Deputy Chair said, four years on and it is the same weaknesses, the same problems, and we are sitting here, spending billions of pounds every year on those projects. Is the board effective in actually providing challenge? Have you examples of a time when you stepped in and stopped something or made a difference?

Mr Gibson: I will talk about some of the processes that are in place to try to help. We have a gateway process whereby all our key projects are examined at a number of gateways throughout their life cycle and, indeed, beyond their delivery. That is really important for accounting officers. I meet all my SROs, look through all our gateways, and look at the dashboard. The board can then look at the information coming out of those gateways, and ask whether there are any common themes or patterns that we can look at.

Each of us has business cases and accounting officers to manage our own capital budgets, and that number is not changing. You have to go back to DOF if you are going beyond 10% of an overspend. There are a number of processes that the Department of Finance has for supply approvals, and there is the gateway process that accounting officers use to make sure that they have information on the projects.

Importantly, Patrick spoke about — and we are continuing to improve this — better use of data so that we can see the right patterns to allow the board to make the right advice points. So, what are we seeing across projects? We can think of inflation and some of the obvious areas, but if we take the story of a particular overspend, whilst it would be inappropriate to run through project by project — and I would not have that knowledge — each one has its own story to tell. We have to be careful that we do not think that a different governance structure would, perhaps, mitigate something as significant as a particular change in environmental legislation or a doubling of oil prices due to inflationary pressures or global tensions.

Ms Forsythe: Are there any specific examples of the board actually taking corrective action or stopping a Department incurring spend, or is the board sitting just monitoring things going from bad to worse? Have you any specific examples?

Dr Brady: Thank you for your question. I will come in here. The board does not have a fiduciary responsibility. It is constructed under my chairship. I am not an accounting officer, so it is within that constitutional boundary. Our non-exec members are not the same as departmental board members because we need to respect the constitutional arrangements that Ministers direct their Departments and, indeed, their accounting officer responsible for that area.

The issue is this: what are those cross-cutting areas, and how do we provide common learnings? It is not within my or Patrick's gift constitutionally to direct an accounting officer to stop an action. It is, of course, for a Minister or the Department of Finance to intercede. I am being really frank. I will ask my colleagues in SIB and Sharon to come in. When the board was reconstituted, and we brought major capital projects to it, I did not feel that, even with the permanent secretaries and my non-execs around the table, it was getting the level of scrutiny, insight and analysis that it needed to identify those areas. This is not about telling permanent secretaries what to do. It is about supporting them in their learning, identifying common themes, making sure that, where things have gone well, they are done in other areas and supporting them in that common learning and asking, "Where is the collective oversight? How do we make sure that we are analysing that?". That was why I asked Patrick to chair a separate board, which has met and has done a significant amount of in-depth work and analysis. I will ask Sharon, who, in a Committee, will obviously speak candidly, and Brett to reflect on the difference that they have or have not seen through that structure.

Ms Smyth: Certainly, over the last two years, there has been a change, given that Departments are looking beyond their own area to see how they can collaborate. That is a complete change of mindset. On performance, Departments are content that they are working through the process and that they will go to business case approval if they need extra approval to spend more than 10%, based on their delegated limits. There is a sense that we are learning lessons. The major capital projects give us a really helpful synopsis of where the issues are. The major one is funding. It was not that people were spending more than they needed; it was that the funding was not available, and therefore the project was delayed. Such delays equal cost inflation and construction inflation.

Then you move to, "OK, we have our site, and we have our funding. Now we have planning issues." There are a lot of things. It is not that there is a waste of money in the system; it is just that the planning system is really complicated for legitimate reasons. I am sure that the Committee has heard about the fact that there are planning rules and planning laws. Our job here is to make sure that those are as straightforward as possible so that the people in the planning system move through it as quickly as possible, or they fail fast and realise that their proposal is not an option, and then it can move to another site, which we have seen happen in a few cases. I have seen people stop doing things because of the gateway review process. They will look at the prioritisation in their Department. There definitely is a change in attitude towards what we can afford, what we need to do and the objectives that we need to set.

There are ministerial priorities. There is the ISNI investment plan. The initial, I think, 130 projects have been brought down to about 70. The ISNI committee's job is to make sure that those 70 projects move through the system as quickly as possible, because any delay will equal cost inflation. We cannot pass that risk to contractors, because they cannot manage it. Putting people out of business certainly would not be a good way to do contracts. There are risks that are better managed by the public sector. However, delays equal cost overruns.

Ms Forsythe: I appreciate that. My point, which comes off the back of John's question, was about the role of the board and the action that has been taken. Good practice and advice are great, but the public and those who have put us here in the Assembly need to have confidence that we will champion their case and that we will look to see what is happening with the projects that are running now. If something bad happens, or if there are obvious issues, will somebody step in? It seems that the board is not that operational; rather, it is more about looking at the collective learning and good practice. That is what I am happy to take from that.

Mr Magee: I will summarise my understanding. Again, I am still learning about how the Northern Ireland system operates. You have a project board. As Neil and Sharon said, they sat on the project board for Strule, for example. That is the operational side. If we encounter a problem, how do we fix it? Again, through the reporting, if there are recurring themes, they will come up and we will see them. As for the nine permanent secretaries, Infrastructure arguing with Health about why something is being done a certain way probably is not the most productive use of time. What we need to do is get the system to work properly and allow for those detailed discussions, which may take many hours, at project board level, because that would not be the best use of our board's time.

The board is set at a strategic level, and there are operational project boards that will look at each of those. I will put out some of the 12 enabling actions to give you a sense. Some good work has been done on business cases. The guidance has been improved. Anecdotally — I sometimes work on anecdote as well as data — the new guidance is fine. It is about how it is operationalised and put into practice. Two of the enabling actions surround the planning system, and there are some good short-term improvements, but what are the longer-term improvements? That is what we are looking at, and that is why I wanted it to be 12 actions. That is a controllable number of strategic levers to look at, so we will be looking at that, and that business-case process is how project boards and gateways interact.

Ms Forsythe: Thanks for the clarity on the role of the board.

Dr Brady: For SIB, do you want to reference the role for ISNI in governance and oversight, Brett?

Mr Brett Hannam (Strategic Investment Board): For the first time, the NICS board is taking ownership of the delivery of the investment strategy rather than leaving it to individual Departments to deliver their parts. That represents an important move forward in ensuring collective responsibility for the overall delivery of the investment strategy.

Mr Magee: We incorporated into the terms of reference that we would be the programme board for the investment strategy, so that gives us a bit more operational lever. To quote from memory, we can also make recommendations on actions to permanent secretaries and/or the Executive, so there are escalation mechanisms. If we do not think that things are happening, we can pull that chain.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): For clarity, how often does the board meet?

Mr Magee: Every two months.

Dr Brady: The Civil Service Board meets every two months, and those meetings are constituted with all the non-executive members, and then there are the sub-committees.

Mr Magee: I am running the ISNI committee two or three weeks before so that we can go through in detail how we are getting on and how the monitoring is happening and then report up and escalate. Traditional board governance says that you have a deeper dive at committee level and then report up to the board.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): The investment strategy board has met four times to date. Is that correct?

Mr Magee: It first met in March or May, so I think we are three or four in.

Dr Brady: In the other months, we have had the NICS board meetings.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Thank you.

Mr T Buchanan: Chair, may I come in on one point?

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Yes, go ahead, Tom.

Mr T Buchanan: Have you identified any capital projects with a huge overspend that has caused you concern? If so, what have you done to address that?

Dr Brady: I will ask colleagues to come in on this. Previously, we talked about the identification of the overspends. I gave the figures of 44% and 22% on capital overspends. Of the major capital projects, the A5 had the most significant overspend of around, provisionally, 50%, from £800 million to where it sits now. Obviously, those are areas that were within a policy domain in terms of planning, and there are those that have been recommendations provided in the draft Programme for Government. They were identified as planning improvement aspects. Within the areas that the root causes have been looked at, it is within that policy domain from the processes and then within the people aspect. Sharon, can you detail any further areas?

Ms Smyth: The difficulty is that the projects will sit within a Department, Mr Buchanan. The Minister will decide whether, for example, the A5 goes ahead or not, and, obviously, that came to the Executive. There are controls within the Department of Finance through business cases, whether those are the final business case or the outline business case. Generally, the decision on whether a project gets the green light to go ahead sits with the Minister. When the Executive were not sitting, that led to some projects, such as Strule, not getting to that stage. It required the Executive to come back, and that is where the delay has been in not being able to move forward and where there has been nervousness of the market to tender for things when there may be an issue with funding. That can lead to delay, and those delays will lead to construction inflation and time cost.

Dr Brady: In the three years since I have been at this Committee, we have had two years without an Executive, so Executive and ministerial decisions were not able to be made because they were challenged in the courts, where, rightly, it was deemed that it was outside the purview of a permanent secretary to make those decisions. As much work as could have been done was advanced on Strule and on the A5. Those decisions have now been made through ministerial and Executive vehicles.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): I will move on to oversight bodies and ISNI. We have already touched on it.

Mr Boylan: Thanks to the panel for its comments so far.

I want to pick up on the last point, which I am trying to understand. ISNI and its committee are not over all the major capital projects, but, arising from the PAC recommendations, have you improved any governance or oversight on all projects? Can you comment on that? I know that we have not met since the Assembly resumed, but there were recommendations and suggestions. Can you give some commentary on the oversight bodies and governance?

Dr Brady: Perhaps, Sharon, you might want to talk the Committee through the actual recommendations. Of the ones that were outlined and accepted, particularly in relation to my role and that of the Civil Service, the re-establishment of the NICS board and its reconstitution through the appointment of independent and non-executive members have been fulfilled. A number of areas requiring a single accounting officer were not accepted by Ministers. We have talked through those areas. We are happy to go through each of the recommendations and give you an update, if that is helpful. Sharon?

Ms Smyth: Yes. OK.

Mr Boylan: As long as it is progress, Sharon, I am happy to listen.

Ms Smyth: It is. Some of the comments that Jayne made cover these. On the strengthening of accountability, every six months, the NICS board will get a report on the major capital projects. There was a sense of, "So what? What about the reporting?" but that reporting led to the identification of common issues. It led to the SRO network being set up and to our breaking down the barriers related to the issues.

Procurement was seen as a barrier, so we had a session on procurement, and we have an action plan on how to take that forward. There was a lack of clarity around project assurance. We are now looking at how we mirror project assurance against business cases — I know that I am throwing a lot of terminology at you — and a gateway review process looks at key milestones. So, the strategic outline case will look at business justification: why you are doing what you doing, whether the site is in the right place and whether it is a building or a structure. At that stage, we will have three independent people looking at that. That is the assurance that you give when you put a business case forward to the Department: that you have had the critical view on whether it is the right thing to do; looked at whether we have the right resources and an affordability envelope; and determined whether we have political, citizen and community involvement at the outset. That is the strategic outline case. It is mapped to the gateway review. We are not there yet. It is a piece of work that we identified, through this investigation, that we can do better.

When it comes to DOF Supply division, depending on the limit, it can say that it has an assurance that three people who have an interest in the subject matter, whether it is rail, infrastructure, a wind farm or anything else, have looked at it independently and, having done it before, can see that we are not too far off. That has been set up.

Project delivery offices in each Department now collate all the information. That means better reporting to the departmental boards and, therefore, better reporting to the NICS board. Accounting officers, who sit around the NICS board table, will already have had a view of how their Department is performing against its major capital projects. Some of the projects are unavoidable, and some need to be done because of the safety of citizens. We then look at things like school infrastructure and how we are doing with that. Repairs in schools are definitely needed. I think that you have already had a report on maintenance from the NIAO. There is a lot of work to be done, so how do we do that smarter and more effectively? All of that work now comes through the ISNI enabling actions.

I am the SRO for action 7, which is to get an integrated procurement plan to see how we do it now, how we can improve it and how we can collaborate better. That work has never been done before, so it is really changing how people work. People were comfortable working within their Department and not having to tell other people what they were doing. We now have that collective information about how we are doing things and how we are approaching the market, and that feeds into the other reports.

Someone mentioned 105 recommendations being distilled into 12. Those recommendations include one related to the fact that we were not consistent with the market. We were going out with very different-looking documents and terms and conditions. That has all now been standardised through the ISNI enabling action 7. That work has been taken forward.

Recommendation 3 was about key performance indicators (KPIs) for Construction and Procurement Delivery. They are now in place. We are performing year-on-year, but, in the KPIs for the Education Authority (EA), the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and NI Water, we have an analysis of the money being spent, and most of the money is with six arm's-length bodies (ALBs). It is outside the Civil Service, which is where our control is, so we have to move outwards from the NICS to try to get into how NI Water, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Education Authority and health trusts perform.

Scott Wilson, who is represented here by Brett, is doing a lot of the work on how we deliver that going forward. The enabling action 7 will cover all those KPIs on how we are doing it and how quickly we are doing it, bearing in mind that speed is time.

Jayne covered the membership of the Northern Ireland Civil Service Board. The Committee has recommended centralising the procurement function. That has come through in a lot of reviews. We are a very small nation. We have nine centres of procurement expertise (COPEs), seven of which are construction COPEs. Can we do this a bit better? The root cause analysis report showed us that there were key issues and that those key issues were not so much about the structures but about how everyone was doing things. I know that I am repeating myself, but a lot of hope underpins enabling action 7. We will now look at an integrated procurement plan. We do not have permission for a central body for construction in Northern Ireland, but we have permission to ensure that we do it in a common way and that the look and feel to the market are the same.

I know that I am taking up a lot of time. Do you want me to keep going, very briefly?

Mr Boylan: Yes. I have another couple of questions.

Ms Smyth: One of the other actions was on the business case and the five-case model. An interim review of that showed us that there is an improving picture, but, even in the early analysis and the ISNI, we are finding out that, even though the processes are clear, there still need to be a lot of layers of checks and approvals for very small amounts. I think that Patrick mentioned an SRO event in November. Seventy people are already registered for that. What we will do there is try to streamline that process. That may mean that delegated levels will have to be increased, which will require a level of trust between arm's-length bodies and their sponsor bodies so that not everything will have to go through all the different layers of checking. That should speed things up.

On the scale of delays and cost overruns in planning, DFI has presented to the PAC on its planning improvement programme. We are working closely with DFI to support it on that. The SRO appointment letter has been amended with regard to the community and social licence. The NIAO reported on judicial reviews. I think that one of its findings was that the majority of judicial reviews are not upheld, so what can we do to stop cases getting to judicial review? The answer is the social licence. We need to involve the community at the very earliest stage. One really good example of that is the Belfast transport hub. Translink really engaged with the community. It asked about social value, "What are the top three things that you want us to do?". The first was to deal with generational unemployment. It set up an apprenticeship scheme to ensure that people from the local area could get employment in the hub. That has left a legacy.

I mentioned community engagement and the judiciary, so I am getting through these rightly. Recommendation 14 was on single-year Budgets, which you will know about if you have been watching the fiscal negotiations closely. I will let you talk to that, Neil. The last one was on standardisation of NEC4 contract terms, and we have a really good relationship with the construction sector. I hope that that will come through if you get any evidence from it. We need to have a good working relationship. Northern Ireland is very small and is not an attractive place for most contractors to move to. We really need to have that stability in Northern Ireland to ensure that we have good contractors and good terms and that the portion of the risk share is appropriate. We have moved ahead really quickly with that.

I hope that that was quick enough for you.

Mr Boylan: I am trying to consume all of that.

Mr Gibson: I have never been so glad that Sharon is here. Just quickly on the Budget, it remains the very strong commitment of my Minister and, indeed, the Department of Finance to have multi-year Budgets as soon as is feasible and as soon as we can get a multi-year spending review from the UK Government. Aside from that, we have set up a budget sustainability team under Jeff McGuinness. It is looking at working with Departments to look at their five-year plans, regardless of whether the UK funding position is in place, to start to ask those questions about what the demands on our services will be and what our costs will be. We are starting to move to a multi-year planning approach even where we do not have the financial clarity to do so at the moment.

The UK Government have, however, indicated their intention to move to a multi-year spending review. We might see that in the spring, and we are keen to bring multi-year Budgets to the Executive as soon as that happens.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Your colleague wants to come in on that, sorry, but I will ask a quick question. Sharon, you made a point of saying that Northern Ireland is not an attractive place for contractors to move to. Given the demand versus supply costs, that is worrying. Can you detail what exactly that is? Will you explore it a bit more and say what you can do to improve the situation?

Ms Smyth: We are working very closely with the industry. A lot of that is about the skills that we need now, but it is also about those that we will need in the future. We have seen a lot of companies move out of Northern Ireland. There was an announcement yesterday that £11 billion is going into the Republic of Ireland. If a firm wants to set up somewhere, it will go where there is a stabilised pipeline, and we do not have that at the moment, because we have no ISNI. That firm will also want a surety that nothing will stop once it starts, and we have had a bit of stopping and starting here over the last 10 years.

As a nation, we have to set out a good stall. We need to have a stable pipeline. We have to be able to move away from lowest-priced tendering, which comes back to the perception that the lowest price saves money. You pay the true cost of delivery; you do not try to cut costs to make something look more affordable. Those are some of the issues that we have seen in the OBC, particularly when it has been done at a point in time and there has subsequently been huge inflation. We want a realistic pipeline with a good funding package behind it. At the minute, we do not have those things. That is what we need to set up to be an attractive proposition.

Mr Gibson: It is very important that we are a good customer. As Sharon said, we have to have the right challenge with our suppliers, but we cannot be in an adversarial situation. Through the work that Sharon has done to engage with the industry and the sector and the way we are changing how we procure pre-market engagement, we are trying to build strong relationships so that the industry believes in us. Payments also come into that.

It is about doing everything that we can do to be a good customer, so that people want to do business with us. There are some aspects of that that we have not yet been able to deliver on, such as having long-term surety of funding, but, from what I have observed of Sharon's work, I genuinely think that nothing beats having those meetings and that engagement.

We have to be a customer of choice. We are proximate to two very successful and much larger-scale markets in which many of our local companies have proved incredibly successful, and all credit to them for that. Those markets are on a different scale from us, however, so it is important to create as clear an image as we can of our being easy to work with.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Thank you.

Dr Brady: I will make one more point on that subject. It is an exemplar of how those issues are across Departments and all of Northern Ireland and on the impact that that has from a commercial perspective.

We talked about the potential lost opportunity costs from delayed projects. The realisation of the value that they have presented is probably different from what was initially presented in the business cases. Look at the opportunity that the Belfast transport hub has provided: the Department for the Economy provided the required skills and there was surety that construction could begin to build investments.

On Patrick's point, when we brought the investors in last year under Joe Kennedy's leadership, what message did they hear on the ground about potential investments? Those are areas that we need to look at.

We have ambitions for and legal commitments to climate change and net zero, plus an economic opportunity for transition to sustainable energy by 2030. That all needs to work together. We have the structure of the ISNI and the NICS board and the right to address issues in which we have not done well, but there are also, arguably, much more complex issues ahead that will require us to work in a different way and in a different environment in order to stop very difficult things happening to us and to capitalise on opportunities.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): I appreciate that. Sorry, Cathal, I will go to Colm and come back to you.

Mr Gildernew: My question is prompted by something that you said, Sharon — each of you has now mentioned an element of it — about how small a place we are. However, many of our key projects expand beyond here, particularly into the South. I am thinking about the A5, which we have mentioned repeatedly. It has links to the N2 and to the T11 in Donegal. Rail, water quality and energy, which you mentioned, will have to be addressed on an all-island basis. Are we appropriately linked with colleagues in the South to ensure that, rather than that becoming another problem, it opens up opportunities? Is that streamlined enough now, or are there concerns?

Ms Smyth: No concerns have been raised, but that would be for the likes of DFI, NI Water and Translink. They form really strong links between them because, obviously, infrastructure cannot be stopped at one point. It has to go on.

The enabling action 7 and the ISNI projects will give us the oversight and insight. Not a lot of people like to open the curtains and see what is behind them. However, that is what that does, and it gives us the ability to do that. Certainly, how that infrastructure goes beyond the North and into the South is one thing that we will take forward. Of course, it has been announced that there is to be major investment in infrastructure in the South, and that cannot stop at the border either. It is in everybody's interest, so it is a win-win.

Dr Brady: Just to build on that, the draft Programme for Government commits to our transport infrastructure, the all-island strategic rail review and looking towards that all-Ireland piece, North/South and east- west. In the draft consultation, there is a commitment to work with the expertise in the UK. That is from the GB perspective, but there is expertise in the South as well.

On our board, as it happens — it was not purposely done this way — Patrick is based in London, Frances Ruane worked with the Irish Government, so she is based in Dublin, and our head of people, who is from Northern Ireland, is based in Basel, so we have that international development. Obviously, I have regular engagements with my colleagues in Whitehall through the structures under Simon Case, but I also have regular engagements with John Callinan in the Irish Government, and then we have our North/South Ministerial Council (NSMC) events as well. I know that those structures are being explored. Waterways Ireland identified some common projects in which we have common cause.

Mr Boylan: I have just a couple of points. I will try to consume all that information. I take it that we made progress on some things.

Jayne, you were at a previous Committee meeting that I attended, which concerned the memorandum of reply and the previous PAC report, recommendation 6, which was for a single oversight body.

What is an infrastructure commission, exactly? Can you give a definition of it, and what is its remit?

Dr Brady: Brett might be better at giving the definition. Prior to those three years, when I was in the private sector, I was consulted on the establishment of the infrastructure commission. Obviously, it was then under the Minister for infrastructure as a commitment under the COVID recovery plan. As part of that development, when I was newly in post, the Executive Office and the Department for Infrastructure jointly analysed what options might be considered for an infrastructure commission. Those were provided to the Executive Office for consideration. Obviously, that was a ministerial decision, and it is for the Executive to opine on those areas.

From our perspective, it is not for us to establish new commissions or provide advice. My role as an official is to reflect those areas that we need to provide. We are doing that in our work at the NICS board and the ISNI subcommittee. The appointment of the single oversight board, which is one of he recommendations, is ultimately a policy decision for Ministers and the Executive.

I do not know whether you want to input any further into that, Brett?

Mr Hannam: That was a very good summary of where we have got to. It is worth making the observation that the new Government in London recently announced the abolition of the National Infrastructure Commission there. That brings into sharp focus the fact there are various different infrastructure commissions. If you look around the world, you will see that the term "infrastructure commission" is applied to a range of different bodies, each of which has very different remits and responsibilities. One element of a paper that was produced and then presented to Ministers was to identify the range of options available to the Executive if they wished to establish an infrastructure commission. However, the paper also correlated those remits and responsibilities with existing bodies, whether that was the SIB, the Department of Finance or the Department for Infrastructure, to see what added value an infrastructure commission, in any of its various forms, would actually add. That paper went in before the last Government came to an end, and, as far as I am aware, there has been no additional response from Ministers to it since the new Executive were established.

Mr Boylan: My question is about the likes of an ISNI or an infrastructure commission. I am not taking autonomy away from Departments, Ministers or an oversight body. You have to ask where that role is to be played and where the value for money is in all of that. If you are to establish that body, it has to be given a significant role in some respect. My question is about value for money. Are you able to comment on what that would mean?

Dr Brady: Brett outlined the roles, and there are different configurations. It could have an advisory function, a governance function or a direction function. There are various instances of how it could be instantiated. An analysis of those options and where they are being fulfilled was produced for consideration by Ministers. Again, that would be for Ministers to decide those areas. We are within the remit of ensuring that we are delivering value for money, and, through the Department of Finance, procurement and CPD aspects, we are ensuring that we are doing everything at an official level to do that. Ultimately, however, the establishment of new commissions is a decision for Ministers.

Mr Boylan: Just finally, I know that you said that we have been up and down and in and out of the place. A number of PAC reports with good recommendations and suggestions have been produced down through the years. It is not to say that the information was not there. I appreciate that, as we get back up and running again, we will look towards those recommendations. It is down to a Minister to accept those recommendations. That is fair enough, and I am not challenging that in any way. In light of some of those suggestions, where do you see us at the end of the short mandate that we have left, maybe two and a half or three years? Given some of the meetings and discussions that we have had, where would you like to see us at the end of this mandate?

Dr Brady: I serve the First Minister and the deputy First Minister and am secretary to the Executive. The Executive have made very significant progress in establishing the key deliverables that have not been delivered. The last investment strategy for Northern Ireland was in 2011, and the draft Programme for Government is out for consultation. We have a commitment to make progress on issues such as the fiscal floor, Budget sustainability and the fiscal framework. Those are key underlying aspects, and our job as officials is to make sure that we deliver at a level that meets the Executive's expectations. I have a very clear steer from Ministers that what they are about is making sure that we provide delivery.

We can appoint people to commissions in order to provide advice, but, given the 105 recommendations, the helpful input provided by the Audit Office and the establishment of our non-executive members to provide that challenge function, we know the "what" and we know the barriers. For me, it is now about delivery, making an impact and being held accountable. In the draft Programme for Government, Ministers have clearly outlined the need to reform and transform, and that will be part of how we make that impact. We will be held to account on our reporting on progress. In addition to that work, NISRA's independent stats will show how all those things come together and how economic prosperity is linked to infrastructure, water quality and so on. All those things will provide a really sound evidence base to see where we are making progress.

We have the NICS board in place, and that is one small aspect. It is not a panacea, but it is a key structural element for driving that change. We will be held to account over the next year or two: this is the mandate of delivery. For us as officials, it will be for the Executive to —.

Mr Magee: From an independent perspective, having worked hard to set up the ISNI committee as part of the NICS board, we would like to deliver as much of the "what" as we can. One of the exciting things that we are doing — it is enabling action 11, I think — is looking at an infrastructure needs assessment. We will produce a new ISNI in two and a half years' time, and we will be even better informed on how we take that forward. I would like to be able to come back to you with 12 enabling actions on which the ISNI committee has made significant progress. Again, we have been reporting and flagging issues to Ministers and the Executive so that those things can be done.

As well as being an optimist, I like everything done yesterday, so, hopefully, we will make a lot of progress in that area in the next two and a half years.

Mr Boylan: Likewise, the Committee would like to come back with a report that says, "Listen, we've made progress here, and we're moving to the next phase", or whatever. Thank you very much for your responses.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): In 2021, Minister Mallon issued a press statement in which she described the infrastructure commission as a game changer. Do you still describe the commission as a game changer? Have the roles been defined yet? What has been achieved?

Dr Brady: That was the then Minister for Infrastructure's opinion. It is not for me to opine on political policy decisions; it is for me to provide advice. There was a commitment in the COVID recovery plan to undertake analysis with the lead Department — the Department for Infrastructure — and the Executive Office to present a range of options, show where the existing structures are delivering, and provide advice to Ministers. It will be for Ministers to decide. You will appreciate that it is not for me to question a Minister's judgement or view, or to cut across the role of the Executive or of the First Minister and deputy First Minister.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Has the role of the commission been decided and defined yet?

Dr Brady: No. There are a number of options. Globally, there are different ways to instantiate that. We analysed those. We considered how it would fit in, how it would, potentially, be given effect under the current structures, and how it was given effect under some mechanisms, but that is advice to Ministers in order for them to make a judgement.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): It is still with them. That is grand.

Mr Magee: We are trying to change the game through the ISNI committee, but, if another decision structure comes along, we will work with it.

Dr Brady: Absolutely.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): I appreciate that; thank you.

Mr Honeyford: Thank you, all, for coming in. Everybody is here to make life better. As Sharon said, we want to deliver better, and we are all here to do that. However, we know that it is not working, and that it has not worked to date. I want to look at the overcomplicated commissioning and delivery of major projects. Various reports have stated that it is not fit for purpose. We have talked about the issues, so I will not go over them again, but what alternative models have you considered?

Dr Brady: That was a clear analysis that was taken out of the root causes analysis in respect of the enabling actions and the processes. That is how we commenced this. Patrick, do you want to comment, and then, Sharon, do you want to talk about the substantive actions that have been taken?

Mr Magee: I would need to go back and look at what "alternative models" would mean. What I am looking forward to seeing, as we do some work ahead of the SRO event in November, is how things get commissioned between Departments and arm's-length bodies. Around 60% or 70% of business cases go through the arm's-length bodies. Are business cases going back and forth between Departments and arm's-length bodies too often? There is a balance to be struck. We want progress. We want to put the accelerator down, but we need to have appropriate brakes, checks and balances. A very simple metaphor is that it is about the balance between the brake and the accelerator. My view is within the remit of some of the enabling actions, so we will look at the commissioning and at whether there are delegated limits. Sharon talked about that a moment ago. I am all ears to hear whether there are better ways to do things. We will change the game, accelerate and deliver as best we can. If we can make further changes, I will certainly take that to the ISNI committee, through the board and advise Ministers collectively.

Mr Gibson: A lot of work is going on. We have moved predominantly to the five business case model. We have done our interim review of that. We will have a full review before the end of this financial year, all being well, and we will make sure that members are aware of the findings of that.

The early evidence is that it is improving, but it still absolutely depends on the skills and quality of the people who are working on it. It is not the number of stages in it; it is the quality of information in it. Making sure that you have the right technical expertise at the most appropriate time is key. One of the big areas that we have been pushing — and one of the things that the upcoming SRO event, which others have mentioned, is about — is proportionality, and where there is unnecessary material that is not required. There are lots of things that can help us in that regard as we look to the future with AI and think about how we can make our documents briefer and tighter, so that we are not asking for anything that is not required.

There is also a lot in the root causes review — that SIB report was incredibly helpful for me and other accounting officers — and Brett will probably want to speak to that. It points out just how complicated legislation is becoming, and the amount of documentation that will have to be read for any planning application. If we, as a system, do not keep trying to work to reduce and simplify that as much as we can, it is simply a fact that more things will, potentially, be there to trip us up, because it will be impossible for everyone to read every page in every document in the level of detail required. The proportionality approach that we have been taking to our business case work will be required as we think through the complexity of planning legislation, and there is work — that is one of the enabling actions — to look at that. That brevity of information is really important: better dashboards, better indicators.

Sharon will be able to speak about some of the new procurement methods that we are looking at, and what the new Procurement Act will give us in flexibilities and how we can work in a different way to procure. A lot of progress is being made, but the danger is that you are always adding something else into the process — a new layer or a new document — when we really need to be looking in the other direction and asking, "How do we get down to fewer stages and fewer steps where we can?".

Brett, you picked out in the root causes report the hugely increasing complexity around some of the legislative frameworks.

Mr Hannam: It is in planning law as well. There are a number of important points to be made in respect of business cases. A lot of effort has gone into the five business case approach and into ensuring that those who are tasked with compiling those business cases have the skills, knowledge and experience to do that as accurately as possible. However, I do not think — and our root causes report looks into this in some detail — that that is the problem. In fact, if you were to summarise the problem, it would not be that business cases are inaccurate or not detailed enough; it is quite the reverse. It is, perhaps, that they are over-specific, are too detailed and take too long to produce.

Our assessment is that each of the business cases for major capital projects is accurate on the day that it is completed. The problem arises later because, as you know, the difference between an OBC and an FBC is that an OBC is, as the name suggests, an outline business case. It is compiled at the start, or very close to the start, of a project. In particular, it is compiled at a point when the key uncertainties — we go into those in some detail in our report — that really affect how programmes and projects progress have been decided. I am talking about planning, procurement, decision-making and social licence. Those are the processes that are most vulnerable to external impact. They are affected by things such as delays in responses from statutory consultees; construction cost inflation; and black swans like Ukraine, the pandemic, the absence of Ministers, judicial reviews and all those things that nobody can realistically expect to predict at the time when an OBC is created.

The difference between an OBC cost and an FBC cost will show you the impact of those key uncertainties, as I say, in planning, procurement, social licence and decision-making. None of those is within the control of the SRO, and few of them are under the control of anybody. For those reasons, everyone who reads an OBC should expect it to be an underestimate. They should not expect it to be a fully accurate representation of what the costs will be at FBC stage, and certainly not of what they will be at project completion stage. One of the recommendations that we make is that, instead of having an OBC estimate as a fixed point of x million pounds, it should be represented by a range of estimates: for example, "If everything goes according to plan and there are none of those impacts, the cost will be £100 million. If, on the other hand, those other events take place and affect it, it could be as much as three times the OBC".

Mr Honeyford: The question was simply this: what alternative models have you considered? You are talking about the process, planning and Ukraine. I know all the reasons. I know all that. You said that you were happy to look at alternative models. From that, I conclude that you have not done so. I want to know what alternative models you have looked at. It is not about the process. I understand the process. It is about what alternative models you have looked at.

Mr Hannam: We looked, back in 2013, at alternative models. We suggested the centralisation of capital project delivery. As you know, Ministers declined to support that view. Since then, we have seen the establishment of centres of excellence, which concentrate related procurement and delivery expertise in one place. Roads Service is a good example of that. The establishment of the health estates directorate is another. As I said back in 2020, the same benefits that can be delivered through centralisation can be delivered through alternative mechanisms. You have heard today how those benefits are being delivered in ways that do not require substantial reorganisation, which, in my view, takes up time and energy that could be better deployed elsewhere.

Mr Honeyford: You have not looked at any alternatives since 2013; is that right?

Mr Hannam: We have.

Ms Smyth: We have. Part of that 2013 assessment looked at how to centralise, in the construction division in CPD and DOF, the processes for standard construction and the built environment in areas like education and health. Education projects did not move, but health projects moved into DOF in 2014. A review that was carried out in 2018 said that that was not a perfect solution and, in fact, that it blurred the boundaries of accountability for health projects between the Department of Health and the trusts. It was a disproportionate or clumsy move. That is probably a misuse of those words, but it did not fit well in the Department of Finance. When it came to moving a health project into the Department of Finance, that 2018 review said that there are things that you need to do to improve that. I took over in 2021, and I looked at it again. The recommendations from 2018 were still there.

One thing that crystallised that was the fact that, when the pandemic hit, the director of health projects moved out of DOF and back into the Department of Health to be closer to delivery. In 2022, health projects moved out of DOF and back into the Department of Health. That move has given us benefits, as the projects have been far more productive. Expertise is now more closely aligned with the client. We wanted to try the centralised model, because all the recommendations kept saying, "You just need to centralise". However, there are disbenefits to centralisation as well. Moving expertise away from delivery and into a central function is not always the best way to do it. As Brett said, the major spend is in DFI. I think that 30% of the spend in the Civil Service is captured under NI Water, Translink, DFI Roads and DFI Rivers. There is already a centralisation.

We looked at how other jurisdictions do it. In Northern Ireland, CPD does all the construction on behalf of Departments, the Prison Service and arm's-length bodies. That is a huge amount of centralisation that exists here that does not exist elsewhere. In other jurisdictions, all those construction projects are delivered outwith the centre. Advice and guidance is provided by the centre, but actual delivery is outwith it. Given the size of Northern Ireland, you could not replicate that in all the different Departments. Our Prison Service may build two prisons in 10 years, so centralising it through the CPD construction division makes absolute sense, but it does not make sense to centralise all the unique portfolios of Health, Education, Translink and our rail service, because they deal with different sectors in the round.

For me, in three years' time, success will be having an integrated procurement plan to deliver ISNI and the investment that we will secure over the next 10 years. We should be agnostic about how such an integrated plan is delivered structurally, as long as it is an integrated plan that everyone is bought into. For me, success in three years will be having a plan that works and everyone is bought into. That would be no mean feat. It will be a very difficult thing for us to achieve, but we are committed to delivering that.

Dr Brady: A centralised annual reporting structure is identified in the draft Programme for Government. That will say whether our progress is on track.

Mr Gibson: A big thing for us is to have as agile a system as we can. The health projects are a really good example. We tried that alternative model to see whether it worked. We did not bring everyone in; we just brought Health. Did it work? It did not really work, for the reasons that Sharon gave. It was a very quick decision. We sat down with the permanent secretary at the Department of Health, and the conversation was: "I do not think that this is working for either of us"; "No problem. Staff were great". We then moved it back, and we have seen the benefits of that.

On your point, we need to be open-minded around suggestions that come forward, whether those are to do with new commissions or structures. We need to try it quickly and see whether it works. If it brings benefits, great. If it does not, just as that one did not work for us or the Department of Health, we need to quickly go back to the other model. It was good to have that as a test case, rather than bringing everything in centrally and finding that we had lost that connection to the customer. We learned a lot of valuable lessons from that.

Mr Magee: I was trying to get across — I am relatively new in post — that Sharon is clearly expert in this and has looked at the different models, and, therefore, if she has good suggestions, I am happy to support them and bring them through the ISNI committee.

Mr Honeyford: Have we identified good practice in other countries?

Ms Smyth: We have to accept that Northern Ireland has nine Departments. It is difficult to relate other jurisdictions to that, given that it makes everything slower. It should not be that way, but we cannot take what is happening in other jurisdictions and try to model it here if we have a completely different structure. What we can do is look at what can be achieved. It should not be a substandard success; we should be able to deliver the same success. Since the Executive came back, we have seen a collective effort, with more Ministries working together. We have more joint briefing because Economy has to work with Communities, which has to work with Finance, which has to work with Health. Collectively, we can deliver; in silos, we cannot.

We have looked at other jurisdictions. As I said, CPD is a good model: we are helping to build prisons, office accommodation, College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) colleges and further education colleges. One success that I forgot to mention was yesterday's Northern Regional College (NRC) announcement; a really good win. We have looked at models, and whilst ours may not be centralised, there is work that we can do to make delivery better. That is what we need to focus on. If we get preoccupied with structures and how things are done, that will take us away from focusing on how we actually deliver.

Mr Honeyford: We need not more process but less. We have the six COPEs that you talked about. Outside bodies control a lot of it, and there is no central vehicle. Is there reluctance or unwillingness within the system to reform?

Mr Gibson: That is a tricky one to answer, in a way, but, in my experience, no, not really. The health projects is an easy example to use, but, where there is a proposition to be explored, and it is something that we can plausibly do, I cannot say that I have found any great reluctance. There has to be a plausible case to explore. It is about being open-minded about anything that might be worthwhile. I read the root causes report and look down the list of all the costs that we talked about at the start of the session. I am not sure that a new structure would have fixed that. There is planning, which is an enabling action, and there is social licence, which we may pick up on. There are lots of lessons and ways in which we can do things better — skills, capability — but I am not sure, from what we have seen elsewhere, that the structure is the biggest problem. In the examples that I have seen, staff just want to get things done. I do not come up against a lot of objection, but we test each one as it comes.

Mr Magee: I will go back to my anecdote. I do a reasonable amount of management by walking around and listening to SROs. They are keen to reform to make things better and make the processes slicker. From the people who will deliver on the ground, I sense a great appetite and support for that. I appreciate the focus that the SIB, the NIAO and the Committee are giving this. Neil, Sharon and I are saying, "We want to make your jobs easier and better so that the processes are slicker". I would not say that we get standing ovations, but we get warm welcomes.

Mr Gibson: Oh, I never get applause.

Dr Brady: Most of our SCS staff and perm secs were together yesterday morning to go through, from a leadership perspective, what our challenges are in serving the Executive. There is acknowledgement of the issue with doing the same thing as we have done before. It is not about keeping the status quo position in Northern Ireland or, indeed, globally, because of the issues that we face: global challenges, meeting net zero, our cost pressures and there not being enough money to deliver. There is acknowledgement that we cannot do that in the current context and that we need new thinking. Some elements of the work of the interim transformation board — driving different thought patterns and cultures and bidding for those — will be part of that transition. It is about how we create and use soft levers and soft power as well as the hard funds and structures to drive that change.

Mr Honeyford: Neil said a minute ago that there is nothing stopping that, it is all great, and reform is happening, so why are we here, and why has nothing changed?

Mr Gibson: It is not fair to say that nothing has changed when you look at some of the projects and, obviously, at the A5 decision yesterday. When I think of the judicial reviews and the reasons for them, given the right and legitimate position that local people and groups can take, I cannot see anything material that we, as a service, could have done to change that process, and that represents 50% of the overrun cost. There is a significant individual story about each one that might relate to planning, delays to opening a hospital or whatever. However, those might not be things about which I could sit here and genuinely say, "If you had let me rerun the last few years, we would have been able to change it".

I hope that we have given a flavour of some of the things that have changed and are changing. Taking the 11 out, across the other 66-odd other projects, I reckon the overspend — this is comparing it to OBC, which, for the reasons that others have said, is probably not the best comparator — is in the order of £600 million. That sounds like a huge number but, in the world that we have just lived through of oil price inflation etc, it is not, if you compare it to others, as bad a scorecard as the overall figure suggests. Although I accept that we are here because those numbers are the way they are, it is recognised in the NIAO report that there is progress in governance processes and better monitoring. I see it on the ground. It is my duty to make sure that I take back to those in our SRO network, who we are going to present to, that they still have our confidence and that, if they have good ideas and want to drive it forward, we will support them.

It will take longer to see some of the changes. I also think that our better reporting will help this Committee, for example, to have better information in order to be able to determine how well we are doing.

Mr Boylan: In all the years that I have been on PAC, we have always talked about silo mentalities. You could argue that that is autonomy for a Minister or a Department. My point to you — it is not really a question — arising from the conversation that we have had, is that it is about partnership right across government. In some cases, it is not about changing the structure. It may be about how we define that clearly to everybody. That is in some of the learnings and teachings, and that is Jayne's responsibility.

Dr Brady: That is why I am here: because this is not a silo.

Mr Boylan: No, 100%.

Dr Brady: I hope that that is a physical representation. We have our non-execs and our ALBs through the SIB. We also need to build that into the expectations for the service. It is built into the draft Programme for Government through the missions-based approach. These problems are so complex that we need to work together. It is built in through the work strands that are identified by the NICS board. In the performance dimensions that I work with the perm secs on, it is built in that they must have a corporate responsibility in delivering the cross-cutting aspects. Obviously, the perm secs that carry major significant infrastructure spend are on the ISNI subcommittee. The people areas are covered by others. However, each of us has a corporate responsibility to deliver across those areas. Across the Civil Service grades, we need to keep specialism where it is, but there is also a mobility in grades. I look to the grade 3s to bring soft aspects across: for example, moving people who have worked in Communities and who understand the need for social inclusion into Economy. People should be moved across to bring those networks and connections, so that we can use every single lever that we have.

It is a huge privilege to serve our Executive, and I have to say that I have seen real collective leadership. These are some of the hardest times, with the most difficult budgets and significant political and geopolitical instability. To your point, Mr Honeyford, I would say that the Executive have made very substantial progress, but that had to be provided through input from officials. They have a legislative programme. Work was done in the absence of an Executive to prepare for that, but, obviously, it was their decision. A Budget was agreed. There is a draft Programme for Government and an ISNI strategy, which has been consulted on and is ready to go for consideration. An interim fiscal framework has been provided. A sustainability plan was presented today. We have an interim transformation board. We had 43 applications to that. That is instantiated, and there is separate funding for it.

In the draft Programme for Government, there is acknowledgement, which all my permanent secretary colleagues accept, of the need for fundamental transformation and reform. Doing the same things that we have done before will not get us to where we need to be. That is not to say that what we did before was all wrong — we need to keep what is good — but the complexity of our problems has increased. It is not just, with respect, dealing with all the issues in the previous report; it is about a forward-looking, hopeful aspiration of where we need to get to. I feel strongly that all of the Civil Service is up for the challenge of delivering that.

It will not be easy. It is about people, culture, tone and how we lead — leadership at all levels. I very much feel that we are in an important phase for the Northern Ireland Civil Service, however, with the Executive to lead on that.

Mr Magee: I can give an independent view. As the son of a Northern Ireland farmer and builder, I know what a silo looks like. [Laughter.]

I saw a hint of there being silos when I arrived in this role, but I think that we are on a journey towards more collaborative working. When the ISNI committee comes together, I see best practice being shared, and SROs are involved in that. A few weeks ago, one of the perm secs brought an issue to the ISNI committee. At the board last week, as the minutes will show, they asked for some help, and that will lead to a cross-departmental working group to achieve an important objective.

Mr Gibson: I will make a quick remark about silos. In the course of this role, I quickly came to an understanding of why silos exist. People are incredibly busy, so, every time there is talk about another group, they are worried about fitting it into their diary. From a leadership point of view, it is important that we do not allow those silos to manifest and that, where we can, we take things out of people's diaries. I have often said to my Minister, since she came into post, "I will get you the best advice of the service; not from 'your' officials but from wherever the best officials for that are". To be honest, I have never run into a case where that caused any difficulty.

I am sympathetic to the reason for silos existing. It is not because of people not wanting to work together; it is because of busyness. What do we have to do to fix that? We have to make sure that we focus only on the things that really matter. In my time in DOF, I have done a lot on merging committees and groups, putting things together to say, "Let's meet". We have a finance, HR and resourcing committee, which is affectionately known as the "Fraggles" group. That is my finance and HR group. That put three groups together so that people did not have three separate things in their diary to which they would then send somebody else, starting the creation of a silo. You have to work hard to not let silos build up, because they build up naturally due to people's busyness. It is a big leadership challenge for all of us to make sure that silos do not sneak back in.

Mr Gildernew: What if they are castles, rather than silos? I know about silos, because I am from a farming background too. Should we guard against the fact that, in some cases, they may be castles?

Mr Gibson: Well, I know nothing about farming, so I am happier with castles. [Laughter.]

Dr Brady: I work in a castle. [Laughter.]

Mr Gildernew: You get my point about there being people who are protecting interests or are reluctant to move beyond their area. We need to be very focused on that, because it comes up repeatedly at the Committee.

Mr Gibson: Yes.

Dr Brady: Obviously, this is in the official domain. It is about people, cultures and ways of working. In the work that is done in the dashboards, you can get so much information that it becomes meaningless, because you cannot interpret anything. In the example of ISNI, it is about taking the 110 and asking what the key enabling actions are: what are we doing in those areas to effect those actions and what are Departments doing? There is almost a hotspots area: we can assemble those issues, identify those areas and make meaningful progress on them. Some of it is about sharing best practice. I do not think that anyone is out to bring detriment to their delivery. They want to deliver the best outcomes. That is what being a public servant is about. Those provide a framework by which we can analyse where potential hotspots are and support that.

Mr Gibson: A good example of how we have tried to deal with that is that, in the case of there being a very complex issue, we are reaching an approach whereby I would get together with a group of other perm secretaries and say, "Let's put together a collective piece of advice for the Ministers". That does not mean that each Department or each official has to agree. They might put four options to their Ministers, and the Department for the Economy might recommend option a, but the Department of Finance might not. However, the information and data that build those options should be consistent.

Prior to reaching that approach, I saw many occasions where a document was in that castle, which meant having to ask, "What is the respective from my Department?", whereas I have asked on a number of areas, much to Sharon's frustration, "Can you get us all the options across the Departments and put that to the Ministers?". We can provide our own departmental recommendation, but that should be on the same paper as the other Department's recommendation, even if we do not agree on the recommendation, because that is ultimately a political decision. That is instead of having four different subs in four Departments with one lens on them. That is a significant change, but I am glad that I am sitting far enough away from Sharon as I say that.

Dr Brady: Obviously, all our civil servants operate under impartiality and with an evidence base, but it is about the lens of impartiality in one Department versus the overall lens. The Programme for Government sets out where our overall metrics are. The metrics for the economy will not be delivered by just Economy; they need Education and Infrastructure to be part of that delivery, and they need ISNI to deliver a core aspect, because you will not have investment and be able to build unless those things are linked up. The need for input from other Departments is now so compelling that this is about how we support others. Getting the best outcomes for Departments requires a cross-cutting aspect.

Mr Magee: We have a Programme for Government, not a programme for nine Departments. We have in that not nine separate pages but priorities that span government. I have seen progress in the work of officials, who have their accounting officer (AO) or ministerial responsibilities, obviously, but who collaborate across government. I was fortunate enough to meet the FM and DFM. We are a relatively young democracy, and it is great that, through the coalition — that agreement — we are saying, "What is our Programme for Government? What is our investment strategy?". That is why people on this side of the table and on your side are pleased to serve.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Thank you. I am just conscious of time. We have only another hour and a half left, so I will pass to Tom —

Mr Boylan: Are you on a different clock from the rest of us?

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): — who will take us through questions on having the right skills in the right place at the right time.

Mr T Buchanan: Thank you for coming before the Committee today. Key to successful delivery of major capital projects is being able to depend on the right people with the right skills, from the initial stages of the project to its completion. The service-wide lack of professional skills has been a known issue for a considerable time. What is being done to address that?

Dr Brady: Before I hand over to Neil, I will concur with the theme. This is about people: the right people doing the right things is at the core of it. That is the job of a leader. The steps that I have taken — I have talked about them, so I will not rehearse them — are about bringing in expertise from non-execs to provide the challenge function for the NICS and, within the board, the recognition that neither ISNI nor our Programme for Government operates in isolation and that there is a skills pillar to do with how we develop workforce planning. A key aspect of the root cause analysis and enabling actions work was identifying those skills as being an outlying area. That is an area where we have had substantive focus. I will pass to Neil to talk about that progress.

Mr Gibson: I am glad that you raised the question. It is probably the area that gives me the greatest concern because the skills required are in such short supply, globally and locally. We have to take actions to try to make sure that we have the right people in the right place at the right time. We have to look at training our own because we are competing against other labour markets that can pay significantly more than we can for many of the skills that we need. We are looking at new apprenticeship and training models to bring people through. In some of our procurement areas, we are really struggling to bring in the labour.

We are working on skills audits to look across the piece to see exactly where the gaps are and where we can share expertise that is not needed at all times. We are also trying to make sure that we are as good a learning organisation as we can be, hence all the SRO networks etc so that people can take learning from colleagues and become better, maybe building up by being an SRO on a smaller project before moving to a larger one. We also need to be very nimble, because we do not always know all the skills that we need. You can think of the obvious things that you need on procurement or delivery, but there could be things that bubble up along the way that you were not aware that you needed, such as very technical or specialist expertise that will never be needed on a full-time basis. We need to look at ways of bringing that in.

When we look at our skills and capability and our capability and capacity work — again, there was helpful work from NIAO — it tells us that we have quite a journey to go on. We are looking at and trying to secure funding for more workforce modelling and analysis of the skills that we will need along the way. We also need to think about where and when we deploy people. For example, going through a very difficult and challenging project can be extremely mentally and physically exhausting for an individual. Whilst we might sit here and say that the right thing is just to roll them on to the next most difficult project, that may not be the best thing to do for their well-being or for our chances of keeping them long term. We need to think about how to use our skill appropriately — deploy it; lend it when it can be lent — and make sure that we can bring in the specialisms.

You are right to raise it. I could point to skills gaps and vacancies in the system that we cannot fill. That may curtail what we can deliver and the number of projects that we can do. That is a real concern that we have at the minute. However, the response to that includes new apprentices, new training schemes, new training programmes, and sending people through the different procurement skill sets. That is obviously not the only skill that we need. We also need project management and commercial acumen etc. You can probably tell by my enthusiasm that it is a subject close to my heart. I just want to be clear with the Committee just how hard a challenge that will be.

I am not taking anything away from the absolutely fabulous people whom we have in the system and I am in awe of, but it is a competitive world for those skill sets, and those brilliant people are in huge demand outside the service. Therefore, I am also looking at things such as allowances and what retention schemes we might have to introduce. We are modernising and looking at our pay strategy. We have a programme of work to look at that and at pivotal role allowances that are used elsewhere. We are definitely progressing that. I am glad that you raised it, because, as I said at the start of the session, people are key to this, and the skill sets that are needed for ever more complex projects are becoming more and more technical and more skilled.

Dr Brady: Sharon, would you like to talk about some of the programmes? Notwithstanding the challenges but the programmes that have been initiated in some of those areas.

Ms Smyth: I do not have the figures to hand, but over 60 people have gone through an assessment and development centre. That was a Cabinet Office initiative in 2020. That was when it was doing its capability review to find out where people's skills were. You got a job if you were assessed an A or a B, and, if you were a C, you were not put through to commercial delivery. We did not move that far, but we did use it as a way of assessing people's skills and where the skills gaps were.

Earlier, I mentioned the Major Projects Leadership Academy and the project leadership programme. Those programmes are expensive, but we believe that, as a resource, it is an investment that is well placed: you have somebody looking after a £10 billion, £20 billion or £30 billion project and are spending a few tens of thousands of pounds to put them through a skills programme. It is not only about the skills that they will get from the learning but about the networking with SROs and project directors in other jurisdictions. A lot of Departments are investing in that.

As Neil said, we have vacancies, and for a lot of the professions that we are struggling to recruit, other organisations are also struggling. Mechanical and electrical engineers and quantity surveyors are in short supply. In the construction division itself, we have 129 people. We have 26 architects, 15 surveyors, 34 engineers, and 44 project managers who are skilled as architects or have their own discipline, but we have 30 vacancies and are finding it difficult to fill those.

I am heartened, because we ran a new-entrants event last week in the pavilion, and there are people coming to the public sector who were in the private sector but see this as a good proposition for work-life balance and in the diversity and range of skills and projects that they are working on, from a CAFRE college to a prison and anything in between. Coming to work in the public sector is a good proposition.

DFI has over 90 vacancies and is struggling to attract. You might have heard a recent announcement about a civil engineering academy. Where we cannot bring the skills in, we will have to grow our own. There is a long lag of maybe three years in that, but at least, when you get that person in, they get the variety of the work, and then they are loyal to the purpose. When you join the Civil Service, you do not come for a massive pay package; you come for the purpose of delivering for citizens. Everybody is here to do their best, and we are seeing some of that turn, even though it is a buoyant employment market.

We also have to realise that employment is very fluid now. I have three sons, and each of them would move for £5,000, whereas, previously, you came into the Civil Service and it was a job for life. You do not even have to apply for a job. People are getting on LinkedIn, "I see what your skills are. Come and work for us". The Civil Service has to recognise that it will always be in a recruitment phase. We will always be recruiting those types of skills. The work that Neil is doing with people and organisation development is that we need to be more out there: if you have those skills, put your CV forward, and come and work for us. We are not there yet, but we do spend a lot of time recruiting.

For procurement officers, we went out for graduates. We had over 350 applications for 10 jobs, so there is a demand. We have to take those people through a three-year training programme, which is costly. When we get them trained, their skills are so transferable that we can lose them to the private sector or to other public-sector organisations. So, we constantly have to recruit. For me, it is about making us as an employer look as attractive as possible to make sure that we bring people in and that, when we get them in, we keep them for a bit of time before we have to go through it all again.

Dr Brady: I will build on those areas. There is a need for us to be an exemplar in Northern Ireland. We talked about the academies. Those were developed by the Department for the Economy and delivered in the economy. We took those models and applied them in the Executive Office and the Department for the Economy in order to bring in and train people. It is about scaling that model. That has been done in the last couple of years in Infrastructure.

There is a need for us to recognise that coming into the Civil Service is a different proposition. I have three children, and, for me, it is all about making a difference in the world. That is what they want to do. There is nowhere better in the world to work than in the Northern Ireland Civil Service, given its ability to make a difference because of the size and scale of what you can do and the impact that you can make. However, we know that we need to refactor that proposition, because we will not attract people based purely on salary. We know that, for those professional posts, we cannot be competitive on salary. The other aspect is our payment to our small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and our social value and how we can model those things that need to be delivered at an all-Northern-Ireland level.

Mr Magee: Thank you for asking the question. When I applied for the role on the board, the thing that struck me most was the NIAO's report on culture and capability. A very significant proportion of our Civil Service is within probably 10 years of retirement, so you have to do workforce planning. I planned on Neil answering in the way he did. When he said that he was not sleeping, he was afraid that I was going to badger him again on it. I am pretty focused on that one service-wide.

I am also focused on what we are talking about today: major capital projects. Enabling action 1 and enabling action 2 are about people. It is about developing the infrastructure profession. It is about working with Sharon to make sure that we are hiring and developing successors to the people in the SRO room. It is about working with not just the Civil Service but the arm's-length bodies, which do a lot of the capital projects. We are chatting to them. Scott mentioned to me today that he had been out to chat to them about their workforce planning. It is about who will build the schools, hospitals and roads of the future. That is what enabling action 2 is about. That was music to my ears, because it is absolutely critical. If you step back and look at that report, you see that, strategically, we need the right people in the right places.

Mr T Buchanan: On the point about building the workforce that is required, skills are needed to close the gap that is there. What engagement do you have with the colleges or universities to ensure that they are delivering the courses that are required for people to come into those types of jobs?

Ms Smyth: We are doing a lot of work with DFE. This is not just about the public sector. I hope that you have the ISNI enabling actions. If not, we will send them to you, because we have talked a lot about them. Do you have them?

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): No.

Ms Smyth: OK. We will send them to you. The first one is about having a workforce plan for the public and private sectors, because the public sector cannot do this on its own. It goes back to the question about silo working. Even if we fix it in the public sector, without a private-sector partnership, we will not deliver very much. We are working with the public and private sectors. We work with the Construction Employers Federation (CEF) and the Northern Ireland Construction Group (NICG). We have DFE in the room. We talk to the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) as well. Sorry for all the acronyms. They work collectively, because we have to attract people with those skills. Whilst the public sector may not look attractive, the construction sector, equally, does not look attractive. We need more females and more engineers. A lot of engineers move on to software development, because it is hugely lucrative. We are working with the private sector and DFE to try to move that forward.

The construction sector gave it really good compliments on its future skills document and on what it is doing with the colleges and in the regions to unlock some of the talent that we are not getting to, because a lot of it is Belfast-centric. It is about how we move out to the regions and use the regional college network to make sure that we have courses available that the employers want. There is a huge amount of work. The number of quantity surveyor (QS) courses in universities is starting to grow. I think that there was a headcount restriction in some of them. We now see that we need more QSs and more engineers. The universities and the colleges are starting to fill those gaps. We will have to do that work continuously. DFE is taking the lead on it.

Mr Gibson: We are lucky to have very strong institutions locally. In the last 10 years, relationships have been built up with the industry, and bespoke courses and training are provided through either the FE or HE network. It is not a new model for them. We are finding that to be an easy relationship when it comes to talking about the type of training we need. They are very proactive, so there are certainly no complaints on our side about the willingness or capability of the colleges and universities to step forward. As Sharon said, it is about being able to combine with our colleagues and friends in other parts of public service or, indeed, in the private sector to work out where there is a quantum of demand for a course that might not be there if we were the only customer. That is why we have to have all those partnerships. We are very lucky that our institutions are so locally focused and willing to provide and support us with bespoke training etc.

Mr T Buchanan: You seem to have a problem, as do most other sectors, with people coming in, being trained up, staying awhile and then moving on. Have you looked at any incentives to keep people with the skill sets that you need and to ensure that they remain with you rather than moving on to somewhere else?

Mr Gibson: We have. A coming attraction is a full review of our pay strategy in all its guises. It will be about the type of pay we offer and the other incentives that are part of working in the public sector — the public-service pension and hybrid working etc — but we will also look at the possibility of retention and recruitment allowances and where those might be required.

As Sharon said, some of it is about the purpose. One thing that we have to become is more agile in letting people come and go, and we have a long way to go on that. If you spend time in the most successful economies in the world or economics that we might aspire to be like, such as Scandinavia or New Zealand, you will meet a lot of people in their public service who have been in the private sector, come to the public sector and gone back again or have done PhDs. We do not have that kind of flow at the moment. We need to make it a little bit easier. When we think of some of our people leaving the service, we might have to think of that more as them being on a career break.

Taking that modern approach, whereby people might have two or three stints in public service, may ultimately be more successful than trying to keep them. We can really benefit from people who have had experience in other jurisdictions or in the private sector, but can we have an easy and open door through which they can come back? That requires modernisation around some of our HR policies and processes, but we are looking at that. It is about a combination of trying to keep people and making it easier for people to come back or stay with us for a while, because the future world will have a lot of curious workers who want to experience public-sector work. We need to make it easier for them to do so.

Mr T Buchanan: You will be aware that, in 2010, PAC put forward a recommendation that a register of public-sector staff with project and programme management skills and expertise should be put in place to ensure that future projects benefit from that pool of experienced and skilled staff. What progress has been made on that?

Mr Gibson: Not as much as I would like. We have been fortunate that, in the past, there have been only a small quantum of people with some of the various specialist skills or who have been to the Major Projects Leadership Academy (MPLA) etc, so we could almost hold those numbers in our head. However, as we design our new HR and IT systems and progress the famed Integr8 project, one of our requirements in the design principles will be about holding that training record better. We are looking at ways of doing that.

We have built up talent biographies at the senior level, so that we record those skills, but I would not say that we have it across the system in the way that that recommendation suggested and that I would have liked. We have done it at the senior level, which is a good start, but we do not have that learning passport, if you like, or record of everybody's skill set. We rely a little bit more on those individuals putting themselves forward or being known in the system, and that is not ideal. The honest answer is that there is work to be done in that area.

Mr T Buchanan: Thank you. I take it that you understand the current skills that are already available across the system and of what is needed to successfully deliver the major projects. Have you conducted a skills gap analysis across the system?

Mr Gibson: More is coming on that. We did exactly that in, for example, a project that I am in charge of as part of the Integr8 programme. We looked at the skills that we needed to deliver the project. Some of our enabling actions are about taking a wider look. Sharon hit on a very important point earlier. Typically, in the past, we would have done that by looking just at the NICS. That is not the right question, because so many of the capital projects are delivered through ALBs. We are now working though the enabling actions, and that work is now kicking off.

One thing that we have to do is to be cognisant of the fact that the skills needs are always changing.

We have to find a fairly agile way of being able to do it that we can update quite quickly. Often, we find people coming back and saying "Here is a new skill that I did not know that I would need in the same quantum", It could be a new skill set that is required, a new level of environmental economist or whatever it might be that we did not think we needed when we started out. It is important that we keep that on track. That is covered by enabling actions 1 and 2 under the "People" area.

Mr Magee: We have 359 staff across the service who are registered project managers, but, across the COPEs, we have almost 200 vacancies. To me, that is a pretty big skills gap. We need to fill it.

Mr T Buchanan: To address these issues, have you set a target, or is it the case that you will be back here in, say, six months, a year or two years' time still sitting in the same situation? Have you set a specific target to try to have this addressed by a particular time?

Mr Gibson: The straight answer to that is no. The reason why we have not set a specific numerical target is that, in some cases, we have been out many times and are having to go back to the drawing board and ask whether we will ever be able to attract that particular skill set. Maybe we need to re-profile what we do or buy in that service. We do not have a specific number, but we will have much better and stronger reporting on where those vacancies and supply gaps are.

Mr Magee: That is why I commented on the service-wide workforce planning and the workforce planning for major capital projects. I have offered to Neil Gibson and the people on the organisational development team that I would like to take the infrastructure profession through that. It would be an early example of where we can do workforce planning across the NICS and the ALBs. If we were to come back here in two or four years' time and say, "The 200 vacancies have become 400, and we cannot deliver the project", you would say, "Not great work, Patrick", and I would agree with you. I would not like to have that conversation.

Dr Brady: Of course, perhaps Brett would like to contribute. SIB has been a key source for that strategic resource in there. The framework in the ISNI subcommittee is deploying that expert resource across the service to ask, "Where are the problem spots? Where do we need to bring in that expert? Perhaps it does not have to be for the entire duration of a programme, but where have we seen this before? How can we crowd in to ensure delivery?" I do not know whether you want to comment, Brett.

Mr Hannam: SIB exists, in part, to impart or provide expertise that the NICS does not have or that it would not be sensible for it to provide, if it is required at a very high level for a very short period. As recommended by the PAC, we will continue to do that. I absolutely emphasise the importance of creating, in connection with ISNI, a realistic workforce plan that identifies the resources required to deliver that plan, because, without it, we will run into a great deal of difficulty. We must prepare now to have in place all the resources that we need to deliver those projects successfully.

Mr T Buchanan: Thank you. I have one final question. The business case process has been streamlined, and, since 2020, a new five-case model has been in place. What impact has the change to the business case process had on the delivery of major capital projects?

Mr Gibson: We have done the interim review, and the early indications are positive, but we will need the fuller review that we will have before the end of this financial year. We would be happy to share that. Most of the projects that we have been talking about today existed under a previous business case model, so it takes quite a bit of time to see what effect the changes are having. There was quite a challenge to transition to that shorter process. The attention has often gone down from 10 to five, but the early recommendations of our interim report are that the key thing for us is documenting and recording where external evidence has been brought to bear. If you really think about a business case, you see that it hangs on a number of key pieces of information: the key assumptions or estimates that you have made of the number of people who will use a facility or the number of jobs that it will create. Where do you build that evidence? Very often, you have to call on external reports or expertise for that. One of the early findings of the report is that documenting that is absolutely critical in making sure that the business case stands up.

There are lots of learnings. What has improved is that business cases are certainly getting shorter, which is good. The quality has improved, but it will take the bigger, fuller evaluation to look more broadly at it. We will have that, all being well, before the end of this financial year.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): I want to touch on skills. The Department for the Economy has released the Skill Up programme again. Given what you said about gaps in skills, particularly in major capital projects, have you fed in your concerns or had conversations with the Department for the Economy to make sure that it is providing those courses?

Ms Smyth: That was brought to my attention a month or so ago, so I have had conversations. I contacted the person in DFE, and we have another contact after that. The Department, obviously, is aware of the skills shortages, given that construction is a really key employer in Northern Ireland. Yes, I have made those contacts.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): I have seen a number of projects there that show what you are saying about where the skills gaps are. There are programmes that are available, but it is about how they are promoted to make sure that people are availing themselves of free upskilling courses. That is a key driver. Thank you very much.

We will go on to legal challenges now, so I will pass over to Colm.

Mr Gildernew: I want to move us on to legal challenges and to the issue of the social licence, which you have mentioned several times. I will use the A5 as an example of that because that is particularly relevant and germane at present. I was late to the meeting today because I had just come from St Ciaran's College. Minister O'Dowd had gone there to address the pupils about his announcement. That visit came about largely because he had met a group of pupils from the school last week in the Senate Chamber, and one of them, Lucy, asked him, "Why don't you get on with it?". She appropriately challenged him, and that is totally fundamental to what we are discussing today. I commend the rest of the students, including Ciaran and Dearbhla, the head boy and head girl, for the campaign that they have fought. I remind people that a lot of this emanates from a demonstration that the school held on a particular date. In my view, that did not build social licence but demonstrated the fact that social licence already existed and that community engagement and wishes were there. Tragically, one student, Kamile Vaicikonyte, lost her life on the A5 within 48 hours of taking part in the demonstration.

It has been clear in our community for a long time that there is huge social licence and social buy-in to the A5. Our community has understood the need for it for a very long time. However, we get a sense from other evidence sessions here that there can be a reluctance or an inability to effectively engage with communities around building support for these projects. That then leads to delays and increased costs. Is there an understanding of the importance of social licensing and meaningful community engagement, and what has been done since our last report that demonstrates meaningful improvement in that respect?

Dr Brady: I want to reflect on that, and I will then bring in colleagues. There is analysis on both sides. In my opening remarks, I talked about a 44% overrun. That represents significant sums of money, but it is people's lives that are affected, including Kamile and the 55 other people who, sadly, have passed in that way. That is the real impact, and we as civil servants need to offer support to make sure that those things never happen again. Representatives from the Department for Infrastructure are not here to discuss this, but the A5 makes up the largest proportion of that budget overrun. It and the maternity hospital comprise the majority of that overrun, and the rest are within £600 million, a 10% factor. In some senses, there are big numbers that you can take, but you need to drill down into those numbers. Of course, the underlying aspect was the legal challenge that was facilitated. I will probably take advice on the best way to address —.

Mr Gildernew: I will come back to the legal element of it, but I would like an answer on the social licence. Do we get it yet, and are we using it effectively?

Mr Gibson: I will come in on that, partly because, when I read the root causes report, it was probably the piece that stood out most to me. To be absolutely frank with the Committee, I had thought of our doing that through some of our consultations. It took that language, my studying it a bit more and looking at the French model to understand what it really means to be doing it and doing it well. It needs to be a dedicated strand of the work. It is not running a consultation. I am one of the people who held his hands up and said that I had needed to be educated on what that took.

On the report, I got Brett to come along to my board to speak to all of my colleagues and talk us through what the potential there is. I still do not know the answer to what way we would set up the right model for that, but I think that it is one of the most profound findings at the minute: we have some different areas that have terrifically close and really good social and community engagement, but social licences are more than that. I certainly was one of the people to go on a journey, and I am unlikely to have been the only one. Whilst it seems an easy thing to recognise, I took extra advice so that we as a Department could think about doing it much better. We will have to think about whether we need to do anything, French model or otherwise, to bring it into the system. These are public services for our citizens, so we need them to be at the heart of the delivery. I certainly took a lot of lessons, and I humbly say that I had not grasped the importance of it as fully as I should have. The root cause report and some of the recent tragic examples help us to understand that. However, we have seen some really good projects where we have done it well.

Mr Gildernew: Will you give us one example?

Ms Smyth: The transport hub is a really good example. Its location could have caused quite a lot of difficulties, but the fact that people engaged with the community and said, "Look, we are going to incorporate social value here. What are the top three things that you want to leave a legacy from this?" helped to get through some of the other problems that could have stopped the project in its tracks. Their engagement with community representatives across the area meant that they were able to get through those problems easily, or more easily than they would have had they not got that social licence.

Having got the root cause analysis report, we are also doing an update on procurement policy note (PPN) 01/21, which is on scoring social value. That was one of the first procurement policy notes under Minister Murphy, who was Finance Minister from 2020 to 2022. Part of the amendment will be to incorporate the mandating of a social licence for relevant major projects. One of the enabling actions for that will be to develop guidance to make sure that, when people get the mandate, it does not slow everything down but actually works.

Making the investment up front is important, because it is about getting the fundamentals right when you set up a project, and one of those fundamental parts is the social licence. Others are getting the right people at the right time and having the guaranteed funding stream that will show that the project is viable, that it will work and that we are committed to putting out a tender, getting bids back and starting construction.

Mr Gildernew: I would like to see social value as part of the overall social licence, which, effectively, is public buy-in and public support.

Ms Smyth: Yes, 100%.

Mr Gildernew: Sometimes we overdo the phraseology, but it is about public buy-in and public support, which leads me to the legal part. While I fully respect people's right to access the courts, part of that is about proportionality and assessing where the correct balance lies when there is a massive public need and public support. We need to have a system in place that allows people to challenge effectively but does not necessarily allow gridlock on key projects to happen repeatedly and for all time.

In 2020, when the Committee first considered this topic, we heard that legal challenges often add time and cost to major capital projects, as has been the case. The memorandum of reply on the subject referred to the NIAO report on judicial review. The report found that the number of applications is decreasing, but it noted — this is the key part — that the data is not collated in a way that enables cross-system learning from legal challenge. What lessons have been learned, and how are they being shared so that past problems are not repeated?

Mr Magee: I will come in. Hopefully, I will get this right, but you can correct me if not.

Hopefully, we will get through all 12 enabling actions. Enabling action 8 is the social licence. Brett's report brought it home to me really clearly. One thing that I learned in my management career was that, if people feel that change is being done to them, they will resist it, but, if they realise that it is for their benefit, they will support it. I absolutely get the importance of social licence. It is one of our 12 priority actions.

You are right about proportionality when it comes to legal challenges. There is some very good work on that in Brett's report. The challenge is brought for one reason, but a project then gets pulled down for another, process-related reason. Is that proportionate? I will leave the question there.

You asked about lessons learnt. Just as I have insisted on workforce planning, Neil has said, "I would like a regular report from the Departmental Solicitor's Office (DSO) to tell us what challenges we are getting and what lessons are being learned". I credit Neil for making that a focus.

Mr Gibson: Make sure that that is in Hansard. I do not get credited for much. Say it again, louder.

One of the things that we are trying to bring to the NICS board is a regular lessons report once a year from internal auditors, the head of information management, the senior information risk (SIRO) group and our legal services. We run training, from the DSO out of DOF, on preparing for and how to avoid judicial reviews, what sort of information you should have and how you should handle that. The team there do an excellent job and recently did some training for DAERA. I can get you more material on that. DOF does not tend to deliver the training, so I do not get as much detail of that to my board as regularly and frequently, but the team come and provide training. As Patrick said, we will also bring to accounting officers' attention the learnings across the system from this year and what we have learned that people may not have experienced yet but might be about to.

The two things are connected. The better we do social licence, the better it mitigates potential issues to some extent. The second thing around a lot of the judicial review process is that we are still in the infancy of really understating how to deal with climate change effectively and fully. It is bringing a lot of new complexities to the legislation. We will have new budgetary frameworks to work within, and we hope that that will become a clearer environment to work in -— excuse the pun — going forward. That lack of clarity is certainly challenging for the legal system and us, but I reassure you that, through our DSO team, we have training going out and being offered to Departments. We will also have an annual report to see what the system is taking from the things that we have got right and the things that we have not done so well.

Dr Brady: Also, in the draft Programme for Government, there is a transformation and reform aspect. There are things that we should be doing better or enhancing and areas that we may need to include in our consideration of reform or transformation: for example, for some of the bids from Departments, looking at different ways, within a ring-fenced structure and in a confined space, to deliver those levels of reform. Perhaps Brett will comment on the level of complexity and the very detailed analysis that was done of the legal challenges and the findings from the judiciary, including the cross-cutting aspects.

Mr Hannam: Yes. One of the root causes of delay in the delivery of major capital projects is undoubtedly the complexity of planning law and, for reasons that Neil explained, the growing complexity of planning law: the application of the Climate Change Act 2022 and obligations arising under net zero. Unless action is taken to address that complexity, we will see more challenges.

As Mr Gildernew said, if you take the A5 as an example, you see that there was a strong social licence and strong local community support. There was, however, also a much smaller, but very vocal and extremely active, opposition, for reasons that are well known. The issue is that we have two mechanisms by which objectors can make their objections known.

The first is through the planning process. The objectors explain the reasons why they think that there are better alternatives, and the law puts in place objective and independent mechanisms by which those objections can be assessed. In the case of the A5, they were considered in the proper manner, and the decision was taken to grant planning permission. Unfortunately, at that point, a separate system kicks in, which is where the complexity of planning law is so important. The objectors are then able to seek a judicial review of the decision to grant planning permission, and, because of the staggering complexity of planning law, that is becoming easier and easier to do: to identify some tiny flaw, a technical procedural flaw that will lead to the quashing of that planning permission.

As we saw with the A5, in the case of the 2012 planning application, the High Court quashed the planning permission on the grounds that one element of the environmental habitat regulations — it related to a particular type of salmon — had not been addressed correctly. The cost of not building the A5 in 2012 and having to wait until now to build it is measured in billions of pounds. However, as you made clear —

Mr Gildernew: It is also about human lives.

Mr Hannam: — the cost is also measured in lives lost. The question is whether that is a proportionate approach. I think that most of us would agree that, although we need to provide opportunities for members of the public to challenge the executive, that should be in a way that is proportionate and does not lead to such disproportionate consequences. You will be aware that that is a growing problem. The A5 is one example. Casement Park was challenged by way of judicial review. The Southern Regional College project at Craigavon was stopped by way of judicial review. Whatever you think of the Arc21 project, it has been going for over 13 years and been challenged regularly by judicial review. The challenges were based not on the merit of the projects themselves but on a technicality of whether every single step had been followed correctly.

The consequence of that complexity and of proposers and developers of projects seeing what is happening is that they are making their applications more and more voluminous as they seek to address every possible challenge that might be put forward and to ensure that every single t is crossed and i is dotted. The growth in the size of planning applications is quite remarkable. Some of the figures that we found in the course of our study were shocking. The planning application for the further education campus at Craigavon contained 5,000 pages. A non-contentious wind farm application contained nearly 14,000 pages. The Strule Shared Education Campus application had 550 separate documents in it. As a coda to all of that, the training manual for the planning inspectorate, which is charged with administering, contains 3,240 pages. Simply reading those documents would take months, but, if you factor in the time taken to draft them, to review them, to put them through the lawyers, to hand them over to the planning officers and for the planning officers to read and assess them, it becomes an extremely arduous task that adds considerably to the length of time required to deliver the assessment. The level of detail that has to be gone into provides an enormous opportunity for people to challenge that assessment. It is not just me saying that; in the Court of Appeal ruling on the Southern Regional College, the judge drew attention to what he described as a legal "maze" through which the planning officers had to chart a course. I emphasise that it was the Court of Appeal that decided that issue, which means that, previously, a High Court judge, learned in law, made an error in his interpretation of it. Yet we expect a planning officer on £40,000 a year to make a better decision than, or as good a decision as, a High Court judge on £200,000 a year. It is unsustainable, so change has to come. However, that change will be fundamental and will require changes to the law, which is beyond the competence of my colleagues sitting here today.

Mr Gildernew: That is a task for another day, Chair, but it is useful —.

Mr Boylan: That was excellent. At least we have now identified about 95% of the issues. There are a few more. That is all the information that we need. The other day, in a planning debate in the Chamber, it was as if we were going to change planning law just like that, but these are the discussions that we are having, and that is the information that we have gathered. There are a lot of complications, but at least a conversation such as this draws them out.

Dr Brady: I commend the SIB — obviously, it is an independent ALB — for the level of data and analysis that went into that. Perhaps the root cause analysis will inform that. Data is key. You can use numbers and everything else, but it is about drilling into it. You can have a view that those objections were based on something else, or perhaps there were genuinely and legitimately held objections, but the process that allowed that to happen did not address those issues.

Mr Gildernew: Fundamentally, we must address these issues in order to progress some of the important projects and deliver all of the benefits around prosperity and environmental improvement. All of those need to happen.

Dr Brady: That is why transforming and reforming is fundamental.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): We do not have the root cause analysis: could that be sent to the Committee?

Mr Hannam: I can send a printed copy, but I can also refer you to a copy —.

Mr Boylan: Can you send a shortened version, please? [Laughter.]

Mr Hannam: There is a copy in the Assembly Library.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Thank you very much. We will move on to cost and time overruns.

Ms Forsythe: I will follow up on Colm's point and fully explore recommendation 13 in the previous PAC report on major capital projects. The Civil Service recommended work with the judiciary. Has there been progress made on that and is any more progress planned? Has the issue been taken seriously by the judiciary?

Dr Brady: We do not have the Department for Infrastructure here, which identified the planning improvements aspect. I will ask Sharon to discuss where those elements are, but, first, I will bring in Brett to talk more broadly about the analysis that needs to be progressed. Will you make a start, Brett?

Mr Hannam: It is another aspect of the problem. For example, in the case of the Southern Regional College, which I mentioned earlier, it took two years for the High Court judge to deliver his judgement in that case. Even if his judgement had been upheld, and we had progressed with that project during the two-year period that it took to deliver the judgement, the costs would have risen in sums that could be measured in millions of pounds. It would seem to me to be a very good investment if we were to have more judges who could deliver those judgements in a shorter time. That, however, is not a matter that we, or certainly I, can have any influence over, but it does demonstrate the importance of sensitising the Lord Chief Justice and the other elements of the judicial system to the consequences of restrictions in the judicial service.

Ms Forsythe: Thank you. In recommendation 13, the Committee recommended that the Civil Service work with the judiciary to consider whether there should be a higher bar for taking judicial reviews and whether there is that working together. Have they been working together on that?

Has there been working together on that?

Ms Smyth: If we look at the memorandum of reply, the Department of Justice partially accepted the recommendation. Its view was that it could not accept it:

Its view at the time was:

It was agreed, however, that DOF and DOJ would work with the Northern Ireland Audit Office when its report on the judicial review came through. One of the actions in there was that the DSO would set up training and share lessons. That goes back to Mr Gildernew's point about how the recommendation was taken forward. It has been taken forward, and that training is being carried out. A report will go to the NICS board to summarise the changes.

Dr Brady: To return to the conversation that we have just had on transformation, many of those aspects are outwith the role of officials. Indeed, the Planning Appeals Commission (PAC) is an ALB of the Department of Justice that plays a key role in the process, and it is operationally independent. More cross-cutting, Executive-level reform is required as part of that.

Ms Forsythe: Would it be part of your project team's initial work to scope out where you might see legal issues as potentially being a risk?

Mr Hannam: There are some fairly fundamental barriers that would prevent you raising the bar. I am sorry for mixing my metaphors. The Aarhus convention, for example, seeks to ensure that everybody should be able to use the law to protect the environment, and it caps the plaintiff's costs at £5,000, or at £10,000 for a group. That means that cost as a discouragement to taking legal action disappears. Unless the United Kingdom were to withdraw from that convention, the judges can only apply the convention as it stands, so the bar will not be reduced in that area.

There was talk of shortening the period during which applicants have the opportunity to raise a judicial review, but the position of the legal establishment is very much that the deadlines that are set are short enough as it is. It sees no justification for making them any shorter. Taking those two factors into account, I do not think that the bar will be raised, in the short term at least.

Ms Forsythe: Thank you. When it comes to the cost and time overruns, we were talking about the root causes report's analysis work. I want to ask Jayne about the key findings in that regard, which are to do with people, policy and processes. What have you done to address those findings and the recommendations from them?

Dr Brady: I am not one to rehearse discussions that we have had previously. We have put in place the recommendations that are within my purview, and they are delivering. Sharon has walked you through them from a departmental perspective. For the investment strategy, we worked with officials to have it ready for an incoming Executive, as well as the Programme for Government and the reform agenda. I am secretary to the Executive and the SRO for the Programme for Government, as well as being on the NICS board, which provides those cross-cutting structures. It is for the Executive to consider what those reports will look like and how we can deliver on them over subsequent years.

We have talked about some of the aspects and where the major issues are occurring. Some of them lie in the legal process from the OBC stage to the FBC stage. That is outwith the role of officials and requires a more radical agenda for reform. To be able to provide that level of impartial data-led information, which could feed into a reform agenda, I will be leading the reform and transformation aspect as well. That creates the fundamental data to inform those areas.

Brett gave some explanation of the root causes analysis, which is a significant body of work, and described how we are factoring it in to make sure that there are things that we can meaningfully identify as being barriers. Moreover, we can track and target them so that they are not just things that sit in a strategy or a paper but things that we give effect to and crystallise into a critical few elements.

We are content to come back. I will be delighted to return to the Committee to give an update on that, although perhaps not after three years again.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Absolutely. [Laughter.]

Dr Brady: I can come back as we move to launch the investment strategy and the Programme for Government and to talk about the report structure.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): That is great. Has the NICS board requested a timetable, an action plan or steps for going forward from the root causes analysis?

Mr Magee: It sort of comes together. You had the mapping of the 105 recommendations and the root causes analysis, which I recommend that you have a look at. We have simplified it into 12 actions. At the last NICS board meeting, the ISNI committee said, "Here is the progress that we have made on these, and here are the next milestones that we need to achieve". I have worked with the team to appoint an individual SRO for each of the 12 actions, which

was keen on throughout. We therefore have a clear action plan. You are welcome —.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): What is the first deadline that we have?

Mr Magee: One paper went out yesterday. Was it on the people side, Scott?

Mr Scott Wilson (Strategic Investment Board): I am sorry, but I am not allowed to say. [Laughter.]

Mr Magee: One paper went out yesterday that I had a look at. There is therefore continuous progress being made on the actions.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): It would be great, as you say, to have ongoing reporting to the Committee on how that is going. It would be really useful.

Dr Brady: I will be very happy to come back. I guess, speaking frankly, we will have set up the NICS board with its reconstituted framework and established the non-execs. I would have hoped to have had a work plan and more detail by now. We work under the direction of the Executive, so some of that is as a result of not having the Programme for Government.

My vision is that we have some deliverables. We would have a scheduled work plan. As a corporate board, we will have to say, "This is what we are delivering". We now have a focus at each of the sessions on doing a deep dive into the investment strategy. We will also do a deep dive into the draft Programme for Government, the fiscal elements and then the people areas. We are therefore moving towards those areas, but the real need is to focus on a smaller group of people who know the aspects. We are having that external scrutiny in order to hold us to account.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Thank you. Pádraig has to go at 5.10 pm. He has a number of questions, if you can answer them all.

Mr Delargy: You will be glad to hear that you have already answered a number of my questions already. Budget is often cited as a barrier to delivery but, as has been touched on already, the root causes analysis does not show that as being such a key reason. I appreciate that you have touched on this, but are you able to identify, as concisely as possible, what your top three targets are, how you intend to measure them and what barriers there are?

Mr Magee: Do you mean the enabling action plan or budget?

Mr Delargy: No. Budget is cited consistently as one of the key barriers to delivery. The root causes analysis does not necessarily agree, but that is the sole —.

Dr Brady: We would say that budget has probably not featured as a key barrier. It is obviously necessary but not sufficient. The policy included the legal aspects that we have just covered. In the process, it was the skills dimensions for, I guess, procuring, estimating and cost management, and then it was the people capability for delivery capacity. Budget obviously needs to be in place. Some OBCs are done when budget is not agreed, and they have to come back for an FBC, so there are those aspects to consider. Perhaps you want to come in there, Sharon.

Ms Smyth: If you talk to the infrastructure industry, you will hear, many times, that multi-year Budgets are essential in order to plan, because it is very difficult to squeeze infrastructure into a 12-month cycle. We are therefore really keen to see multi-year Budgets come through for infrastructure delivery. Multi-year Budgets will give us the pipeline and the funding arrangements in a more sustainable and stable way.

Mr Magee: The other thing to say, from a high-level perspective, Pádraig, is that part of the exercise to create that version of the ISNI was to go out and ask Departments how much money they would like to spend. There will be a significant gap between what is available to spend and what is needed. Difficult decisions will have to be made in some areas.

I will try to fill out the 12 actions. Enabling action 9 is to look at alternative financing for some of those areas over time. In some areas, you could bring in outside capital to do that. There will therefore be a mismatch between the supply of capital — what we will have over the next 10 years — and what we would ideally like to spend. Some hard decisions will have to be made. That is why we have created action 9. The only one that I have not mentioned so far is action 12, which is on environmental budgets, but, apart from that —.

Dr Brady: A key point to make is that we cannot measure things just with a financial envelope. Rather, they have to be measured using a carbon budget, because there are legal requirements. It is not a zero-sum game. I would argue that there is also a social element involved. In fact, that is why ISNI has been developed with people, planet and prosperity in mind. What are the trades that you need to look at through the prioritisation lens? The draft Programme for Government talks about different borrowing powers and, indeed, about the sustainability plan and the fiscal plan for the Housing Executive. We will not be able to build a sufficient number of houses. There need to be different models for looking at that. I guess that it is about looking at what the options are to open up different routes through which we can fund and prioritise.

Mr Delargy: Thanks for that. I suppose that what I am really keen to get at are the specific targets and measures, because a lot of this is very broad and overarching. I will take one of the specific areas that has come up quite a lot today, which is skills. The Economy Minister, Conor Murphy, is prioritising skills through programmes such as SKILL UP. What exactly does that look like in the Civil Service? Does it mean that all staff are involved in consistent skilling or just the specific staff who are working on the projects? I would just like for it to be a wee bit more tangible so that we can see exactly what sorts of targets and measures will be put in place.

Dr Brady: We might come back to you with our reflections on that, Mr Delargy. Sharon, you have been working on those projects, so do you want to identify any?

Ms Smyth: Again, if you were to ask me what success looks like, I would say that we have an integrated procurement plan for what we will deliver over, I hope, the next five years. We have given an action to introduce by, I think, March 2025, that integrated plan. That all relies on the ISNI's being agreed, however. In the absence of the Executive's agreeing the ISNI, there is a starting point, and we have not reached that starting point yet, but we are still delivering maintenance. We have to dedicate a huge amount of money from the ISNI investment pot to maintenance. That is known. We have asked all centres of procurement expertise and Departments, "What is your capacity and capability to deliver your maintenance? What frameworks do you have in place? What contracts do you have in place? When are you going to market? Can we collaborate? Can we use frameworks that already exist?".

To co-exist with a procurement integrated plan, we also need a workforce plan. We know what we are going to do, so it is about whom we will engage with in the public sector and in the private sector to do it, what skills we will need at each stage and from where we will get those skills. That will help inform us how many SIB advisers and how many external bodies we need. I am not sure of the timescale, but each of those enabling actions has its own project initiation document, which says how we will do it, who will do it and by when. Patrick is determined that each of the actions should have an owner so that he can hold that person to account. I own action 7 and am very conscious of that fact. I will hopefully not be found wanting when it comes to getting the integrated procurement plan together.

It is a huge piece of work. Let us not underestimate the job of work that we are trying to do, because we are trying to work across Departments that are all very busy and that all have their own sets of procedures and processes. Let us recognise that 75% of delivery is outwith the NICS, so, even if the NICS has the best terms and conditions, there will be inequity if those are not replicated across all the arm's-length bodies. It is a huge amount of work, but the closest milestone for me is that we should have an integrated procurement plan by March 2025, which will hopefully coexist with a workforce plan.

Mr Magee: Sharon owns action 7. At the moment, Scott owns action 1, which is the people plan. My vision for monitoring and governance is that we have a plan for £x billion over the next 10 years. I would like a short-term plan for what we intend the capital budget to be for the next one to three years.

When it comes to the workforce plan, we have 359 project managers, and Sharon listed the statistics for the other associated professionals. I want to see whether we can deliver capital against that. That is basic workforce planning. For example, do we need more civil engineers? Once we answer that, we can say, "We need to go and hire those people". I am very good at drawing vague pictures, but that is the picture that I envisage accompanying the ISNI committee. That could then be reported up to the Executive.

Thanks. That has helped Scott and me to draft that next piece, although I have had that image in my mind.

Mr Delargy: That is useful. It is important for us to know exactly what this looks like and to make sure that it is measurable and that people are accountable. It is reassuring and very welcome to hear that you have those processes in place. You said that you are willing to come back to the Committee. If possible, I would love to get a bit more detail about those plans, because it is important to get a better understanding of exactly what the targets are so that they can be measured.

I have another couple of questions, but, to be honest, they would be better answered when you come back to the Committee. I will run through them anyway. The key one is about how things move so much quicker in the private sector than they do in the public sector. I am sure that you get that all the time. There is a broad conversation to be had about that, but, specifically, what are the three top learning points from the private sector that you think could be adapted to the public sector? I am keen to get into some of the detail rather than just the overarching stuff. I appreciate that you may not have an answer to that today, but I would like that question to be fed into your next session with the Committee.

Dr Brady: It feels as though there may be a different format. We discussed the root causes analysis and how that fed into enabling actions. The Executive will have to agree the investment strategy for Northern Ireland and bring it forward, and the actions plans will form part of that. I am looking to my colleagues, but I think that we would be very happy to come back and work through those areas with the Committee. A significant amount of analysis has been done, however.

Mr Delargy: Thank you very much. I appreciate your detailed answers. I am conscious that other members have questions to ask.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Cathal.

Mr Boylan: I could not resist, Deputy Chair.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Obviously not.

Mr Boylan: Brett sat over there for most of the meeting and then, towards the end, broke out loads of data. It is good information about the root causes analysis.

When it comes to planning, people are entitled to object. The environmental laws have to be applied, and all that goes with them should be part of the process. You said that it is complex. Where do we go from here with the enabling actions? Should they be across all Departments? I am going to throw this out there, although perhaps I should not. It is about ensuring that Departments analyse what is there and what caused it and then do their bit to move projects on, while staying within the identified parameters.

This is the first time that we have heard so much detail. We have all been there when dealing with individual planning applications. We have had discussions recently that have outlined the planning issue. It is one of a number of things, but it is part of the whole process of what we are trying to do. Where will enabling actions lead?

Dr Brady: I will let Brett come in on that. The SIB has a volume of data-led information and analysis to identify that. Anecdotal information can get built into public perception. The data has then been fed into the enabling actions through the work that Patrick led, as have all the recommendations, feedback and mapping to identify the areas that we need to address.

In the draft Programme for Government, a number of enabling actions are called out. The planning improvement system and water infrastructure are called out, even though they are generally not covered, because they are so fundamental to delivering a Programme for Government. The investment strategy includes those aspects. The enabling actions have been developed by a subcommittee of the NICS board and then brought to the board for approval. The board supports the enabling actions, and they will then be factored into various reports.

Mr Magee: It goes back to the point about silos. We have set up the actions to cut across Departments. There is one thing I am really pleased about. I did not ask the permanent secretary of the Department of Health to be on the subcommittee. I asked his person in charge of capital to be on it. I said, "We need to talk to the health trusts about your workforce plan and also to the Education Authority about starting work on its workforce planning". There is no point in our getting money up here to build schools and hospitals down there without having the people in place. The subcommittee facilitated those discussions. I am really encouraged that we are setting these up as strategic cross-cutting actions. We are having the discussions at the individual departmental level, because people know that it is the right strategy to pursue.

Mr Boylan: Doing that will lead to the outcomes in the PFG.

Mr Magee: I like processes, but I like outcomes more.

Dr Brady: All of these support Ministers, the Executive's Programme for Government and the investment strategy. Brett, do you want to talk more about the analysis?

Mr Hannam: We did work on looking at what could be classified as mitigations. Those were either short-term fixes that might help address some of the symptoms that we have seen or things that could remedy them in the long term. We are not alone in that. The problems that we face in Northern Ireland are exactly the same as those being faced elsewhere in the United Kingdom and in the Republic of Ireland.

Fundamentally, addressing the issues that we have discussed requires legislative change. There is no doubt about it. The most important element of that will be simplification through having a single, consistent regulatory environment. Anyone working in Northern Ireland will know the particular difficulties that are caused by a lack of local development plans. Those have not been completed, and the courts regularly identify the absence of such plans as complicating all the issues and making it much more difficult for planning officers to make their decisions. That is the first thing to say.

Secondly, there might be short-term actions that could be taken that would, for example, stop the clock once a judicial review is taken. One consequence, whether successful or unsuccessful, is that many permits expire during the judicial review process. It has been suggested in the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere that you either allow the clock to be stopped at the point at which the judicial review starts so that the permits do not expire or you allow the courts to say, "This is a small, technical error that could easily be corrected, so we will allow that to happen".

An example of that happened relatively recently, in June. The Court of Appeal ruled on a project to establish a gas storage facility under Larne lough. The planning permission for that was quashed because the AERA Minister had not referred it to Executive colleagues as a cross-cutting issue. That situation could be remedied in a week. Jayne could arrange for it to be presented or the AERA Minister could present it to his Executive colleagues, and it could be remedied very quickly if the system allowed, but the system does not. What happens is that the planning permission is quashed, and you go back to very close to the start line and start again. That is another change that could be made.

In the planning system, we could enable the planning authorities to prioritise strategically important projects so that they get dealt with first — that is another opportunity — or we could seek to influence the Government in London to pursue the sorts of changes that they are already envisioning for net zero-related projects, such as installing all the network cables that are required to support the sustainable generation of electricity more quickly than is currently the case. Similarly, that could be done with housing. In order to achieve their housing targets, the Government in London are, for example, considering having planning passports, which is a form of enabling rapidly permitted developments that are directed at increasing the number of houses being built.

There is a range of actions that could be taken. Some have limited effect, while others would fundamentally change the whole system, but all of them require a lot of effort in order to deliver the outcomes that we are all looking for.

Mr Boylan: I do not want to stamp on councillors' toes, but doing that obviously involves partnership and a lot of conversation.

Mr Hannam: Yes.

Dr Brady: There is data analysis with a range of options, which are for politically accountable people to understand the evidence base.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Members, are there any other questions? I have just one more. [Laughter.]

We are nearly there. I am looking at the draft investment strategy. It does not cover all major capital projects, is that right?

Mr Hannam: Correct.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Does it cover the maternity hospital in the Royal?

Mr Hannam: The investment strategy is a strategy, not an investment plan. The two are separate. The investment strategy sets out the objectives and identifies resources and the broad deployment of funding. A very important element of it is the enabling actions that are so key to delivering the strategy. What it does not do is list projects. It is for Ministers to decide which projects they are prepared to prioritise and which they will allocate funding to. It is a separate exercise.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Thank you. On the maternity hospital, we know about the significant cost increases and delays that have happened with that major project. At this stage, do you believe that it is deliverable, and what type of conversations have been happening with the Department of Health in order to get it moving?

Dr Brady: We do not have representation here from the Department of Health, and it would be for its officials to discuss with you. The project is represented in the investment strategy, but the Department of Health would probably be better informed about it. We can ask its officials to provide advice to the Committee, if that is OK.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Yes, that would be fantastic. Thank you very much.

There are no further questions. Thank you so much. You have been very patient, open and transparent. It has been a good session, with a good amount of information that we can hopefully use to drive forward major capital projects. These are not just projects. It is about people's lives and about making Northern Ireland better. I really appreciate your coming to the Committee, and I hope that you have enjoyed yourselves

as much as you can do at a Public Accounts Committee meeting.

Mr Boylan: You play with a straight bat, Deputy Chair.

Mr Gibson: Sharon got to talk about enabling action 7, so she is happy.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Thank you so much for everything.

Dr Brady: We are very grateful. We have huge respect for the Committee's purpose. It is important for us to discuss these things. We had, of course, anticipated them, but there are many learnings that we will take from the meeting and feed them back in. We have noted some actions, such as on the root causes analysis and the enabling actions, to brief the Committee on further, in whatever format works best for you, as well as the action regarding the maternity hospital.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Before you go, does the Comptroller and Auditor General have any comments to make?

Ms Dorinnia Carville (Northern Ireland Audit Office): No.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Does the Treasury Officer of Accounts have any comments to make?

Mr Stuart Stevenson (Department of Finance): Are you all sitting comfortably? [Laughter.]

No.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Brownlee): Thank you.