Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): I welcome to the meeting the following officials from the Executive Office: Ms Karen Pearson, Ms Louise Slevin and Ms Christine Harper. Good afternoon, ladies. It is lovely to see you back at the Committee. I appreciate your coming today and that you provided us with the papers in advance. Would you like to make some opening remarks?

Ms Karen Pearson (The Executive Office): Thank you, Chair. It is good to be back. Today, we will focus on the equality documents and the consultation report. If I may, I will introduce Christine, who was not here last week. Louise was here.

I have just a few introductory comments. The Programme for Government (PFG) was agreed in draft on 5 September. It was launched for consultation on 9 September, with an eight-week consultation on the draft and a 12-week consultation on the three draft impact assessments. The consultations concluded in November and December respectively. The responses that came in were analysed by TEO and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) officials, and a consultation report was then prepared for ministerial consideration. As I said last week, we were absolutely bowled over by the number of responses that we had; it was brilliant. I will put the figures on record again: 1,390 responses were received from organisations and individuals to the draft PFG, some of which were also relevant to the impact assessments; and we received a further 30 responses specifically relating to the impact assessment documents.

We were very mindful of some of the issues at an early stage, and, following the consultation process, targets were introduced into the draft, as were annual objectives, which will be updated each year and aligned with our budget. Respondents were keen that information on measurements and delivery be made available to the public — that was something else that came through. As well as adding targets, we made some changes to what is included in the PFG, such as a commitment to take action to address poverty and a reflection of the reality of our ageing population. It is important to note that, while certain issues were raised during the consultation, there was considerable support for what was already in there, as you can see indicated by the stats in the consultation report.

Ministers met to discuss the consultation findings on 21 November, and a robust process then followed between TEO and all Departments. Departments sent amendments to us, which came with ministerial clearances, and a revised draft was shared with Ministers on 21 February. A further revised draft was shared on 26 February, signed off on 27 February and approved by the Assembly on Monday 3 March. That is the history. The Programme for Government and equality documents were then made public. The PFG could not be declared final until it was discussed and agreed by the Executive and approved by the Assembly. It was published on the Executive Office's website on the afternoon of Monday 3 March, along with the consultation report and the revised equality, child rights and rural needs impact assessments. I think that those are the documents that you have today, Chair.

We engaged with the Equality Commission at various points. We took our lead from it and our own TEO equality schemes when developing the equality impact assessment (EQIA) and other documents. You might want to touch on the point that, because it is a Programme for Government for the whole Executive, we had to try to capture the overall picture of what the Programme for Government is trying to do. That will be quite difficult. As I said last week, and as the deputy First Minister said in her closing speech on 3 March, we expect that Departments will lead on the delivery of the actions that fall to them. We met the Equality Commission and the Commissioner for Children and Young People. Louise will be able to help us with the equality document, and Christine will be able to help us with the rural needs and children's rights documents, if we get into them in detail. As I say, we will still expect Departments to do the delivery, and with that come the responsibilities that they have for equality as well. The art will be in trying to bring it all together.

The First Minister and deputy First Minister have been clear that the PFG is not the totality of the Executive's ambitions or of what is happening in Departments. We know that some people and organisations will be disappointed that they are not seen in it. To get the full picture, we have to look at the totality of what is being done across government. It is with us at this point only because the four Executive parties have agreed on prioritisation. That is where we are today.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Thank you very much, Karen. Ladies, have you anything to add at this stage?

Ms Louise Slevin (The Executive Office): No.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): OK. Thank you very much. The documents that sit behind the Programme for Government document that most people will have seen are very comprehensive. I commend you and your team, Karen, for pulling everything together. Some of the criticism in public discourse and conversation this week has, I think, been false and misplaced, because it is a good document. You should be proud of the work that you have done in that space.

To address some of that criticism, Karen, it would be useful if you could give us an indication of how you worked across Departments, not just in TEO, and with Ministers, their special advisers and senior officials on the content of the report and how you analysed and reflected the consultation, please.

Ms Pearson: I would like to thank Michael Kennedy, who led that work for us. He is not here today, but he led the team in a huge amount of engagement with Departments all the way through. That was at official level. Some meetings were with Ministers.

Ms Slevin: The meetings with Ministers were early in the process. Materials that came back to us later in the process had gone through Ministers, but our meetings were more with officials and, occasionally, special advisers.

Ms Pearson: Part of the ethos was that it would be as inclusive as possible across the NI Civil Service (NICS), because how else would you get to an agreed PFG? You have to do it that way. If I may say so, the team put a lot of effort into that, Chair.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Thank you very much.

You said that you were pleased with the response. I might have missed it, but, with regard to the geographic spread of the response, are you content that there are no areas that responded or did not respond disproportionately? Are you content that you have caught a good glimpse of thoughts on the Programme for Government across the Province?

Ms Pearson: Yes, I think so. Seven of the consultation events were held in person: in Belfast, Lisburn, Ballymena, Newry, Derry/Londonderry, Enniskillen and Cookstown. There was a definite focus on getting as far round as we could. We had 194 people attend those in-person events. We had 205 people attend online events, which, again, was very welcome. A large number of people participated in the consultations. I hope that we got as far round as we could. It was certainly designed to be that way.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): My final question relates to targets and demonstrating output. I appreciate that you have the well-being dashboard. Are you content that the framework is in place to demonstrate progress on the hard outputs at the far end and that you will be able to definitively say at the end what the Programme for Government has delivered?

Ms Pearson: We are in that phase now. We touched on it last week. We hoped that we would be able to give a feel for it today, but I cannot. I am sorry, but we need a bit more time on that. Demonstrating delivery is exactly what our Ministers want to see. They do not want the PFG to be a dry document that just has some words in it. It has to make change, and they will want to be able to see what has been done across all the Departments that have targets to meet. We need to do that. From an equality perspective, we have ways to keep an eye on what is happening in that space too. The well-being framework, which you mentioned, will be updated as and when official statistics come in that are relevant to the indicators and domains. That will change all the time.

Last week, Matthew drew the Committee's attention to where the public can find that document. We want people to be interested in it and look at it. Some of the indicators will not change quickly. It will be a combination of those things: measuring hard outcomes and keeping an eye on the equality issues and the well-being framework. However, they all serve different purposes. It is important that we see those things for what they are, and we will be able to give the Committee some information on targets and measures, but we are not there just yet.

Mr Harvey: It is good to see you all again. It is good to see the responses, and, as the Chair says, people from across the geographical divide were well represented. You received 1,390 responses, and you said that there was a brilliant response. I take it that you meant that all the responses were good, but how many of those were negative responses?

Ms Slevin: I do not think that we can say that they were all good.

Mr Harvey: OK.

Ms Slevin: Lots of concerns and issues were raised during the consultation. When you look at the agreement rates, you see broad support for the different elements, priorities and missions. There was a lot of support for what was there, but we also received plenty of feedback about people's issues and concerns, some of which — not necessarily all of them — are addressed. How much the same issue came up time and again varied. Some of those things were able to be taken on board by the Executive, and some were not.

Ms Pearson: In the interest of transparency, you can find the percentages in the 'Analysis of Responses to Consultation' document. For each section, it will tell you how many people strongly agreed, did not know or disagreed. We have put that information out there, if people want to have a look at it.

Mr Harvey: That is very good. It was a good point that the Programme for Government is not the totality; it is just the prioritisation. That is good.

Ms Pearson: That is correct.

Mr Harvey: The dashboard was mentioned. It means that we can look at where things are going and how fast. That is a good pointer as well.

Ms Ní Chuilín: I tried to look for something in the documents, and, if it is in them, I would really appreciate it if you could steer me to it. Where does it say, as part of the equality impact assessment, which section 75 groups would be more disadvantaged or deprived? That is not here. I could not find it.

Ms Slevin: My colleagues can correct me if I am wrong, but our expectation from the equality and impact assessment is that the PFG will have a positive impact on all section 75 groups or on equality between the different breakdowns. There was one instance where the respondents said that it would have no impact, which was marital status. However, they expected a positive impact on the other groups.

Ms Ní Chuilín: To me, it does not look like a full EQIA. That might be done later, given that, as you said, it is not a final document.

We already have data to say that there are inequalities, yet the document says:

That is why it does not feel like a full EQIA: it is selective data rather than data that came out of a full EQIA. I know that it sounds very technical, but, for me, it does not reflect the systemic inequalities that already exist, particularly for section 75 groups.

Ms Pearson: The document covers so much. I think that the inequalities will be in the departmental-specific work on that.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Maybe, Karen, that could come later.

Ms Pearson: Yes, exactly. That will be iterative, because it depends on what Departments are delivering and when. Some Departments are already shovel-ready in certain areas, such as childcare. They are already doing it, so that will be different.

May I respond on one point? I thought that it was interesting that there were so many impact-screening and equality documents that we could reference in this. It is a rich source of information.

Ms Ní Chuilín: It is.

Ms Pearson: It is good.

Ms Ní Chuilín: I agree. I clicked on a lot of the links. The dashboard, for example, is helpful. It is still under construction and is not a finished piece of work. You have also recognised that, for example, in Justice, there will not be any data on that. I certainly know that it will come down to each Department, because, for example, the feedback in the document under the area of identity was that people from the LGBTQI+ community felt that, because they were not mentioned, they are not reflected in the Programme for Government. That will happen. Different Departments will have to match these targets against output and delivery. At that stage, I would like the Department — it will be for one of the Departments, but I imagine that it will be TEO, given that it is responsible — to ask each Department where, under those categories, they have delivered and where they have not and match that against the current inequalities. It looks like a very positive document, and it is positive that we have one after 13 years, but I represent one of the most deprived areas, and I feel that I need to look out for my constituents and others in the top 10 most deprived areas. The detail that I am looking for to see whether they are getting serviced is just not there at the minute.

Ms Pearson: At a high level, as Louise said, it is our hope and aspiration that the PFG will make things better.

Ms Ní Chuilín: I get that.

Ms Pearson: However, there is wording somewhere in the documentation — I will not be able to find it — that recognises that we have inequalities. We are not trying to skirt over that, and I know that you are not suggesting that we are.

Ms Ní Chuilín: No, I am not.

Ms Pearson: We said that there could be some adverse impacts. There is a table on page 54 of the document. I do not know what page it is in your tabled pack. We had a go at trying to see what that might look like. It was a genuine attempt to address the issue that you just mentioned. As you say, there will be more work coming along at departmental level.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Could that be fed back, Karen, because it is a real concern?

Ms Pearson: Yes, of course.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Thank you.

Ms Sugden: Thank you, Karen. I appreciate your coming back to the Committee. I want to pick up on the themes that I talked about last week. The first one is the data that we collect and how that impacts on how we approach equality. Interestingly, after my comments last week, a number of groups, organisations and people contacted me to suggest that the data is not there. I know that you disagree with that. We are perhaps disagreeing on the type of data that exists, and that is fine, but, when it comes to taking opportunities, how can we improve the data that we collect on what we need to know? To an extent, we know only what we know and do not know what we do not know. That is, essentially, the point that I was trying to get to. In the example of ending violence against women and girls, how many of the victims are 55-plus, which is a specific age group? Are we then approaching how we support those victims in the right way? When people present at hospital, what data do we collect on age groups and that type of thing? I think that we could do better on that in Northern Ireland. My comments last week were on — I am not sure that it was the innovation fund — the money that exists to see how we can do things better.

My second point is around the ageing population. I appreciate that that is now being talked about very specifically in the Programme for Government. How will we monitor that and try to ensure that we are taking it into account? It could even be part of the well-being dashboard, or are we looking at it in another way — through projections or things like that?

Ms Pearson: The position that Matthew and I took last week was that, as you described, we think that there is a lot of data. If that has left us with gaps and if you have heard of specific concerns during the week — you mentioned some last week — please let us know, and we will see whether we have it. We have to continue to say that we are data-rich, because we think that we are. Last week, we were talking about the transformation fund.

Ms Sugden: I appreciate that you probably have a lot of data, but, for me, it should nearly be about the type of data. It should be about quality rather than quantity. It should come from Alzheimer's groups and so on to demonstrate where the problems actually are and put the meat on the bones. It is not just about numbers but about what the actual data is. That is the kind of feedback that I am getting. It is not how much you have but what you have. I ask you to take that back and reflect on it, because I know that I am not the only person saying that.

Ms Pearson: If you have any practical examples, can you share those with us so that we are having the right conversation? That would be really helpful. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Is there anything else, Claire?

Ms Sugden: Just my question on the ageing population.

Ms Pearson: I am just looking at the well-being framework. Christine has it.

Ms Christine Harper (The Executive Office): At the minute, 28 of our indicators are broken down by age. So, obviously, all of those are able to look at the ageing population. I think that they are looking to develop as many more as possible on age, especially on children, to break them down further that way.

Ms Sugden: What do you mean by the indicators?

Ms Harper: Sorry. The indicators on the well-being dashboard.

Ms Sugden: How do we then utilise that information so that it is meaningful?

Ms Pearson: I think that that is the point that you were making last week. We have to start seeing the older population not as a segment but as a population issue. We will take it away and talk to the right people about that.

Ms Sugden: OK. Personally, I think that it nearly needs to be a strategic approach. Similar to how we have a trauma-informed approach, we need to have an ageing-population approach, because the amount that you invest will differ depending on what that looks like. I would love to see some sort of strategy that really focuses on that, rather than just putting it as words in the PFG.

Mr Kingston: Thank you for attending the Committee again. We should record our thanks for the 1,400 responses, with many more people involved. As a Committee, I am sure that we will want to record our appreciation. We want participative democracy. We want people to respond, to express their views and criticisms and to challenge all of us who are MLAs. I note that there was a strong level of support for the nine priorities. Support for most of them was at 90% and higher. The analysis was that people felt that those were the most significant current issues to be addressed. As others have said, the PFG does not include everything that the Government are doing, but, on the priorities, there seems to have been a high level of agreement from those who responded.

I have two questions. The first relates to a comment in the findings of the analysis:

Will there be a report specifically on the PFG? I know that there are various mechanisms, such as the well-being dashboard, but it is necessary to dig into those a bit to find the evidence. Will there be an easy-to-understand report that lists the specific actions that resulted from the PFG?

The analysis of the consultation responses mentions there being:

That became a topic of debate. A PFG is a multi-year document. Currently, Budgets are mostly annual. Various commitments in the PFG are subject to Budget commitments. What is your analysis of the commitment to connect the PFG to the Budget so that people can expect the priorities to be followed through?

Ms Pearson: I will answer those questions in reverse order. Last week, I mentioned the Budget for the next financial year. I think that I may have mistakenly said to Mr Gaston that that was 2024-25 when I meant to say 2026-27. That is the year for which the consultation closes today. Apologies for that slip.
It is more than an aspiration. We think that the PFG will work best if it is linked to the Budget. I think that the Northern Ireland Act 1998 states that we are supposed to try to achieve that annually, so it is more than an aspiration.

Mr Kingston: To link it to the Programme for Government?

Ms Pearson: Yes. The Programme for Government arrangements in the Northern Ireland Act link back to paragraph 20 of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, which states that the Executive should try "each year" to have a Programme for Government and to link it to the Budget. Is that right, Louise?

Ms Slevin: Yes. The early work on that is starting, but the Executive will have to iterate that every year in the targets and the delivery report. We do not have the detail of how the delivery reporting will go through the year, but the Executive have committed to publishing a delivery report every year.

Mr Kingston: Will that include the headings of the priorities and the missions?

Ms Pearson: I imagine so. That is the only way to make sense of the document: taking people back to what we were trying to achieve and what Ministers had set out.

On the matter of the Committee's thanks to the people who took part, while we were overwhelmed, there was a lot of design around the consultation to make sure that the process was inclusive as well as having a good geographic spread, so people could go online or come in person. As Louise told the Committee last week, it was OK for people to ring us and tell us what they thought, and we would take emails or any form of response that people wanted to give us. We think that having the facility to respond online contributed to our having good response figures. That does not work for everyone, which is why we had a blend of ways to engage. An important lesson for us was that the more you put into the design of the consultation, the more you will get out of it.

Mr Kingston: When will the first delivery report be?

Ms Pearson: It is an annual report. I will take a punt and say that it will be towards the end of the first year of the PFG, but I have not discussed that with the Ministers.

Mr Kingston: The financial year?

Ms Pearson: Yes. I have not discussed that with Ministers, but my advice is that that would make sense. If we tried to put a report out in, say, the summer, what would we report on? There would be very little to say.

Mr Kingston: Can we get clarity on that?

Ms Pearson: Sure.

Mr Kingston: OK.

Mr Gaston: Thanks very much for coming back. I will pick up on a couple of things. You talked about the Programme for Government being linked to the Budget. That is a fundamental key to success, and we need to see that developing a rhythm and becoming routine so that they are not two disparate documents. They need to sit together so that we can see what in the document is deliverable. That was one thing that I probed you on last week: where the money is coming from. The Budget is out for consultation.

I will start by asking about the analysis of responses. There were seven in-person public consultation events, which came to a total of 184 people attending in person. Do you have the breakdown of how many people went to each of the events?

Ms Pearson: I think that we do.

Ms Harper: We do, if I can find it.

Mr Gaston: When you did your 10 online events —.

Ms Harper: We have the same breakdown for them.

Mr Gaston: That was about your getting a picture of the geographical spread to ensure that people were being picked up. What was the lowest number of people attending an event, and where was that event? What was the highest number? That is just to gauge where uptake was highest.

Ms Pearson: I will just run through this, if that is OK, Chair. In Belfast, we had 22 people; in Lisburn, we had 22; in Ballymena, we had 30; in Newry, we had 20; and in Derry/Londonderry, we had 18. In Enniskillen, we had 72 people, but we think that that was very much driven by health-related issues. In Cookstown, we had 10 people. The lowest number of people who attended an online event was eight, which was towards the end of the process. The highest number was 33.

Mr Gaston: From that, you took the geographical information and the age of the people to build the profile that we have.

Ms Pearson: No, we did not take that from the online events. The geographic comments at the top were about the in-person events.

Was there anything that we could draw from the online events?

Ms Slevin: No, except insofar that we stated on the website that, if people wanted another event, we would put one on. Rather than 10 events, there were originally six or seven, and we added events if we could accommodate more people.

Mr Gaston: Did people book through Eventbrite, or was it just a case of, "Here's the link, and this is when it is happening" so that people could join?

Ms Slevin: I am not sure.

Ms Harper: People had to register for the event, so we knew roughly how many people would come. That is how it worked.

Mr Gaston: Would it be possible, when we do something like this in future, to record geographical catchment to give us a picture of the areas in which people are motivated to feed into the process and the areas in which they are not? Claire talked about data, and I would be interested to know how many people from North Antrim were proactive and fed into the process.

Ms Pearson: That is a really good idea. We could do it by council district if we were to be in this situation again: tick one box under the question, "Which council district are you in?".

Mr Gaston: Something like that, yes.

Some £17,000 was spent on the consultation. What was that money spent on?

Ms Pearson: It was spent predominantly on the in-person events and on printing and document production for those. You would expect me to say this, but we consider the return that we got on the £17,000 to be good value for money. Some things like that cost a lot more. To do it for that money, I think, is fantastic, but that is just where I am.

Mr Gaston: I will drill down into it a wee bit more. Over 70 events were attended by over 1,500 participants. If we look at the section 75 categories, we see young people, minority ethnic communities, older people, the LGBTQ+ community, the Irish language community, business, education, disability carers and "others". What are the "others"?

Ms Slevin: Off the top of my head, I am not sure.

Ms Harper: I have the list. It was probably just that not every group was listed. There were bespoke events for everybody.

Mr Gaston: Did you capture people's data on the sector that they felt they fitted into, or did you proactively reach out to those groups to try to get them to engage?

Ms Slevin: We did both. We contacted some groups, and some groups contacted us and asked to attend.

Mr Gaston: Which groups did you contact?

Ms Harper: We went out to something like 20,000 groups through stakeholder lists and by asking Departments whether they wanted to go out to their stakeholders. We went out to a lot of people.

Mr Gaston: Was that from a database of grants given out, money awarded in the past or —?

Ms Harper: It was just the TEO stakeholder list.

Mr Gaston: It would be interesting to know which other groups sit outside what is listed so that we could identify whether people were missed or did not take up the engagement.

I have a couple of things to ask from reading over the documents and the Programme for Government. One of the main concerns was the protocol. That is not listed anywhere, but it is a major thing for businesses in Northern Ireland.

I wonder whether the business community did not engage with or feed into the consultation process. Was there a minimal response on that issue? One of the things that I was looking for was more commitment to Intertrade UK, but there is nothing in the Budget and only a line in the Programme for Government. I cannot see anything in the consultation responses. That is a massive, glaring missed opportunity. We have the Irish language community, the LGBTQ+ community and different ones mentioned, but I wonder whether a whole section of business and a whole section of unionism have been overlooked and did not come forward to feed into the consultation responses.

Ms Pearson: I will let Louise answer that.

Ms Slevin: There were meetings with business representatives. The CBI breakfast comes to mind, which the Ministers attended. There were others as well.

Ms Pearson: The Institute of Directors (IOD).

Ms Slevin: Yes.

Ms Pearson: I would not categorise it as businesses being under-represented in this at all. They had the same opportunity. We got some very useful stuff.

Ms Slevin: Also, page 85 of the Programme for Government refers to supporting enterprise and:

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The protocol may not be mentioned explicitly or by name, but, to be fair, that reference is in the document.

Mr Gaston: There is a reference to it.

Something was raised in the Chamber this week at which I was very disappointed. The impact of the protocol is such that Intertrade UK has not been put on the same footing as InterTradeIreland or even on some sort of financial footing. It is really in the shadow of InterTradeIreland, which has all the bells and whistles, and Intertrade UK is meant to survive on fresh air.

I will move back to some of the stuff that we were covering last week. Obviously, the Budget is still out for consultation. Some more information has become available. I am looking back at childcare. The figure in the Programme for Government is the one for up to the end of March — this month. Next year, it is £50 million. The Finance Minister said in the Chamber the other day that a further £5 million has been committed in a future monitoring round. That still leaves £2·2 million of a Barnett consequential that came for childcare but has not been spent on that. To date, despite my probing different Ministers, nobody is able to say where that money has gone or what has been a greater priority than childcare. On the back of the questions last week, is there any more clarity in TEO?

Ms Pearson: Let me clarify that Barnett consequentials are generated by an issue, so the Barnett consequential generated by childcare comes in, and, if it is not ring-fenced, it is allocated in the normal way. You can see from that that the vast majority of that is going to childcare. Given that you have now asked us twice about that missing £2 million — as you see it — we will have to go to DOF and see whether it can get you a response.

Mr Gaston: Why would £5 million be ring-fenced for a monitoring round instead of being put in at this stage?

Ms Pearson: I am not aware of how that came about.

Mr Gaston: It is committing to something before it happens, which concerns me. I get that the Budget is out for consultation and that there is headroom, but, at the same time, it just does not make sense to me. If £57·2 million has been given for childcare and not all of it is being spent on childcare, I want to know how the remainder has been spent.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): I am sorry to interrupt, but the Committee Clerk has emailed the departmental Assembly liaison officer (DALO) about a departmental briefing on the Budget. Maybe some of that might be discussed. Perhaps you could hold that back for next week. However, Karen, you gave a commitment that you would go to DOF.

Ms Pearson: Yes, because the information may not be in our Department, Chair.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): That is what I mean, but we are straying a wee bit more into the Budget as opposed to the programme itself.

Mr Gaston: You mentioned that Departments will take the lead on the delivery of commitments. Is it the case that only certain figures have been inputted into the Programme for Government? I am thinking of childcare and Health especially. I am going over ground that was covered last week: is it the expectation that Mike Nesbitt will find that money for Health from within his own budget? I get it that everybody has signed up to the principles and that there is a belief that we will get the money, but it is clear from different questions that have been asked and different answers that have been given that nobody seems to know where the money is coming from to fund the commitments in the PFG.

Ms Pearson: I think that the papers contain a phrase — I will not be able to find it — along the lines of, "Not everything that the Ministers want to do has money attached to it at the moment". However, we expect that the Departments will, as a starting point, fund the commitments that they have included. Mr Nesbitt has used very careful wording around needing Executive support, so that one will need to be looked at. As I said last week, Mr Nesbitt will make his own "strong case".

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): I am conscious that Áine is still to come in.

Mr Gaston: This is my final point: policing is still no further forward. Nobody seems to be able to give clarity on the 'New Decade, New Approach' commitment to 7,500 officers. I do not understand why that reference to 'New Decade, New Approach' was included without a figure attached to it, which gives the Minister wriggle room.

I am really concerned about the housing commitment. I have asked questions of DFC and the Department for Infrastructure. An all-singing, all-dancing Programme for Government has been put together. It comes across as being great, and the Executive parties are promoting their positive message, as you would expect. However, how are we financing it? That is the key question. Nobody, including the Finance Minister, has been able to say, "We have a pot of money coming", or, "This is where we're getting the money" to fund the vast majority of the stuff in the document, over and above what Departments have in their budgets. You said that Departments lead on the delivery of commitments. I do not want to pick on Health, or the Health Minister, but that gives me the impression that he has been told, "That is what you have asked for. There's your budget. You deliver it from your own resources".

Ms Pearson: The agreed wording in that regard in the Programme for Government is "With Executive support". That is what it says in the document. I emphasise just how committed my Ministers are to working with Mr Nesbitt on health reform.

I did not look at the police numbers in any meaningful way. I think that Mr Dickson suggested that you table a question.

Mr Gaston: I have.

I am really concerned that there simply is not the money to deliver on some of the commitments. Without the money, there will not be delivery. The Executive will be judged on that in two years' time. Unless a pot of gold is found somewhere, a lot of it is very aspirational. The Programme for Government is set up for a fall.

Ms Murphy: Thank you, Karen, Louise and Christine, for coming back to us this week. I am glad to hear that we had such high numbers attending the event in Enniskillen, which is in my constituency. Some issues are highlighted in the draft rural needs impact assessment (RNIA). Will you expand on some of the consultation responses that were submitted by rural residents?

Ms Harper: This is just a summary of the written responses; there are probably a lot more. Issues included:

Ms Murphy: The draft rural needs impact assessment found, similar to the draft EQIA, the potential for "a positive impact". However, there is no mention of possible negative impacts. Have any been identified?

Ms Harper: The rural response was very mixed. Eight respondents felt that the draft PFG would have a positive impact, seven that it would be negative and five that it would have no impact. Those are not high numbers, but there was a range of issues addressed, mainly around access to services.

Ms Murphy: That was across the board, whether on transport, health or schools.

Ms Harper: Yes, education as well.

Ms Murphy: Karen touched on this point last week when talking about delivery. Essentially, it is up to Departments to plot a path for policy and abide fully by rural-proofing at that stage.

Ms Harper: Yes. Each policy team will have to do its own rural needs assessment when needed.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): I want to return to a point that Timothy made about the consultee list. You said that you went out to about 20,000 groups. Is an exercise up and coming about opening that out, given that new groups appear and others close? Is that the responsibility of the Executive Office or does each Department go out to the groups on its list? There is the potential for people not to be included in the consultation on this or other things.

Ms Harper: We can definitely look into that, but, as I said, we went out to Departments as well.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): I was just thinking of updating the lists.

Ms Harper: Definitely, yes, we could see whether people were missed. We really tried to capture everyone, but I am sure that some were missed.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): It could even be just a call for groups to come forward in this slightly quieter time now that the consultation is over.

Mr Gaston: On that point, I would be very supportive of putting out a call. I am thinking of a number of groups that have been before the Committee but said that they were not invited to take part in different things. On women's rights, for example, we have a letter from the Free Presbyterian Church, which felt that it was not invited to our inquiry. It is important that such groups, even though they are not on the Department's database, appear somewhere so that, when it comes to the Programme for Government or strategies, they get an invitation to take part.

Ms Pearson: It is a good idea to refresh the list.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): There is also a role for us as elected representatives to tell people.

Ms Pearson: Louise just reminded me that we had adverts in newspapers as well, which goes back to the point about the design of the consultation: let us use as many avenues of getting to people as we can. We will take that action back.

Mr Gaston: You mentioned newspapers, but, if you look at how many people came in person and how many joined an online event, you will see that there were more online. There is still a place for local newspaper, but you will reach far more people via the online avenue. There needs to be a central database that a Department has control over, whether that is the Executive Office or another Department.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Thank you very much, ladies. We really appreciate your time again this week. Good luck with the work in the months ahead. There is a lot in front of you.

Ms Pearson: I will be back in two weeks on the completely different subject of civil contingencies, so I will see you then.