Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): We welcome, from the Department, Karen Pearson, deputy secretary, COVID recovery, civil contingencies and Programme for Government (PFG) — that is some title; Louise Slevin, Programme for Government; and Matthew McFarland, principal statistician. I do not envy your task, Matthew, but there you go.

Are members content that the evidence session is reported by Hansard?

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): As you are aware, members, the Programme for Government is a detailed document. A suite of assessment documents, which we discussed briefly earlier, was published alongside the Programme for Government on Monday. We may not have time to cover all of the material today. Indeed, we would probably not do the material a service by attempting to do that. The officials are here to provide an initial brief on the Programme for Government. They have indicated a willingness to return to the Committee in the coming weeks. We can formally submit requests for further briefings after today's session. Today's session will add to the debate that we had in the Chamber on Monday and provide a more focused overview, from the officials' perspective, of delivery of the Programme for Government. You are all very welcome. Karen, I invite you to start.

Ms Karen Pearson (The Executive Office): Thank you very much. I will not say too much at the outset, in order to leave maximum time for members' questions, given the debate on Monday. We are happy to be here.

I will respond to Mr Gaston's point about the documents. We understand that, and I am sorry. We have indicated that we will come back on the documents that you have received. They are really important documents about the consultation process and the equality impact assessments (EQIAs), and we would like to discuss those with the Committee.

Mr Gaston: Fair enough.

Ms Pearson: Our Ministers and the Executive approved the Programme for Government last Thursday. It came to the Assembly at the first opportunity, which was on Monday, to seek approval, and that was granted. We are all delighted that we have a Programme for Government. It sets out ambitious targets for the remainder of the mandate. Progress on delivery is what you will probably want to explore with us as we move through it in the coming months. Then there is the well-being framework. We have included the indicators for that in the document. Matthew can speak to that. It is a fascinating piece of work. Matthew won an award for it, Chair, if I may say that at the outset. The well-being framework will give us the ability to monitor the indicators on an ongoing basis. They will change all the time. They rely on official statistics. It will give us a sense of whether things are getting better, staying the same or getting worse. That will give us the ability, in the delivery space, to ask, "What do we do? Do we carry on doing this thing, or do we need to shift direction and do something else?". This is very much our starting point. It will be measured. You heard on Monday how committed our Ministers are to it.

That is all that I will say by way of opening remarks, Chair, if that is OK.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): Are there any other comments at this stage?

Mr Matthew McFarland (The Executive Office): We are happy to take questions.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): I will start. Delivery is one of the key concerns that not only we but the general public have about the PFG. There has been lots of journalistic and expert commentary about the Programme for Government — some of it good, and some of it not so good. I am sure that you will take on board the specific comments. I know that you have embedded in the Programme for Government a dashboard. Is that where we will go to see delivery against aspirations?

Ms Pearson: The dashboard will give you the long-term picture. It is designed to give long-range understanding of delivery against the missions. We will have to have something separate for delivery against the PFG itself; we will develop that. Some things are already in train. The delivery unit is already there. Monitoring the Programme for Government will require us to have an annual report on delivery, but our monitoring will be structured more around real time, rather than just annual. Delivery is where we will see the shorter-term progress against the targets in the PFG. Matthew might want to say something about the longer-term measurements.

Mr McFarland: Absolutely. The reason why we have taken that approach is that the Programme for Government is supposed to be agreed and iterated annually. It is a political document, and there are priorities in it. We hope that the priorities will change and develop as we meet them and new priorities arise. That is an annual thing. Some of the things in the document are long-term. Well-being at a population level is a long-term thing. That is why we have a separate dashboard that sits to the side and will show us the change over a long time. Some of the things in the dashboard, such as greenhouse gas emissions, will take a long time to shift. It is the same with the economy. Therefore, we are also interested in long-term trends. That is why we have the two-pronged approach.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): The concern of members and the general public will be that there is so much in it that people will forget or not be able to see those targets or goals being met over time. As you said, there are some targets for which the evidence will take a long time to present, but there should be greater speed of movement on other, short-term things, such as health waiting lists. With the amount of money that is being put into that, there should presumably be instant or short-term actions on it. While I appreciate that there will be an annual report, how will members and the public be able to see where progress is being made? Will there be one place where we can go to see that across all Departments, or will we have to trawl through to see how each Department is doing against its measures?

Ms Pearson: We need to pull that together into a place where, as you said, people can see the progress against the PFG, but there will always be a role for Departments in keeping people up to date on their targets and aiding scrutiny by their Committees. It will be a bit of both. We will expect Departments to be active in that area, but I imagine that my Ministers will want a Programme for Government update.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): Will there be a timeline? I think that you agree with us that we need to be able to go to a point of reference where we will see where progress is being made, be that through a traffic-light chart or whatever. Do we have a timeline for the production of that? Can you come back to us the next time and say, "This is what we have developed and how we will be able to present it to you"?

Ms Pearson: I cannot give you a timeline today, but I will try to give you an update next week or, if not then, as soon as possible after that.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): OK.

Mr McFarland: I will use your example of hospital waiting times. The Department of Health has fantastic dashboards. You can go to the type of surgery for which you are waiting, and it gives you information on it. We do not include things like that, because they are performance metrics in the Department of Health. We have indicators on healthy life expectancy. That is kind of the next step. Lots of things will contribute to a healthy life expectancy.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): Driving life expectancy down is not going to happen in the next quarter.

Mr McFarland: We will, hopefully, drive it up.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): Drive it up; yes. Exactly. [Laughter.]

Mr McFarland: They are long-term things, and that is why we chose those indicators.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): We need to be able to see that information in some sort of traffic-light form that shows whether something is under way or progressing and whether we are moving towards or away from a particular target. You need a little side arrow alongside that that says, "For detailed information, go to the Department of Health website", or, "go to the Department for Infrastructure website", or whatever it happens to be. It is not just about signposting to the website; it is about showing where on the website people can find the information. People want that depth of information.

I am happy to open the meeting up for questions.

Mr Gaston: My comments will probably be out of kilter with many of the other comments today, simply because, apart from Claire Sugden and me, it is the four parties of the Executive that populate the seats at this Committee. If those members cannot be cheerleaders for their own document, I do not know who else can be.

Over the past few days, people have mentioned, as the Chair did, that it is a "detailed document". One of my criticisms is that it is certainly not detailed. There are plenty of pictures and nice words, but there is little in the way of tangible commitments that allow me to say, "In two years' time, this is what will have happened in each Department". There are a couple of commitments, however, that I want to pick out of the spin document.

We will concentrate on childcare, first. A £25 million commitment is mentioned in the document. The exact wording is:

That sounds good. During the early part of the debate on Monday, the First Minister said that it was "£50 million", and the deputy First Minister failed to give me any commitment or reassurance on what the actual figure is. Childcare is mentioned 30-odd times in the document. It is heralded as one of the big delivery projects for the Executive. What is the figure? Is it the £25 million that is in the document or the £50 million that the First Minister mentioned? What is clear is that it is not the £57·2 million that the Westminster Government provided to the Executive to deliver a childcare strategy.

Ms Pearson: Chair, I refer to page 9 of the PFG. In the document, it is explained that £25 million has been invested already. That is the £25 million reference. The remainder of the £50 million, I think, is future investment.

Ms Louise Slevin (The Executive Office): The £25 million was ring-fenced for 2024-25 spend. I think that the £50 million is the anticipated allocation for 2025-26. Both amounts should be spent on childcare.

Mr Gaston: Why is the £50 million not reflected in the document? If we were to go with the £25 million figure, the document would appear to be a year out of date.

Ms Pearson: That tells us what we have done for this year, but —

Mr Gaston: In the document, it says:

Ms Pearson: Yes, so —

Mr Gaston: We are in March 2025. I do not really want to know what we did in the last financial year. I want to know what we will do in the next financial year.

Ms Pearson: Louise is right. An amount of money — £50 million — has been provisionally allocated, but the Budget is still out for consultation. That needs to be resolved. The consultation closes on Thursday 13 March. The Budget will then be settled. That is my understanding of how those two figures come into play.

Mr Gaston: To use the term, "That is as clear as mud", to describe that response might be too positive. What you are telling me is that the £25 million referred to in the document is what was spent last year, and, next year, it will be £50 million.

Ms Pearson: It is £25 million for the year that we are in.

Mr Gaston: There are three weeks left of this year, and we were only given the document two days ago.

Ms Pearson: The £25 million referred to there does not start at the point of the PFG; that is a reference to what investment has already been made in that space this year.

Mr Gaston: There is no mention of next year's commitment.

Ms Pearson: No.

Mr Gaston: Even taking next year's commitment as £50 million, where is the other £7·2 million that was provided to Stormont for childcare?

Ms Pearson: I would have to come back to you on that. I am not sure about that.

Mr Gaston: If we are going to herald childcare as one of the big deliveries of the Executive, it is important that we understand how much of the £57·2 million cheque that was provided by Westminster — we know about that from responses to tabled questions — Stormont is using for its intended purpose and how much of it is being spent on other things. If some of that money is being spent on other things, I would like to know what the Executive prioritise more than childcare. That is the reason why that money was provided. When you come back next week, I would like you to provide clarity on the figure.

Ms Pearson: Sure.

Mr Gaston: If we are to spend £50 million next year, I would expect that to, at least, be included in the document — along with the buzzwords of "up to" that they like to use — instead of it relying on a figure that will be relevant for another three weeks.

The next one that I want to cover is policing. I will take you to page 48. This is an issue that the deputy First Minister did come back on in her summing up. In the document, there is reference to:

That was a number of years ago. Why do we not have a figure there? Going by the deputy First Minister's response, she is claiming that we have to cross-reference the Programme for Government with other documents, which is folly. However, going along with that train of thought, if we have 6,300 police officers at the moment, does that mean that the Programme for Government commits us to recruit a further 1,200 police officers by the end of this mandate?

Ms Pearson: That question is probably more for the Justice Department than for us in TEO, but I take the point that people want clarity on that. There is an ongoing conversation between the Chief Constable and the Department of Justice about what that number should be.

Mr Gaston: You understand my point of view. This is an Executive document that was produced in the Executive Office. Those outside of the DUP and Sinn Féin were given crumbs at the last minute and told, "Here is your information. This is what we are running with". Surely, given that that commitment is in this brochure — this glossy book — it must have been thought, "We are making this commitment. We are not going to put a figure of 7,500 in the document and commit to that". However, the deputy First Minister referred me to another document that does commit to 7,500. On that basis, my reading is that we will have 1,200 new police officers, because that is what the Executive have committed to. Naomi Long's signature is on this book, but it is a collective Executive commitment, so, surely, you are best placed to answer my query.

Ms Pearson: May I come back on a couple of points?

Mr Gaston: Yes.

Ms Pearson: I do not agree that it was a case of "crumbs at the last minute" for other parties and Executive Ministers. It has been an iterative process that has involved a lot of cross-departmental working at official level and ministerial engagement, so I do not agree with your categorisation of it, Mr Gaston. Forgive me.

Yes, it is a TEO-produced document, but it is an Executive-agreed document. Mrs Long has put her name to the document. If we need more clarity on the police figures, I can ask that question.

Mr Gaston: That is very important, especially as the deputy First Minister almost claimed that in her response. I take your point about the crumbs for those outside the two main parties. I would expect you to stick up for them. I will move to a Department where that suggestion has come from, namely Health. Mr Nesbitt has been very vocal in the media that the first that he saw of the document was when he was given the draft. Today, the deputy First Minister said that Mr Nesbitt's wording is included there.

We can make the journey to page 31 of the document. I took the opportunity, when the Finance Minister made his announcement in the Chamber on Tuesday — yes, the Programme for Government was debated on Monday — of the extra £61 million for health transformation and doing things differently. The colourful language used in the document is "up to £135m". What does that mean? Does it mean that anything between £1 and £135 million can be heralded as a success, simply because there is no commitment to what it will actually be? Does it mean that £135 million is an aspirational figure, and, on that basis, it is a case of, "Mike, you need to go and find that, because that is what you said you need"? On the £80 million mentioned in the document, the Health Minister has said that he has already found that in his budget, so that is not new money, essentially; that is the roll-out of a commitment that the Health Minister has already taken out of his incoming budget. What is the plan to get to the £135 million? It is important to know that when such a figure is put into the public domain in this document. I presume that that is not last year's figure, as with childcare, and that it is a figure going forward. Where is that money coming from?

Ms Pearson: The text on page 30 sits under the title, "Our Target for 2027". I mentioned that the Budget is out for consultation. That is how that figure will be thought about in the context of the Budget settlement. If it came in at £1, nobody would think that that is a success, so that is not going to happen. The Health Minister would not have sanctioned a figure of £135 million unless that is close to what he is looking for.

Mr Gaston: In his defence, it is the figure that he needs. Going by what we heard on 'Talkback' earlier, that is the figure that he has been asking for. He said that he is under-resourced, and there is a figure of £135 million: where will that money come from? Is that the headroom that was built into the Budget for the Departments? Is that where they will try to suck that money from? If it is a collective decision, will the gauntlet be thrown down to other Ministers: "Give us your headroom if we want to deliver on this target"?

Ms Pearson: It will come through the Budget process, but I want to reassure you that that is Health wording. That wording also appears in the elective care strategy. It is a serious statement by the Health Minister about what he needs. My Ministers have met the Health Minister and are absolutely clear that he will have their assistance with health reform. They will continue to give him that commitment. They are absolutely clear that they want to play a role in helping the Health Minister to make the reforms work. I cannot say anything to you today about the £135 million being guaranteed, because that is a Budget process. That consultation is coming to an end. My Ministers accept that that is an important narrative from the Health Minister. It is in the Programme for Government by agreement.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): Timothy, other members want to ask questions. You have raised a number of serious issues. It can be difficult to grasp how high-level documents, such as the Programme for Government, came about and what they seek to deliver. I would not like to see a Department — it does not matter which Department — just being given x million pounds, because it could go out and buy widgets with it. The reality is that, against the amount that they are going to get in the Budget, Departments have to be able to put real work that will deliver real outcomes for people.

This will not be over today. We will have lots of time for these questions. Take the issue of police numbers. Yes, Karen can come back with the answer to that question, but, actually, you have a much faster route to getting that answer, which is simply to put to the Ministers a question for written answer on the Programme for Government. You will probably get better and more detailed answers to your questions by doing that than by asking for them from officials for whom this is a high-level responsibility, not a detailed day-to-day responsibility.

Mr Kingston: Thank you for your attendance. Indeed, this is a Northern Ireland Executive Programme for Government; it is not just for the Executive Office. You already commented on this, but how collaborative has the process of the Executive drawing up this document been?

Ms Pearson: It has been entirely collaborative, right up until the last minute that it was agreed. That is our position, and I speak for the other officials as well. Colleagues were out and about. The Executive considered the consultation response on 21 November, and immediately commissioned further work at official level to make the targets sharper and clearer for people to follow and understand, so that progress can be monitored. It has been entirely collaborative.

Mr Kingston: Thank you for that. As you said, it was approved by the Executive on Thursday of last week and brought to the Assembly on Monday. There has been public comment from the Health Minister regarding the target on page 30. Did the Health Minister clear that exact wording, under the heading, "Our Target for 2027":

Ms Pearson: Yes.

Mr Kingston: He cleared that wording and was aware of it?

Ms Pearson: There was one tiny tweak. When it came to us, it started, "Invest, with Executive support". We just changed that so that it starts, "With Executive support". I would not want to mislead you and say that it is 100% the same, but the substantive issues in there are exactly as we received them on 19 December.

Mr Kingston: Right. That was cleared and approved by the Health Minister?

Ms Pearson: Yes.

Mr Kingston: I appreciate that you maybe cannot comment on this, but people have wondered, "Well, the Health Minister cleared this wording, yet he commented that it came as a surprise to him". I do not know whether you want to express a view on that.

Ms Pearson: I had probably better not. I can only repeat that, regardless, my Ministers are 100% supportive of the tenor of what is in there, because they know that it is really important. It is in a document called, 'Doing What Matters Most'. If you ask people what matters most, they will say, "Health", so my Ministers want to support him.

Mr Kingston: It is helpful that you clarified that the exact wording was seen and cleared by the Health Minister in advance.

I am interested in hearing a bit more about the well-being framework — the award-winning well-being framework. How does that relate to monitoring? Some parties pushed, and all Ministers, I think, were keen, to see targets in the document. How will the well-being framework enable the monitoring of those targets?

Mr McFarland: The well-being framework is updated from official statistics. There are 51 of them, and they are updated at different times throughout the year. We have a process to get those statistics on to the dashboard as quickly as possible once they are published. Therefore, it should always be an as-up-to-date-as-possible snapshot of each indicator. We will look to ensure that the indicators that we have are the right ones. We have already added, I think, four indicators since we published the draft in September. It will be a continuous process of making sure that we measure the right things. We did lots of stakeholder engagement throughout the consultation process to get to this point, and we plan to continue our stakeholder engagement to make sure that we measure the right things.

Mr Kingston: Is there a straightforward website where people can see that data?

Mr McFarland: Yes. It is northernireland.gov.uk/wellbeing. We did an awful lot of work to make sure that it is accessible to as many people as possible, such as making it accessible for screen readers and that kind of thing. We have done lots of work to make sure that anybody can go in and understand it. There is clear and simple commentary, a colour code to show when things are changing and when they are not: all those kinds of things. We will develop that as we go: we will do more user testing and make sure that we continue to improve it as it develops.

Mr Kingston: I am aware that a number that other members want in, so I will leave it there.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Thank you, panel, for your presentation. Three parties that are represented on the Committee are on the Executive, not four; I think that Sinéad would take exception to the earlier comment. Notwithstanding that, we got the draft PFG around September, and there was a lot of information in it. I share concerns about the lateness of the submission of papers, particularly the number of tabled papers that we have and how that affects our ability to scrutinise. I dare say, Stewart, that we will discuss that in the future, particularly as the Budget process rolls out.

Apart from this being the first published Programme for Government in many years, my interest is in whether we can get a sense of what has come out of the EQIA in reference to the consultation and what we need, particularly where gaps in equality were presented as a result of the consultation. That is my first question.

Ms Pearson: I suspect that those are the documents and the issues that you are calling us back on next Wednesday. We have the consultation report, the analysis of responses to the consultation, the children's rights impact assessment, the rural needs impact assessment and the equality impact assessment, all of which we are happy to explore with you in detail next week, if that is OK.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): Yes, we have those. We need time to scrutinise them. There is potential for us to come back with questions. It would be helpful to the Committee Clerk if members could send questions to her by email so that we can clear up some of the questions. Some questions may have simple, straightforward answers. Those that might require more detailed discussion can be dealt with at a meeting. It is about how we manage our Committee time and how we can be helpful to you, Karen, in putting questions across. If we ask questions in advance, you will have time to research them and to come back with clear answers for us.

Ms Pearson: We would appreciate that, thank you.

Ms Ní Chuilín: That is helpful. In preparation for next week, however, we need to focus particularly on the section 75 groups. For me, that is the crux of this, because there will certainly be a focus on impacts on equality in the future.

The PFG is a cross-departmental document, and it is set out in that format. There are crossovers, such as with TEO's ending violence against women and girls (EVAWG) strategy. TEO has primary responsibility for that policy, but it impacts on other Departments, particularly when it comes to the outcomes. Will that feature? Will it be only the consultation responses that are evaluated for equality, or will the roll-out of some of the big policies also be evaluated for equality?

Ms Pearson: The lead Departments and the lead owners of the targets will have to do what is essential in their space, which may involve equality. I think that you have heard from Claire Archbold on ending violence against women and girls on a number of occasions. She is looking to make the strategy cross-government. She is working very closely with others, and I think that the first delivery board on it was yesterday. Some of the targets for ending violence against women and girls in the PFG are already under way, so that is being taken very seriously. We will meet two of the three targets this year — they are well under way — and the third one will be done.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Karen, I am not here to trip anybody up. I accept that the policies that have been announced will certainly be progressed and will loom large in the Programme for Government.

Ms Pearson: Yes.

Ms Ní Chuilín: My main concern is probably a question that you cannot answer, but we certainly need a response to it, and I will explain why. A lot of the section 75 groups are wrapped up in the social strategies that sit in the Department for Communities; for example, the sexual orientation strategy, the anti-poverty strategy, Irish language and quite a few others. If they are not brought forward, how can their effectiveness be measured? Can anything be done in the absence of the equality impact assessment?

Ms Pearson: They are questions for DFC. However, the deputy First Minister, in closing on Monday, made it clear that what is in the document is not the totality of what is going on across government. She was clear on that point, and that view is shared by the First Minister. I do not know whether that helps. I do not think that I could go further.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Again, I am not trying to trip anybody up, but it strikes me that a lot of the groups that have experienced inequality still have not had their strategies. We have a Programme for Government sitting here, and some of the most marginalised groups from some of the most deprived areas are not even featured. I have that concern, and the delay seems to be in the Department for Communities. I will leave it there.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): To follow on from that point, Carál is right: the duty falls to the Department for Communities to deliver on those programmes, and it has section 75 equality responsibilities. However, the whole Executive and the Executive Office equally have that responsibility, because this is your Programme for Government. It is the Executive and the Executive Office's Programme for Government. They, too, have responsibilities that are equal to those of individual Departments, because they have signed up to this. They have equal responsibility for delivering those section 75 responsibilities. That point needs to be made.

That takes us back to the point that I raised at the beginning. How will we see where the progress is being made in respect of all these items? It is vital that there is a simple, go-to place and space to see where progress is being made, even on the very point that you just made about a board having met in respect of violence against women and girls. We need to know that. The public need to know that. That is an element that starts to deliver confidence in a strategy being delivered.

Carál, are you finished at this stage?

Ms Ní Chuilín: Yes.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): I thank Karen and her colleagues for today's briefing. My first question relates to the 516 written responses that you received. Obviously, there will be a degree of qualitative input. How did you take on board those responses? I tried to cross-reference where changes were made between the draft and the final document. Can you give some clarity as to how much cognisance you gave to what the community and voluntary sector and so on submitted? Some people will feel that the issues that matter most to them, such as poverty, do not feature highly enough in this document.

Ms Pearson: I will make an opening comment, and then I will see whether Louise wants to come in on the detail. The deputy First Minister was clear on Monday that this document cannot do everything. However, she was very hopeful that people could see that there is a lot in this for everyone or something for everyone in this. We could not take absolutely everything on board.

Some changes were made between the draft and the final. Louise, do you want to come in?

Ms Slevin: That is fair. We made every effort to summarise all the responses that came in. We were lucky to get so many. There was broad support for the draft PFG as it was. We made every effort to put into the consultation report the concerns that people raised for consideration by Ministers.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): It is fair to say that, if you are an organisation that made a submission and you do not see your name or your subject highlighted in there, you will have concerns. The other side of that coin is that there are lots of references to organisations and you should be able to identify yourself from the report. It disappoints some and pleases others. I understand that, and it is very difficult to get that balance between the various topic areas. That is appreciated.

Ms Pearson: That is a fair summary of the challenge that was faced on this.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): Yes, and it is a challenge in a document such as this.

Ms Pearson: As Louise said, we were absolutely bowled over by the level of engagement that we had on it and the number of responses. We have the consultation summary, and we will explore that with you next week. As I said when I was here previously, we are also looking to put individual responses into the public domain if we can, but we have to be very careful about people's data and personal information. Therefore, that will not be an immediate, overnight task, but it is something that we would like to do.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): I will go back to what was included in the final draft. With regard to 'New Decade, New Approach', you have referenced the Magee campus, the business case around policing numbers and a broad heading around the social inclusion strategies. Obviously, there are other elements of 'New Decade, New Approach'. Will you give some clarity on what decision-making process took place about what actually appeared in the Programme for Government? As you said, not everything has gone in, but quite a lot has, so there must have been some discussion about what went in and what stayed out.

Ms Pearson: There were ongoing discussions across the whole process, from the drafting and the consultation through to the final document. I hope that all Ministers — they have all signed and endorsed it — can see their departmental priorities in there. As with the point that was made about EVAWG, we did not want to say, "That belongs to one Department" or, "This belongs over here". These are priorities for the Executive, and that is why we set it out in that way. There has been an awful lot of discussion on an ongoing basis from the start of the process.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): OK. Finally, I have a point about some of the language that has been used in the document. There is a line around the good jobs Bill saying, "Subject to Executive approval". Another says:

and then:

To what extent will there still be a degree of negotiating at the Executive table around the prioritisation for delivery of the various actions and outputs in the document?

Ms Pearson: That is the nature of the Budget process, as we mentioned earlier. When we know how much money is available to the Executive, there will be a process, which is normally led by the Finance Minister, for bringing proposals forward for discussion at the Executive. That is how I see that playing out, but —.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Sorry to interrupt, Karen, but the Executive approval for the good jobs Bill is not about money; it is about signing off a direction of travel. It is the broader issue of the four parties being able to agree and, where they disagree, there being transparency for the Committee and the wider public on where parts of the Programme for Government will be deprioritised or may be left out.

Ms Pearson: For that one, in particular, it is normal to bring a Bill to the Executive for consideration. It strikes me as being normal practice that a Bill is introduced in that way. The Programme for Government means that less has to come to the Executive on these issues because there is already Executive endorsement. I can look at whether I have got that right before I come back next week, but my understanding is that it is because that one talks about legislation.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): The same language is not used, however, in regard to the legislation for the mother-and-baby institutions inquiry and redress scheme. I am looking for consistency, whether it is to do with legislation or spend, on how they will be dealt with. We can pick that up again next week. Thank you, Karen.

Ms Sugden: I want to discuss three areas. Paula might have covered one of them. We and the sector fought hard for our ageing population to be included in the Programme for Government, which does mention it. How is the Executive Office minded to monitor that? Will it screen policy or pieces of work so that it is mindful of the ageing population and of how it will change our public services?

My other point is around the transformation fund. It is a significant amount of money. I am keen to understand what the Executive Office and the Executive are minded to do about that and where the transformation is coming from. In my contribution during the debate on Monday, I talked about looking at the structural transformation of government so that we might move closer to the outcomes-based accountability model that we had in 2016. I appreciate that the Programme for Government talks about cross-departmental working, but I must admit that I am not confident in that. At the end of the day, it will come down to how much money each Department has and what it needs to spend within its remit. I am never confident that it will cross-cut in the way that it needs to, because, when budgets are tight, realistically, you will keep within your own boundaries. Maybe there could be a piece on that.

I am not sure whether I mentioned this point, but I get really frustrated with Programmes for Government that are not really based on any data. We are really poor at collecting data in Northern Ireland across all areas. What are we basing the outcomes, aims and objectives on, ultimately? Is there an opportunity through the transformation fund to look at how we can collect that data to give some evidence and substance to the targets that we are trying to get to?

My other point, which Paula might have talked to, is about the legislative programme. I imagine that a Programme for Government would typically talk about the legislative work that we will do throughout the remainder of the mandate. I appreciate that that might come as part of a separate programme. It is just a little bit disappointing that, given the fact that we are legislators, that does not really feature in the Programme for Government. Will you talk to those points?

Ms Pearson: I will pick up on the transformation fund first, if that is OK. You are absolutely right. We have a couple of references in the document to that. There is a whole section on transformation. Data is vital. You will know that we have positioned the new Chief Scientific and Technology Adviser (CSTA) post in TEO. That is because we take it very seriously. She wants us to work towards having an AI unit. That is already a commitment in the document, so we will do that. If you are going to rely on AI and monitoring, you need the data. The CSTA would completely agree with everything that you just said. Do you want to say anything more about that, Matthew?

Mr McFarland: On the lack of data, I do not think that we are bad at collecting data in Northern Ireland. We have 51 indicators in the document, but we could have had 200. Hundreds of statisticians work across the Civil Service, collecting data that is used to inform policies in every aspect of what the Civil Service and Executive do.

Ms Sugden: I will pick up on that point. Advocates and community and voluntary groups have repeatedly said that the data does not exist in Northern Ireland. I appreciate that all those people are working across that area, but, if we want to improve on it, we cannot accept what we are doing as good enough because it is not. I have to push back on that a little bit. If we look across the regions, we see that we are quite poor at it. If you were to draw comparisons with other parts of the UK and with Ireland, you might see that we have a bit of catching up to do.

Mr McFarland: We will always struggle to have the same data as other parts of the UK because of our size. Sample sizes mean that we will never have the data for some of those groups.

Ms Sugden: You are getting £235 million, so maybe we should do something useful with it.

Ms Pearson: I think that Matthew is correct in what he said, but so are you in what you said about the opportunities that might come from the transformation programme and the transformation fund. We will have a look at what can be done digitally and data-wise using some of that money. I am not announcing something here — that is for other people to do — but the commitment is that the transformation fund is there for that sort of thing. We are very serious about it, as are our Ministers and our sister CSTA. It will be a growing area, and the AI area is particularly interesting. We think of AI as a future opportunity, but it is in the here and now. The private sector is in that space, and we want to get into it. That is why the commitment is in the PFG.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): Just on that —.

Ms Sugden: And on the other points?

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): Sorry, Claire, do you have another point that you want to make?

Ms Sugden: No, I raised a number of different points, if those could be addressed.

Ms Pearson: I know what you mean about cross-departmental working. There can be frustrations with it, but this is intended to drive that. I think that it will, and I see some good examples. I think that EVAWG is probably a shining light in that space.

You mentioned the ageing population. The commitment on page 75 is that there will be a focus on that. Is there an indicator on ageing population?

Mr McFarland: No. We have 51 indicators, and 28 of those have breakdowns by age. We have tried with our well-being dashboard to provide as many breakdowns as possible. If the data exists, we will be able to publish it. I said that there were 28 of them. The other ones that we do not have breakdowns for are for things such as greenhouse gas emissions and things that are not relevant to age. We have an awful lot of data on different age groups that we can use, and the same goes for sex, urban versus rural, people with and without dependants, and all those section 75 groups. We are providing as many breakdowns as we possibly can.

Ms Sugden: How does that translate into how we deliver public services? My whole point around ageing population is not about just satisfying older people. It is about recognising that our public services across the board will look different when more older people are using them. Waiting lists, for example, even domestic abuse — how many of those are older people, and how do we tackle that?

The ageing population must be embedded into everything that we do because that is the demographic that we will be serving in 10 or 20 years' time. It is not about just ticking a box in relation to those aged 60-plus. It is about recognising that public services have to look different. That is the data that I am talking about. The domestic abuse data does not exist. We can put those into our categories of age, but that is not the point.

Ms Pearson: We understand your point. It is a point broader than the PFG. You are talking about a whole-of-government approach to ageing population.

Ms Sugden: That is why the Executive Office needs to lead on it, and that is why the Programme for Government, as I understood, included it. That is why I am asking the question of the Executive Office.

Ms Pearson: Let me come back on what that might look like when I am here next week.

Ms Sugden: OK.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): That is helpful, thank you.

Mr Harvey: Thank you to the panel. How will the delivery unit help the Executive to deliver on the nine priorities?

Ms Pearson: The delivery unit is a clear commitment in the document. It is already established. It will lead on a small number of high priorities. The priorities for the delivery unit are still to be set. However, there are a couple of staff members in there, and the deputy First Minister gave an indication on Monday in her closing remarks of the sort of things that she expects the delivery unit to lead on. She referred to better ways of working, freeing up money to invest in priorities, using innovation and technology — which goes back to Ms Sugden's point — to drive efficiency, and taking steps to begin to turn the curve on long-standing issues: very high-level but impactful work in that unit.

Mr Harvey: You said that your dashboard for measuring progress on delivery and monitoring was longer-term. Should a dashboard not be something that could look at the nine priorities and have early warning signals on whether we are getting there or not?

Ms Pearson: The Chair invited us to be clear on what the delivery and monitoring mechanism looks like. We are totally on board and in agreement with that. As this is a programme to take us to 2027 and the end of the mandate, we need something that will monitor, measure and report on those.

What Matthew has built will give us much longer-range understanding, in that some of the indicators in the PFG will not shift quarterly and may not shift too much by the end of the mandate. We need that long-range thinking, however, and, as Matthew said, every time we get a relevant set of official statistics, that will be updated. People will be able to see what is changing, and that will be explained. I see short-range and long-range work as different activities, but they have to be complementary. That is the challenge for us.

Ms Murphy: Thanks for coming to brief us today, folks. I welcome the much-anticipated Programme for Government.

I will zero in on the rural policy framework that the document references. Obviously, DAERA, as the delivery body from a policy point of view, is leading on that. I understand that, alongside the development of a new rural policy framework, the Rural Needs Act 2016 will be reviewed. Will TEO have any oversight of that or be able to feed in to that, given the cross-cutting nature of the Rural Needs Act?

Ms Pearson: You are right: DAERA will have the lead on that, but it will need to be an example of cross-departmental working. We will want to know what is happening in that space, because it is in the Programme for Government. Whether TEO will have a functional role in that, I am not entirely sure, but I absolutely will be interested in it: it is in the document, and we will have to know what is going on in that space.

Ms Slevin: I do not know the detail of the review of the Rural Needs Act. We will do a rural needs impact assessment, as we should for any policy, where that is relevant. That goes for TEO policies as well as those policies of other Departments that are cross-cutting.

Ms Murphy: I will stay on that topic. The Programme for Government mentions:

Again, DAERA will be the policy lead on that. Are you saying that, even on TB, TEO will seek updates? How does that work with other Departments?

Ms Pearson: We will seek updates on all the agreed actions in the Programme for Government. I would not rule out our having an interest in that one, but TEO can go only to a certain level of detail in what it will monitor. It has to be an ongoing responsibility of Departments to deal with such things, to speak to their Committees and put themselves under scrutiny. I would not want it to be thought that everything in the PFG gravitates to TEO.

Ms Murphy: I understand that. It is about the accountability element. Departments are responsible for delivering their policies that have been set out in the Programme for Government and in Ministers' priorities and departmental business plans.

I know that you are coming in next week to discuss the child rights impact assessment and other indicators. What has TEO done to date and what does it plan to do to consult younger people?

Ms Slevin: For the PFG itself as opposed to TEO more widely, we consulted as widely as we could manage. We met youth groups, specifically the Northern Ireland Youth Forum and the Northern Ireland Youth Assembly. Their feedback was taken on board during meetings and from responses that they provided. We will get into the detail of this next week, but we made it as clear as we could that, while it was nice to receive survey responses, we would take those in the same way as other written responses, emails or phone calls, and we would meet people. A child-friendly version of the PFG was produced. Our junior Ministers attended some of the meetings. It is important that the youth voice is heard: they recognised that, and we took that forward.

Mr McFarland: There was engagement with the Children's Commissioner as well, and there has been ongoing engagement with her office.

Ms Slevin: I believe that they did their own engagement with young people before coming back to us.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): I will follow on from the question that Áine asked about TEO oversight of the Programme for Government. I appreciate wholly that the detailed deep dive into programmes and delivery is a matter for individual Departments and the scrutiny Committees that follow them. However, as a whole, you do not want to see the Programme for Government fail, so what interventions have you planned along the way to ensure that Departments are keeping up with the game as promised?

Ms Pearson: We will do that on two fronts: monitoring and reporting. I have no doubt that the Executive will have ongoing interest in what is happening in this space. There is also the establishment of the delivery unit to assist with some of the high-impact priorities still to be set. However, if you take all those together, there will be multiple ways in which the delivery of the Programme for Government will be monitored, including here.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): Is the delivery unit set up and running now?

Ms Pearson: Yes.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): It is. OK. In those circumstances, when will it be in a position to report to us on delivery?

Ms Pearson: It is still early days. If I may make a suggestion, I would wait until the unit has had its priorities set so that you know what it will be focusing on. I have given you an indication of what the deputy First Minister said on Monday about the sorts of areas that she wants it to be in. The high-level priorities are not quite there yet, but the delivery unit is set up and has two members of staff working very hard, so we are off and running.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): That is useful to know. We can give you notice that the Committee will definitely want to speak to the delivery unit. While I appreciate that it will have nothing to demonstrate to us at a very early stage, we will want at least to have an understanding of its methodology.

Timothy, you have one more question.

Mr Gaston: It is just a quick one. It is in the interests of transparency and follows on from some of the questions and answers earlier. It is clear from what you said that the targets in the health element of the Programme for Government were written by the Health Minister himself.

Ms Pearson: No, I did not say that; forgive me. That will have been written by his officials and then cleared.

Mr Gaston: With the Health Department?

Ms Pearson: Yes.

Mr Gaston: On that basis, there has been a response to a question for written answer:

Mr Nesbitt has shown surprise at some of the figures in the PFG. Could it be that those figures were inserted in the Programme for Government between 21 and 26 February, or were they provided long before that? Were they contained in the updated document that was sent to Ministers on 21 February?

Ms Pearson: I believe that to be the case.

Mr Gaston: If you could double-check that ahead of coming back next week, I would be grateful. It would be interesting to know the timeline. If there is a political fallout coming, I would certainly like to know the timeline of events and why somebody is surprised if they provided the wording that is included in the PFG.

Ms Pearson: Obviously, as an official, it is not for me to speak about political fallout. I should reiterate what I said at the top of the meeting. Our Ministers are absolutely committed to the health reform agenda and absolutely committed to working with Mr Nesbitt. That is what they have been saying. They have been meeting him. There is no doubt in their minds that they want to help him. That is where they are.

Mr Gaston: As it stands, essentially, he is the master of his own destiny. To get that £135 million, he will probably have to look for most of it himself; there is no other money sitting spare to put into that pot.

Ms Pearson: I will go back to what I said earlier: that will come out of the Budget process, which is out for consultation. The Budget process will be sorted in the normal way, and I have no doubt that Mr Nesbitt will make a strong case for additional funding. That will be considered at Executive level, but my Ministers are 100% committed to health reform.

Mr Gaston: Essentially, that money's being produced will rely on monitoring rounds.

Ms Pearson: It will be reliant on the Budget-setting process for the financial year 2025-26.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): That information is not complete at this stage.

Ms Pearson: No.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): We will know the answers to that and many other questions when the Budget is finally settled.

Ms Pearson: Agreed.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): OK. Thank you very much for your presentation. We look forward to future engagement with you and others in respect of the Programme for Government. In the meantime, I encourage all members, if they have questions that they feel are of an appropriately high level to be asked of the First Minister and deputy First Minister and the Executive Office, to please submit them to the Clerk in writing. If members have questions that they think require answers from officials at next week's public session, they should prepare for that as well. It would be helpful if members could remember that they can raise questions directly with the Executive Office through the Committee. Questions relating to departmental activities are far better put to the Department directly by way of question for written answer or question for oral answer.

Áine, can I double-check that you had asked all your questions?

Ms Murphy: Yes.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Dickson): That is fine. Thanks very much.

Carál, I understand that you will leave the Committee at about 3.45 pm, is that right? She may have already gone. We will see.

Thank you again for coming to the Committee. We look forward to seeing you in the future.

Ms Pearson: Thank you very much.