Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): We welcome Patrick Neeson, Ian Fleming and Sarah Gibson, who are all from the Supply division in the Department and have been working on the Bill. They are here to brief us and to answer our questions on the financial provisions Bill. People will have seen previous correspondence from the Department on the Bill, which relates to a number of legislative changes that Departments require for routine financial matters for which it would not be practical to have specific legislation.

The attached briefing indicates that there is much more substance to the Bill than acting on the black box, which, for those who wish to be reminded, is spending that is categorised as coming under the sole authority of the Budget Act. We have got to the stage where there is a very large volume of spending under the black box — the sole authority of the Budget Act — and it includes things like welfare mitigations, which is the single biggest item. Where spending is not covered by specific legislative provisions elsewhere, it is covered under the sole authority of the Budget Act.

The financial provisions Bill tidies up items that do not have their own legislative provision, but it is not just about that. Of the 16 provisions, three belong to the Department of Finance, so we will ask about the Bill more generally, but it also includes the investment fund. The black box spending relates to lots of Departments, but we have a particular interest in it because of our role in Budget scrutiny. The spending that is specifically related to the Department is that on the NI investment fund, which was created in 2017 and funds a lot of hotels, but not just hotels. The spending also covers the appointment of the Northern Ireland Audit Office external auditor and an increased limit on consolidated fund advances. The other 13 provisions cover other Departments, and members will be seeking the views of other Committees in due course.

I welcome again Patrick, Sarah and Ian. Do you want to give us a quick opening statement, and then members will ask questions?

Mr Patrick Neeson (Department of Finance): I will speak very briefly. You have covered lots of things that I was going to say, but I will give a bit of background.

Thanks for the opportunity to come along today. As you said, financial provisions Bills are brought in at regular or semi-regular intervals to deal with financial matters that do not warrant their own legislation. The last one was in 2014, and the one before that was in 2009. We probably would have done one in the intervening period, but, obviously, because the Assembly was not functioning, we were not able to, which delayed things.

In January, we wrote out to Departments to ask them whether there were any provisions that they wanted to be contained in the financial provisions Bill. Six Departments identified matters that they wanted to be addressed. Those were: Agriculture; Communities; Economy; Infrastructure; TEO; and ourselves. As you said, there will be 16 provisions in the draft legislation. Following that engagement with Departments, the Minister wrote to Executive colleagues in June to get their agreement on what would be included in the financial provisions Bill. That agreement was secured in June, and we wrote to the Committee at that stage to make you aware of that. Since then, we have been engaging with colleagues in the other Departments involved and in the Office of the Legislative Counsel (OLC) to get drafting instructions so that it can begin that process of drafting the legislation. That has been ongoing over the summer.

We provided you with a briefing paper to set out all the proposed legislative provisions. As you said, there is a wide range of those, and I can give you a quick résumé of them. As you said, some of them deal with sole authority issues, and some of them do not. You have the briefing paper. I can give you a quick summary of them, if you want. Otherwise, I am happy to stop and deal with questions.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): There are 16 provisions. Helpfully, they are set out in the briefing pack. Thank you very much. I have a few initial questions. First, when will the Bill be introduced?

Mr Neeson: As I said, over the summer we have been dealing with OLC and liaising with colleagues in other Departments to get the drafting instructions. We went through that process over the summer and tried to coordinate that in DOF. Good progress was made over the summer on getting the drafting instructions to OLC. To be fair, OLC has been good about trying to turn those instructions into legislation. It will want matters clarified, so there is a little bit of back and forth. To answer your question, we do not know yet but we have made good progress on getting to the point of having draft legislation that we can take forward to be introduced. We are not quite there yet.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Is there a draft Bill, or are they still —?

Mr Neeson: Not yet.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Are you confident that it will be introduced this year?

Mr Neeson: We are hopeful that it will be. It will depend on others. It will depend on how quickly Departments can do the drafting instructions and deal with queries from OLC, and on how quickly OLC can then turn that into draft legislation, bringing together the —.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): It is not just one Department dealing with it. You have to deal with officials in other Departments, such as DAERA.

Mr Neeson: Exactly. There has been good collaboration with officials. Nobody has delayed it unnecessarily, so we are making good progress. We want it for this year, 2024-25, and are aiming for it to be in 2024; the sooner we can get it done, the better. I do not think that we are too far from having a piece of draft legislation that can be introduced.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): You have no particular concern that it will be delayed and not be introduced this year.

Mr Neeson: No.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Some of the things included will not get the black box back down to zero. New things are always being added to the black box. I have forgotten how much was in the most recent Budget Bill under sole authority, but are you confident that it will be significantly smaller in the next Budget Bill?

Mr Neeson: I do not know the figure off the top of my head. I think that it might be £40 million plus, but I would not like to say a figure. This will deal with some of the matters that require sole authority, particularly the TEO things and maybe one or two others. It will tidy up some but certainly not all of those matters. The likes of welfare mitigation will not be tidied up by this. It will deal with some of the black box stuff.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Will all the welfare mitigations be dealt with in the Bill?

Mr Neeson: No, definitely not.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Why not?

Mr Neeson: I guess it is because a financial provisions Bill is routine and uncontroversial. At the end of the day, we went to Departments, asked them what they wanted to have included and based the draft proposals on what they provided us with. DFC did not put that forward as one of its items, and obviously —.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Is that because it is controversial?

Mr Neeson: I guess that it felt that it did not fit with a financial provisions Bill, which is meant to be concerned with routine, regular, general and uncontroversial stuff.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): The idea being that it is such a large quantum of spending and such a big deal that it would not be appropriate to put it in a financial provisions Bill?

Mr Ian Fleming (Department of Finance): Yes. I think that that is correct.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK.

Mr Fleming: I suspect that something like welfare mitigations would require its own legislation, rather than —.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): So it carries on in the strange demi-monde of —.

Mr Fleming: We cannot speak on behalf of DFC officials.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): It means that, legally, the mitigations are more insecure than they would have been otherwise. They do not have their own specific legislative provisions, so it is quicker and easier to phase them out than it would be if they had their own legislative vehicle.

Mr Neeson: It is not for us to say. They will proceed under the sole authority of the Budget Act. That is all that we can say at this stage.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): I have another couple of questions, and then I will bring in colleagues. Please indicate if you wish to come in.

I am aware that these questions will not all be Department of Finance things and that you are effectively operating as the legislative agent and overall project manager for some of the changes. What additional financial powers is Tourism NI going to have?

Mr Neeson: They will be around exempting and charging fees. One of the things that it wants to do is extend the number of activities for which it can charge fees. Obviously, it accredits hotels, accommodation and so on. It wants to extend that to the likes of visitor and tourist attractions and so on. That is primarily what that provision is about.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): It will allow Tourism NI to charge for more things, basically. I am not saying that it definitely is going to, but the provision will legally create that possibility.

Mr Neeson: That is one of the things about this legislation: it gives other Departments the ability to do that. We are not setting fees and charges in this: we are giving Departments the authority to do that. That is one of the things that the Tourism NI provision will do. It gives more flexibility and extends what it can charge a fee for.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK. In relation to the Housing Executive and housing associations, there are no dramatic new borrowing powers; the provisions are relatively modest.

Mr Neeson: It is about tenancy fraud and enabling the Housing Executive to carry out tenancy fraud investigations on behalf of the housing associations. That is what the power is about. Associated with that is data sharing to allow the Housing Executive to do those tenancy fraud investigations. That is what that relates to.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): This is my final question before I bring in the other members. A perennial subject that we discuss on this Committee is using or losing financial transactions capital (FTC). One of the observations or reasons why FTC is difficult is the limitations on the bodies that can deliver projects that receive FTC allocations. Obviously, the body, essentially, has to be a private-sector entity, but I suppose that there are clever ways in which you could interpret that. If you were going to create the power for individual Departments to create vehicles that could make use of FTC, would a financial provisions Bill be the way that you might do it?

Mr Neeson: Ultimately that is decided by what is classified as a private-sector body. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) determines what is a private-sector entity. The provision is about giving DOF the power to lend money and FTC in respect of the investment fund. DOF has not had that power. It also gives DFE the power to lend FTC. That is one of the provisions that DFE wants.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK. I am going to bring in other members.

Ms Forsythe: Thanks to you all for coming here today. I want to ask about the increase in the limit on advances from the Consolidated Fund. Will you give a bit of detail on what you feel are the wider implications of that?

Mr Neeson: As you know, at the minute there is a 2% limit on what we can use to give advances from the Consolidated Fund. The proposal is to increase that to 4%. That is seen as a prudent and sensible measure and an additional safety net to take account of exceptional situations that may arise when, for whatever reason, Departments get to the limits in the Vote on Account before the Budget Bill gets Royal Assent. It is a safety net to give additional security in the event of exceptional circumstances.

Ms Forsythe: Even though it is small in percentage terms, we know that it is quite significant in the value of public-sector funds. If you are going to increase that facility, do you plan to put any further governance measures in place?

Mr Neeson: No, we do not believe that that is necessary The provision will not change any powers; it will just increase the percentage. You are right that it is a small percentage but that relates to a big number. If we increase that to 4%, it will relate to an even bigger number. With the scale of expenditure that might happen later in the year coming up to spring Supplementary Estimates (SSEs) or when dealing with annually managed expenditure or transfers coming across from the UK Government and so on, you could be dealing with large sums of money. The provision is just to deal with those sorts of scenarios, should they arise. They may not arise, and we do not particularly expect them to, but it is just an additional safeguard so that, in the event of something exceptional happening, we do need to —.

Mr Fleming: It will always be DOF's intention to introduce a Budget Bill in good time. However, recent events have shown that that does not always happen. This is just an extra measure that we want to put in place to prevent Departments from running out of cash. There have been times when we have thought that the 2% limit has not really given us enough flexibility. Increasing it to 4% will give Departments a bit more flexibility so that we have more time to put a Budget Bill in place. If an advance is taken, it always has to come back to the Assembly to be regularised. So, the Assembly, ultimately, always has a role in approving it.

Mr Neeson: It is repayable too, of course.

Ms Forsythe: Absolutely. Everybody on this Committee wants to see a Budget Bill coming through in good time and going through the process that way. We are well versed in those arguments

Mr Carroll: Thanks for your presentation. The marine licence fee was mentioned. Is that a standard annual fee? Is it increasing or decreasing under the Bill? What is the thinking around that?

I have some unease about the provision on tenancy fraud investigations and, as I understand it, the new powers that the Housing Executive will have. We are in a situation where there is a housing crisis. Houses are not being built on any proper scale, yet there are powers for more investigation of tenants. You may wish to expand on that, but it sits uneasily with me.

What level of finance is involved in the mineral and petroleum accounts provision? Given that we should not be digging up the ground for the extraction of those types of minerals, how does that fit in with climate targets and the general ethos of moving away from extraction?

My final question is about the DFI SmartPass. I do not think that there should be any fee for a SmartPass, and I and others campaigned strongly against that recently. Some answers and clarity on that would be helpful. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Thanks, Gerry. I am happy for members to ask, as I did, for summary indications of measures. You are perfectly in order to ask those questions, Gerry, but the officials might not have all those details because they are not responsible for the detailed policy in most of those areas. It is fine for it to go on the record, and, if there are any particular insights that they have on them, that is fine. Go ahead, Patrick.

Mr Neeson: I will take the DAERA one: marine licensing. My understanding is that DAERA wants to move to a situation of full cost recovery for administering marine licences. The licence could be for a firm that wants to dredge along the coast or it could for renewable energy and that sort of thing. The fees could range from a few hundred pounds up to thousands of pounds, depending on the scale of activity, how profitable that activity could be and so on. My understanding is that, at the minute, DAERA generates around £100,000 in revenue from that licensing activity and that, if it did full cost recovery, it would generate about £600,000. That is the amount of additional income that would be generated through the changes. It is about full cost recovery for the activities that it does.

Your second question was on tenancy fraud. As I said, the provision is about the Housing Executive carrying out tenancy fraud investigations on behalf of the housing associations. The Housing Executive currently does that for its own tenants, and the provision would centralise that function in the Housing Executive so that it would carry out that activity for housing associations.

The provision on SmartPasses is a legislative vehicle to give DFI the power to introduce fees for SmartPasses should it wish to do so. We understand that DFI has carried out a review and looked at lots of options around SmartPasses and that this is the measure that it has decided it wants to introduce. My understanding is that DFI sees it as something that will help with the ongoing sustainability of the policy by recovering the cost of administering the scheme. It is a DFI policy matter, and it will set the fees. The legislation will not set the fees; it will give DFI the power to set them.

The provision on mineral and petroleum accounts is largely technical. It really just consolidates those accounts in the main departmental accounts. They contain money from the licensing of petroleum extraction and mineral extraction. I am not sure what amount of money is involved, but we can find out. We looked for a set of petroleum accounts but could not find any online. I do not think that anybody is drilling for oil at the minute here, so there must not be any, but we can find out what sort of money is involved in both of those sets of accounts and come back to you with that detail.

Mr Carroll: I appreciate those answers. As well as on those accounts, can we, as a Committee, get a bit more information on the mineral and petroleum powers? There is concern amongst many across the North about licenses being given out to companies involved in extraction. It would not sit well with me if the Bill allowed for an expansion of that activity. A bit more information on that for the Committee would be useful.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): I presume that the Bill will have nothing to do with the decision on whether to grant licenses and whether they should, theoretically, exist, but it is worth asking the question. What is interesting is why the Department is asking for the power in that context.

Mr Fleming: Under the existing legislation, DFE is required to show separate accounts for petroleum and mineral licensing. I understand that those accounts are quite small. At the minute, I do not think that there are any petroleum licences in Northern Ireland. I looked, but I could not find any details of mineral licensing. I do not think that they are large accounts. The recommendation is that the accounts be incorporated into the departmental accounts. It is about doing away with the older legislation and consolidating all those accounts in the DFE accounts. That is solely what it is about. It is not about the licensing and the permitting of licences; it is just about administration and how the accounts are presented.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK, so, at the minute, there are, theoretically, separate accounts for revenues from licensing, of which there are barely any or none.

The next member is Steve Aiken. Steve? Ballyclare is slightly incommunicado. Can you hear us?

Dr Aiken: Yes, I can hear you. Everything is slow on the line.

I will speak quickly. I have a very quick question about FTC: why just the Department of Finance and the Department for the Economy, bearing in mind that FTC could be used for Infrastructure, Education or Health projects? Why just those two Departments?

The briefing paper states that the issuing of loans by the Strategic Investment Board (SIB) is a "temporary" measure. For how long has that been a temporary measure, and why is SIB not deemed to be an appropriate body to continue doing it?

Mr Neeson: The DOF rationale relates to the investment fund. When the investment fund was introduced in 2017, it was always intended that DOF would issue the loans to it. It did not have the power to do so at that stage, so it was agreed that TEO, via the SIB, would do it on a temporary basis until such times as DOF received the power. SIB had the power to issue loans. Addressing that, and giving the power to DOF, is long overdue. The vehicle for doing so was always anticipated to be a financial provisions Bill; it has just been delayed until now. It has been temporary, but TEO is happy for the power to come across to us. We believe that it should come across to DOF. It is to do with the investment fund.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Other than just being tidy-mindedness, which is fair enough, was there a specific substantive concern? Was there a theoretical possibility that the Department of Finance wanted particular projects to be funded?

I presume that a lot of its stuff would not go the Executive, because it would not be deemed to be cross-cutting or controversial. However, if it is going via TEO, theoretically, a Minister in TEO has the power to say, "No, you cannot disburse that money". Is that correct?

Mr Neeson: DOF does not decide where investment fund loans ultimately go. We give money to the fund, and fund managers decide how that fund should be allocated. That is really important with regard to its being FTC. It is given to a private-sector body. The fund itself is a private-sector entity.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): What I am asking is this: is there a theoretical legal case given that, at the minute, someone in TEO could put a hold on money going out? If the money is being disbursed from TEO, is there a concern that someone could say, "Actually, I do not want money to go there"?

Mr Neeson: I do not think that there is any concern. It is simply that SIB is the vehicle that is being used to enable the loan to be lent to the investment fund. SIB was the vehicle that was around at the time when the investment fund was created. It was always intended to be a temporary measure until such time as DOF got the power to do that.

Mr Fleming: At that time, SIB had the legal vires to make those loans, whereas DOF did not. If we did not go via the SIB route, the loans that have been issued to date would not have happened, because we did not have the legal power —.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): No, I get that; I am just intrigued as to why.

Mr Fleming: The only reason that we are doing it now is that it was always agreed that we would take forward legislation and move that policy area back to DOF, because it is our policy.

Mr Neeson: The budget is given to TEO to give to SIB. There is a memorandum of understanding that governs all that.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Sure. Steve, sorry, I interrupted.

Mr Neeson: The second point, quite simply, is, as I said, that we went out in January to ask what Departments wanted to be included in the financial provisions Bill. DFE came back and said that one of the things that it would like to have included is the ability to issue FTC loans. Given the nature of what DFE and Invest NI do, I guess that it saw that as a useful power for it to have.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK.

Mr Frew: My first question is about the general issue that the Chair referred to: the fact that you are really just an agent that is pushing this Bill through for other Departments. How can you be confident that every single thing that those other Departments are asking for is the right direction of travel?

Mr Neeson: We expect each Department to do its own analysis of whatever policy it wants to implement through the financial provisions Bill; to do the necessary equality impact assessments and regulatory impact assessments, and to consult as necessary. Each Department will follow its individual policy development process. We are simply the legislative vehicle that is needed to give legislative effect to those, because each of those matters was not deemed to be suitable for its own piece of legislation. For some of the matters, it is a tidying up — dealing with sole authority and so on — but we expect each Department to deal with whatever policy development matters it needs to deal with.

Mr Frew: I do not mean to get into a political sphere with you guys, but imagine a debate on the Bill and Philip Brett being really annoyed about the charge for the SmartPass. How do the Minister or the officials behind the Minister address Philip Brett's concerns?

Mr Fleming: We have put a paper to the Executive. They have looked at all the provisions and agreed which provisions will go into the Bill. Ultimately, we are doing this on behalf of the Executive, not on behalf of DOF. As well as that, each of the Departments and their officials have done consultation: some have done public consultation, and some are doing targeted consultation. The Departments will all go to their Committees to discuss their provisions. DFE went to the Economy Committee last week, and the Committee has signed off on the DFE provisions. Likewise, DFI will go to its Committee. If concerns are to be raised, that is probably the appropriate place to raise them. On the SmartPass, we are just putting through the legislative power to enable DFI to introduce a fee if that is its will. After we put through the power, it will be up to the Infrastructure Minister to decide whether he wants to introduce a fee, and then come up with a fee scheme and set that fee. There will be further scrutiny as it goes through the process.

Mr Frew: You guys are holding this baby — this piece of legislation — rightly or wrongly. Who makes decisions on amendments? You are Department of Finance officials. An MLA could table an amendment that changes some of the provisions for the Department for the Economy. How do you guys negotiate whether that amendment is a good one or a bad one and whether the Minister should support it?

Mr Neeson: I take your point. Financial provisions Bills deal with cross-departmental matters. They deal with non-contentious, routine, tidying-up matters and those sorts of things. That issue generally does not arise because of the nature of financial provisions Bills. There is a legislative process. There will be a consultative process around the legislation. It will come to Committee Stage — you can consult on it — and the Department has consulted on it. There will have been ample opportunity for people to give their views on it.

Mr Frew: Most Bills are probably cross-departmental in some guise or another; I suppose "cross-cutting" is the word to use. Usually, the Department that sponsors the Bill knows the mind and the essence of that Bill. That cannot necessarily be said here. How many Bills of this type have come across your desks in the past?

Mr Neeson: As I said, the previous Financial Provisions Bill was in 2014. The one before that was in 2009. They both included provisions that were outside the Department of Finance, so that is a regular feature of financial provisions Bills.

Mr Frew: I am going to try to ask you about the provision on apprenticeships from the Department for the Economy. By the sounds of things, it basically removes section 1 of the Employment and Training Act (Northern Ireland) 1950. Section 1(C) states:

Will this remove just section 1(C), or will it remove section 1?

Mr Neeson: It will take DOF out of the loop, essentially. It will mean that DFE will be able to continue to implement apprenticeships and so on, and make payments in relation to those apprenticeships, without the need to come to DOF for approval. That is really what that intends to do, and we are very supportive of that because we do not feel that that needs to come to DOF for approval.

Mr Frew: In the real world, we have a situation where the Northern Regional College has made no provision for teaching first-year apprentices on the electrical installation course, because it does not have the tutors to teach it. That has left a massive gap in recruitment for the electrical installation industry. Is there anything in this provision that will help to fix that and ensure that there are tutors, who are paid appropriately, to teach apprentices?

Mr Neeson: That is not what that provision is around. That provision is solely around an irregularity that was spotted by the Audit Office that qualified DFE's accounts in 2021. The legislation stated that DOF should have given approval for that spend, but it had not. It was irregular, and this is just meant to address that and fix it.

Mr Frew: Were you guys involved in the previous Financial Provisions Bills?

Mr Neeson: None of us was around at that time; no.

Mr Frew: I ask because we, as a Committee, might need to seek advice as to how we scrutinise something that is cross-departmental and cross-jurisdictional.

The Committee Clerk: We will rely heavily on the other Committees to do the work relevant to their Departments. A Bill of this size and scale, Chair, is very uncommon, but it is not uncommon to have Bills that involve two or three Departments. Members will have experienced those in various other Committees. You are looking at heavy reliance on other Committees to scrutinise their parts. The difficulty comes when you bring all that together, especially if those other Committees have particular issues with what is being brought forward by their respective Departments. That is when you get into the realm of very complex amendments. We will not worry about that just yet, but it is very complex.

Mr Frew: It sounds like great fun: I am looking forward to it. Thank you.

Mr Tennyson: I have a brief question on the Consolidated Fund advances, which Diane talked about. How does that 4% compare with what other devolved Administrations are doing?

Mr Fleming: It is 2% in GB. In one of the COVID years, GB increased the contingency to 50%. In the following year, it was, from memory, 12%. I believe that it is also 2% in Scotland. I tried to find the Scottish legislation, but I could not uncover it for today; we will continue that investigation. I think that it is 0·5% in Wales.

Mr Tennyson: Is there a particular rationale as to why Northern Ireland's would need to be higher?

Mr Fleming: The thinking is — I am trying to be diplomatic —

Mr Tennyson: Do not be diplomatic on my account.

Mr Fleming: — that, with recent events and the Executive not being in place, there have been delays to the Budget Bill. That has reduced the timetable for DOF to get a Budget Bill done and to get Royal Assent. Therefore, some Departments have felt under pressure on their cash limits. That is what this is solely about: it is to make sure that cash can be provided to Departments in lieu of a Budget Bill being in place.

Mr Tennyson: That is a fairly reasonable analysis, given recent history. Putting my political hat on, I will say that, if we reformed the Assembly so that it could not be pulled down again, we would not have that problem and we would not need to enhance the advances.

Before we move on, I will make one comment about the mineral and petroleum accounts. I know that DFE leads on that, and I do not want to ask you guys questions about a policy area that you are not responsible for. However, Gerry Carroll has a point in that there are no active licences, and the Minister indicated in the Chamber that he intends to ban petroleum licensing. I get the theoretical tidy-up, but why bother doing it unless there is something outstanding in the Mineral Development Act that we are not aware of? That is a fair question to get a bit of clarity on.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): We will probably want to write to other Committees about a range of things. There is range of areas where there will be interesting and important things to scrutinise and follow up on. Some of them will involve individual Departments. I suspect that some other Committees may assume that the Finance Committee is doing such-and-such. We and the departmental officials need to be ready to scrutinise and answer questions. We will get a Bill later in the year, so, if members are content, may I suggest that we write, initially, to the relevant Statutory Committees to seek their opinions? My Chair's brief already suggests such a thing, which is helpful; it is good that we are thinking in unison. We should also flag up to them that there will be specific areas where their scrutiny will be necessary.

You are clearly across the detail of this. Are you alive to this risk? Clearly, other Departments are in the lead in their individual policy areas, and they are the ones who have requested the tidying up, but the overarching job of the Department of Finance is spending control and the control of devolved finances. I presume that you are exercising that role and saying, "No, we actually don't think that that is appropriate". Has that process already happened? Is the Department content that all those are necessary and about the reasons why?

Mr Neeson: We have had some discussions with Departments. We have also sought the advice of OLC in relation to the matter. Things have been put forward that have not ended up in this, because —.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Can you give me any examples?

Mr Fleming: I can, yes. I will have to dig them out.

Mr Neeson: We can come back to you if we do not have them to hand, but I know that there were other things —.

Mr Fleming: Three items were put forward that we did not include. The first one was that DFE wanted a provision for the government indemnity scheme, which, I think, provides insurance for artefacts — art pieces. That function transferred across to DFC. It wants to tidy up. We consulted OLC, and it was determined that that should be included in a transfer of functions Act instead of the financial provisions Bill. There is a policy that lets that happen.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): It was the Department for the Economy that wanted that provision. Currently, the vires to have indemnity on cultural artefacts belongs to DFC?

Mr Fleming: It is with DE.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): It is with DE, but it wants it to go to DFC.

Mr Fleming: DFC has to go to DE to get it, and it wants to remove the DE approval role; it wants to transfer that function to DFC, completely.

The second item put forward but not included was the ending violence against women and girls strategy. There was a discussion on whether TEO would include that in this Bill. We thought that that was a stand-alone and more substantive piece of legislation that would not suit this Bill.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Excuse me, but what is the financial provision?

Mr Fleming: Again, it was because it was within the sole authority of the Budget Act, and TEO thought that it could use this Bill as a way to amend that. We thought not, and that that needed a more substantive piece of legislation.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK; that is fine.

Mr Fleming: Thirdly, there was a proposal to give all Departments a power to give grants. In discussions with OLC, it was determined that that was not possible —

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): For every Department to be able to give grants?

Mr Fleming: — because there was no limit to the power. With legislation like that, you need to have limits on the power. You cannot simply give all Departments the ability to give grants. They have to give grants for a purpose.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Obviously, some Departments can give grants.

Mr Fleming: They can give grants. For example, Economy can give grants for economic development. This was a general power to give grant funding, but it was turned down because there were no proposed limits on it.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Where did that proposal come from?

Mr Fleming: I think that it came from TEO. However, once we discussed it with OLC, it did not seem suitable for this Bill.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): That is interesting to know.

I thank the officials for their time. We have actions to take forward. We will hear more from you later in the year when, hopefully, we will have a financial provisions Bill. That was useful. It is good that we were able to have a pre-legislative meeting. Thank you for your time Patrick, Ian and Sarah.