Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): I welcome Neil Gibson, the permanent secretary of the Department of Finance; Catherine Shannon, the Department's deputy secretary for Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) human resources; Aisling Quinn, the Department's director of HR policy; and David Hughes, the Department's director of corporate services.

I should say, members, that a response from the Minister of Education to an Assembly question for written answer from me has been circulated in hard copy for your information. It sets out a little bit more of the Minister's response about provisions in the Functioning of Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (Northern Ireland) 2021, which is one of the pieces of legislation about which people, including me, have raised questions.

The reason that we are having today's briefing is because the Department of Finance, which was previously the Department of Finance and Personnel (DFP), is the lead Department for the management of the Civil Service, Civil Service propriety and ethics, and adherence to the Civil Service code. It is for individual Departments, and, indeed, civil servants, to adhere to the code on an individual basis, but its enforcement, and how it operates in a broad sense, is the Department of Finance's responsibility.

I welcome the fact that the permanent secretary and his team have made themselves available to join us today. That is to their credit. We copied the request to brief the Committee to the head of the Civil Service (HOCS), with the suggestion that, if she would like to join us, she would be more than welcome and that we would find space for her. I will not draw any conclusions at this stage, but I note that she has not joined us, nor has she provided any further information on her investigation of the facts of the Minister's Israel trip. I note that for the record at this stage, but the Committee may draw further conclusions in due course.

Members, we are relatively tight for time, so please limit your number of questions. If possible, I would also like the answers to be brief, please. There are a couple of other issues that we want to talk about today, including questions that we have about the internal audit returns that we have received and about recruitment. We therefore have a lot to get through. I invite you, Neil, to make an initial statement. Without being rude, I ask that you please keep it brief so that we can get on to questions.

Mr Neil Gibson (Department of Finance): Thank you, Chair, Deputy Chair and members. I am aware of my reputation for having a lack of ability to be brief, but I will do my very best.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): It is a fault that I share, so do not worry. [Laughter.]

Mr Gibson: Chair, you have already introduced my colleagues, whom I am delighted to have alongside me, and mentioned the topics that the Committee wishes to cover, so I will not rehearse any of that. We are here because of the Department of Finance's role, which is to set policies for the Civil Service. The adherence to those policies and the behaviours underneath them are the responsibility of individual Departments. We also have a service to provide, should there be matters of discipline that fall outside any policy question.

Prior to the briefing, Chair, you mentioned in passing our innovative administrative officer (AO) pilot. We are really keen to talk to you about that. As members have heard me say before, the gravity of our financial situation is such that we are going to have to try lots of new things, and that is one of them. We are really interested in seeing how the launch goes, and we are very excited for that day, which is coming up next week, I believe. It is an innovative and new way of doing things, and we hope that it goes well and that we continue to learn lessons from it.

The Committee has also been provided with our internal audit reports, on which we will touch. They are a critical tool for me in helping seek out areas in which we might improve as a Department. As I said in my correspondence, I very much encourage a focus on the follow-up reports. It is always good to find out where we can do better. The exam question is this: how did you respond to that, and what did you do to meet the challenges that were set out? We are therefore happy to pick up on those challenges and discuss them. I know that you have a session with Tracey McCavigan, the head of Civil Service internal audit, coming up in February. That will be excellent. Hopefully, we will be able to speak about that, and we have shared our audit plan with the Committee.

We are happy to take any questions about any of those topics or anything else. I am joined by colleagues who will know more of the detail on some of the matters that the Committee wishes to discuss.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Thank you very much, Neil. I appreciate your brevity. I will start by saying that the Minister of Education's trip to Israel and the occupied territories prompted, it is fair to say, significant commentary on adherence to the Northern Ireland Civil Service code of ethics, the ministerial code and the Functioning of Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2021. To that end, my first question is this: who is responsible for ensuring adherence to the NICS code of ethics?

Mr Gibson: The code of ethics that we, as a Department, are responsible for crafting and writing sets out the standard of conduct and the policy that flows from it. I will bring in Aisling in a moment. We are in charge of setting the policies to which each Department must adhere. Adherence to those policies is governed within each Department. Processes and procedures are in place in our various policy streams to speak to how each Department has responsibilities under them. DOF's responsibility is to ensure that the policy framework is correct and is there for Departments to apply. Aisling, you have a bit more detail.

Ms Aisling Quinn (Department of Finance): That is correct. As Neil mentioned, each Department has its own arrangements for handling concerns, whether raised by staff or by the public. Those can include breaches or alleged or potential breaches of the code of ethics. As part of its operational procedures, each Department will have a designated officer for concerns, who is responsible for ensuring the effective handling of any concerns as they come in. That work will include allocating the process to the appropriate business area. An overarching central policy, which is called the raising concerns policy framework, sets out the central Civil Service position, under which each Department has its own operational framework.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK. Each Department is responsible for, in effect, enforcing the NICS code of ethics and dealing with concerns as they are raised. You are responsible for overseeing the overall policy framework. Have any concerns been raised with you, your team or your Department about the events surrounding the Minister's trip to Israel and the occupied territories, either within the Civil Service or outwith it?

Mr Gibson: I do not know that I can answer about whether there has been any correspondence to the Minister. Any correspondence to us of that nature would be guided to the Department of Education for it to deal with. There has been no generic question about the code of ethics per se, and any questions on the specifics of that trip will be sent to the individual Department.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): I will drill down into that answer. If a civil servant in the Department of Education, a civil servant in another part of the Civil Service or a member of the public had a concern that Mr Givan's trip, specifically the communication that that Department issued, which is the nub, violated Civil Service impartiality or the code of ethics and contacted you or your team, is it the case that you would simply refer them back to the Department of Education?

Mr Gibson: The concern would be referred to the designated officer, who is, if you like, the gatekeeper of how it would be handled under the Department's procedures.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): What does that designated officer then do?

Mr Gibson: Fortunately, I have designated officers right beside me, so I can defer to David to speak about that.

Mr David Hughes (Department of Finance): To answer your specific point, Chair, nothing has come to the raising concerns team, to my team or to me as the designated officer about that case. Issues are occasionally raised in the Department of Finance that are not for the Department, but, as Neil described, anything that we receive is passed on to the relevant Department. Each Department will have —.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Whether a concern is raised with you is slightly moot, because you would simply pass it back to the Department of Education.

Mr Hughes: Yes, but we would know that it had come in. Even if we were to pass it on, we would make sure to note it in order to show that we had had sight of it. Each Department will have its own arrangements for who looks at it, how it is handled and all those things. There are some high-level principles to be followed, but each Department will have its own arrangements.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): When it comes to Departments' own arrangements, is it true to say that, ultimately, it is their permanent secretary who is responsible for those arrangements and whatever view is taken and the propriety, or otherwise, of the actions taken?

Mr Hughes: The arrangements in each Department are the kind of thing agreed by individual departmental boards as part of its management structure.

Mr Gibson: Speaking for the Department of Finance, which is the Department that I can speak for, the answer is yes. Ultimately, I am responsible for standards and for upholding them in the Department.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Before I bring in members, I have a couple of questions. Theoretically, were the Minister of Finance to visit Jerusalem and go to somewhere in east Jerusalem where Civil Service recruitment — an area of responsibility that is covered by your Department — was being done, but he had not found out or indicated in advance that he was going on the trip and simply informed the Department, "I'm going to a Civil Service recruitment office in east Jerusalem. It was arranged at the last minute, but I would like to issue a departmental press release about it", how would you respond?

Mr Gibson: I do not think that it is fair to hypothesise . All that I can say to that is that, as I alluded to, I would take the code of ethics, by which I am bound, assess what I had been asked to do, provide advice and act accordingly. I would not like to get drawn into trying to speak to decisions that other Departments have had to make. If such a request were to come to me, however, I would make an assessment, provide the relevant advice and act accordingly, all in line with the policy.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Would you take account of the fact that the Minister was going to an area that is the subject of high political controversy, is occupied and, as we have subsequently found out, is in a place that no UK Minister would visit, nor has one visited for at least 60 years, in a general, non-diplomatic way? Would that form part of your considerations about the advice that you gave to the Minister?

Mr Gibson: I would consider every relevant fact. One hopes to be in possession of everything that is relevant to the decision when making an assessment. Any relevant facts, whatever they might be, would be taken into consideration, however.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): When the permanent secretary of the Department of Education was asked last week at the Committee for Education about the things that he bore in mind when deciding whether to fulfil the request from the Minister to issue communications on his visit, the first thing that he said that he bore in mind, before he mentioned the NICS code of ethics — I think that I am recalling this correctly — was that the Minister had made a request. He then said that there is a high threshold to meet for refusing a request.

What would your advice be? I ask that because the Department of Finance runs the central team for advising on how the code of ethics is applied. That is why I asked you a hypothetical question. It was because you and your Department are responsible for setting that threshold. Ultimately, the head of the Civil Service also is, but she is not here today, having chosen not to come. I am therefore asking you. In that situation, do you advise civil servants, permanent secretaries and other senior civil servants that the first and most important thing to bear in mind is that a Minister has made a request?

Mr Gibson: Again, I want to be careful when speaking about a colleague and a friend. What I will say is that the code of ethics is the gold standard of what must be referred to. If I had been asked the same question, I am not sure that I would necessarily have choreographed everything perfectly as to what I did first, but the code of ethics certainly remains the gold standard. It is important to say that it is a high bar that is set, because, ultimately, we are here to serve and deliver the policy priorities of our Minister, but the Department does all that it can, from conducting webinars to providing updated material, to remind people of the importance and centrality of the code of ethics. In my thinking, that is paramount.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): The idea that you cannot hypothesise is surely anathema to how you operationalise a Civil Service code. There is no way of explaining it in the abstract. It has to be done through hypothesising. My view is that there is no other way in which to do it.

I need to bring in other members, but, first, I will ask one final question. Your Department is the lead for the Functioning of Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2021. Section 7(1) is absolutely clear:

Lots of reasonable people think that, as soon as the Department issued a communication about the Minister's trip to Ofek School, it became ipso facto an official meeting. The 2021 Act, in the mind of many reasonable people — in fact, in the mind of most people to whom I have spoken — has therefore been breached. Are you confident that the Act has not been breached? Do you stand over the Department of Education permanent secretary's view?

Mr Gibson: Again, you are asking me to run through a set of detail that I would not routinely run through. If it were my Department, I would answer, but I cannot speak about decisions that I would have made. What I would point you to, however, is the importance of the independence of the designated officer, of the frameworks that exist and of the processes against which those are assessed. You have already said that other people have made a judgement, but I am not going to opine whether the decision that a colleague took breaches the Act. I therefore do not comment.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Before I bring in other members, I will say something briefly. First, I appreciate that you have fronted up at the Committee. The head of the Civil Service has not. Secondly, lots of people will view as strange a situation in which the team that is ultimately responsible to the head of the Civil Service for the operationalisation and protection of Civil Service impartiality and the code, does not have any apparent route into or any enforcement or oversight mechanism for how that is operationalised in individual Departments. That is purely for the permanent secretary who, in this case, when asked about what he deemed to be most important when analysing the appropriateness of that communication, his first go-to, as it were, was to say that the Minister had asked for it to be done. That is fair enough. All civil servants have to work to Ministers. You therefore have a situation in which the first and most important thing appears to be that the Minister had asked. Ministers themselves can be held accountable only by the Assembly. As we found out on Monday week ago, however, there is a limit to how far that accountability goes. Frankly, that speaks to a crisis of accountability. I wish that the head of the Civil Service were here to answer as well, but she is not. I will now bring in other members.

Ms Forsythe: Thank you all for coming to the Committee, and thank you for your letter, which was received in advance last week. I found it to be quite clear. The permanent secretary of the Department for Education accounted to the Committee for Education last week for the events and for his actions. This is my understanding from the letter that you sent to this Committee, but I ask you for the record whether you are clear that, as the permanent secretary of the Department of Finance, you have no role to play in investigating the matter?

Mr Gibson: Yes.

Ms Forsythe: OK. Thank you. I also thank you for not being drawn on the hypothetical situations, which are an attempt to frame other civil servants and elected representatives as pantomime villains. I feel that that is part of a political witch-hunt on which this Committee would be better not spending so much time.

I also have an item of interest that I want to raise while you are here. It is on the internal audit reports. I thank you for sharing them with us and for being open and frank about how, in addressing the limited opinions, you are trying to improve internal controls. I fully appreciate that. I want to ask about one of the reports, however. It concerns when we have the HR function up here. It is around the inefficiency compensation payments. I am a little bit unclear as to the nature of them and what they mean. I had not really heard of them before. They seem to be quite discretionary and they have now been raised in a report. Can you give me some detail?

Mr Gibson: I will hand over to Catherine. I cut it out of my initial remarks, but I have the opportunity to say now that audit is of real importance. We very much welcome your interest in the reports. I am delighted to say that we recently got a satisfactory follow-up report — you will be getting that shortly — to the particular report that Catherine will speak to.

It is, however, also important that, as accounting officer, I point my audit team to where I see the greatest risks and where I think that there are areas for improvement. To that end, we welcomed the Committee's interest. Indeed, we pay attention to what you have to say, what you scrutinise and what you ask us. Where there are areas for improvement, I take them into consideration as I plan future audit schedules.

When Tracey McCavigan and Lacey Walker are with the Committee, you will get to think about whether you feel that there are areas that we are not probing. We have recently received a follow-up report on inefficiency payments, which is slightly interesting nomenclature. We have had quite a focus on that, because we were not sure whether the processes and procedures were quite as tight as they could have been.

To Catherine's credit, members of my leadership team are increasingly coming to me and saying, "I'm trying to reform my service. Can we bring in audit to have a look at it to help us see where we can learn?". Catherine, I will let you speak a little bit more about the detail.

Ms Catherine Shannon (Department of Finance): The inefficiency compensation payment is part of the Civil Service compensation scheme. It is something that was new to me when I came into the role. I wanted to be assured that we had robust governance in place for how it was applied, so we looked at how the process applied under the scheme. If someone is dismissed as a result of inefficiency because of sickness absence, there is the potential for them to apply for a compensation payment. That compensation payment is paid on a percentage basis and is determined by NICS HR. We therefore look at a range of evidence, including an occupational health report, if there is one; the individual's absence periods; whether the individual made any reasonable attempts to come back to work; the circumstances of their absence; and their engagement with HR and management. With the best will in the world, individuals, because of the nature of their illness or absence, are sometimes not able to come back to work.

If they are dismissed on the basis of absence over a protracted period, they can apply for that payment. We have adopted a process in NICS HR whereby the employee relations (ER) manager responsible for the management of that individual case will assess the percentage of the compensation payment. That is then discussed with their peers. We have a group of grade 7 ER decision makers who assess whether it is a fair level of compensation and whether the processes have been applied correctly. Ultimately, that comes to me. That was the process that we put in place for the application of that aspect of the Civil Service compensation scheme. We asked internal audit to look at it. We said, "Look, we've developed this new process so that we can provide assurance to Neil, as perm sec, that there are adequate governance arrangements in place". That was our first go at it. The audit rating was limited, with a number of recommendations having been made, but, as of October, we now have a satisfactory assurance. That was done to ensure that we have effective governance around the application of the scheme.

Mr Gibson: One final remark to make is —

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): We are quite tight for time.

Mr Gibson: — that, as Catherine alluded to, there are circumstances in which people cannot make it back to work. One of our driving goals under the Minister is to have a compassionate and understanding service. When one thinks of the roles — from prison officers to road gritters to forestry workers — one see how a long career can take its toll. We have an average workforce age that is much older than that in most private-sector comparators. There are therefore situations in which, despite all our occupational health interventions and support, there is not a route back into work for some individuals.

Ms Forsythe: Is it for sickness? When I read it, I thought that it was just periods of unexplained absence, but it is specifically for sickness.

Ms Shannon: Yes, it is for sickness absence. By applying the process —.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): We need to bring in others. Apologies, Catherine, but we have limited time. I hope that that is OK, Deputy Chair. We will have time to talk about that in our inquiry.

Dr Aiken: Neil, thank you very much indeed for coming to speak to the Committee. I echo the Deputy Chair's remarks. There has been undue politicisation of the visit. The situation had been dealt with effectively by the permanent secretary of the Department of Education.

I will look at the internal audit issue. A number of reds have come up for what we could call IT issues. Do you have any growing concerns about the delivery of the various IT systems on which we have been briefed? I particularly refer to what has happened recently with the Nova project. Over to you, Neil.

Mr Gibson: Thank you. It is fair to say that, typically, there are more audits in the IT space, because we run more operational systems there. Audit focuses on transactions, be that money that is paid out or services that are run. IT therefore has an almost disproportionate volume of audits.

It is fair to say that I have a concern, and it is because of the nature of the world in which we operate today. We have an accelerating level of cyberthreat. We have a disparate set of systems. We are going through GovAssure, which you will mention, and it is worth chatting to Paul Duffy and the team about that. [Interruption.]

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Steve, I ask you to mute yourself, please.

Mr Gibson: Is that how I really sound to you?

Along with our digital, security and finance shared services (DSF) colleagues, who are Paul Duffy and his team, we are really having to up our game by comparing different systems. For example, have they been upgraded? Are they compliant with the new technology? There is a lot of new potential, and we are trying, where we can, to think more outside the box and have more harmonised systems. If you were to ask me what my number-one worry, as the DOF permanent secretary, is, it would be fair to say that it is about IT and cyber matters. Nearly all CEOs are worrying about that now. Today's is a different landscape from even that of five years ago, given the level of vulnerability in systems. That is why we have a real focus on audit going in to see what we can do. I encourage the Committee, next time that you have Paul Duffy attending, to have a chat about the GovAssure process. That will take you on a good journey about how we are trying to feel a bit safer through the safeguards that we can put in place.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK. We are very tight for time, Steve, so I will move on.

Mr Kingston: Thank you, Neil, Catherine, Aisling and David, for your attendance today. I reiterate the view that you have been brought in unnecessarily, simply to repeat what you set out in the letter that we received last week, which was that the Department of Finance sets the code of ethics and provides that guidance but does not police the system. That is up to each Department to do. That you have been brought in today is therefore regrettable for your time and for ours. I think that it has been done for political purposes, and you will hear different reasons from members of the Committee as to their motivation.

While you are here, I will ask a question about pressing financial matters. It is not covered in your paper, so you can tell me if I am going beyond what you can cover today, but the two most pressing matters for the Executive as a whole are the budget shortfalls: £100 million in the Department of Health and £280 million or £300 million — I have heard differing figures — for the Education Authority (EA). There will be a monitoring round. There is the UK Budget next week, so some further finances may be coming in. What is your assessment of the situation facing the Executive as a whole in this financial year?

Mr Gibson: It is incredibly challenging. I have huge sympathy for all Ministers trying to balance the pressures on the Budget. My Minister's argument that the level of public-sector funding is inadequate has been clear. Whether we have an adequate share of that is a different question, and it speaks a bit to our new AO pilot, on which we might touch. Doing what we have always done is not going to work. The level at which the economy is growing is not fast enough to keep up with the cost of public-sector pressures. We will have to think about how we deliver services differently. We will have to try things and then try again. We will need the Committee's support for that, because we will have to push the boundaries of innovating, and all done within as good governance as we can provide. Collectively, the Department of Finance has an unusual role, as it is its own Department. I have to manage my own budget and also think about the wider issues.

The situation grips every Friday's permanent secretaries' stocktake (PSS) meeting, and, from sitting at length with the Minister yesterday, I know about worrying how to square what looks like an unsquarable circle right now. The cake is not big enough for what the pressures are, and that will result in some very challenging times. We have our transformation project, which I do not have time to talk about now. There are lots of initiatives going on as we start to say that all ideas are welcome, but the gap between tax receipts and the cost of delivering services is, unfortunately, getting worse. It is not just a Northern Ireland problem, but it is one that certainly keeps me awake at night.

Mr Kingston: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): I should just say very briefly, members, that the Civil Service code of ethics is the responsibility of this Committee. I chair the Committee, and I have been reasonable about giving members their spake, and I will continue to do so, but it is in no way an inappropriate use of the Committee's time to talk about the Civil Service code of ethics. I make that absolutely clear in order to have it on the record, and if it were any other Minister, we would be doing exactly the same thing.

Mr Carroll: Thank you, Neil and team, for coming today. I have a couple of quick questions. If I understood correctly, there is a person in each Department who is responsible for ensuring that the code of ethics is adhered to. That is news to me, so I doubt that it is widely known to the public. Not to throw anybody under the bus, but it is quite a pathetic attempt to try to quell any questions from being asked. Neil, did you have a conversation with the Department of Education permanent secretary before or after the visit?

Mr Gibson: No, I did not.

Mr Carroll: OK, thanks.

I do not know whether you saw the Education Minister's response to Matthew's question for written answer. In it, the Education Minister has tried to say, using terminology from legislation from several years ago, that he did not partake in a "relevant" meeting. I am incredulous that we are being told that somebody who arranged and agreed to fly several hundred miles across the world did not have a prearranged meeting and instead just stumbled upon a meeting. In your experience, do you find that, in a general sense and not commenting specifically on the Education Minister, to be credible?

Mr Gibson: Again, I will not comment on the specifics. In the Department of Finance, which is where I have held my sole permanent secretary role, one of the downsides — or upsides, depending on how you look at it — is that there are not a lot of trips or visits for Ministers. I do not, therefore, have a lot of experience of walking through the process for a visit away. Again, I cannot speak to those specific comments. I saw that response about half an hour before I came to the Committee today.

Mr Carroll: I have another quick question. In his response to that question for written answer, the Minister states that he held a meeting with officials on 3 November:

I do not think that you were at that meeting. Were you?

Mr Gibson: No, not that I am aware of.

Mr Carroll: I have a final, quick question. Some people may question whether a permanent secretary would turn around to a Minister and say, "Minister, you may be in breach of the code of ethics". Ministers and permanent secretaries have a close working relationship. How likely would it be for a permanent secretary to pull a Minister to the side and say, "You need to be careful about the code of ethics here"?

Mr Gibson: Again, I am not speaking on the specifics, but that would happen. It is a requirement.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Have you done it?

Mr Gibson: It is something that I would be expected to do and have done.

Mr Carroll: You have done that. You meet other permanent secretaries quite regularly, Neil. Would that scenario arise regularly for them?

Mr Gibson: I do not know as it is not something that we would frequently discuss. One of the responsibilities, however, of a permanent secretary is to speak honestly and provide impartial and objective advice to their Minister. I can speak only to my experience of the Ministers who I have worked for: they have always been entirely respectful of that advice and taken it under advisement. Part of our job is to uphold and speak truth and to provide evidence. It is certainly my responsibility and that of all my colleagues to say what needs to be said, when it needs to be said, but I cannot comment on how often that happens. I do not know that; it is not something that we tend to talk about.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Gerry, we are tight for time, so I will have to bring in others. We will have to finish in a sec.

Mr Carroll: OK, thanks.

Mr Harvey: Thank you very much. The code of ethics is crafted by the Department of Finance. Is it correct to say that you are just responsible for setting it up and are not in any way responsible for overseeing it?

Mr Gibson: That is correct. We have designated officers and forums, and, occasionally, the policies get updated, refreshed or tightened up. There have been some minor tweaks in recent times. It is not a document that just sits there and lives forever; we take feedback on it and it is updated. You are correct to say that we do not police it for the Departments: we just set the policies.

Mr Harvey: Would the Committee Chair have known that information before today?

Mr Gibson: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Harry, are you asking him to look into my mind to see what I did or did not know?

Mr Harvey: I will continue. You said that each Department has its own arrangements for designated officers. Do those arrangements vary from Department to Department?

Mr Gibson: I will bring David in on that, as he is our designated officer. The answer is yes, and the reason for that is that, when we looked at the raising a concern policy framework, we saw that Departments are wildly different. Those that deal with the public a lot, and have public-facing services, get a lot more queries and questions, so they may need special apparatus such as a committee to, if you like, triage what comes in. We have very few queries, because we do not deal directly with the public, so it would not make sense for us to do that. We determined that it was not appropriate to write one policy that was held in exactly the same way and that to do so would have created unnecessary effort. We have a framework under which Departments craft their own policies. We have had audit check whether everybody's policy on raising a concern is in line with the framework. It is important to say, however, that it is about the diversity of Departments: you could have hundreds of calls coming in from the public to a Department, so you would need different machinery in it than you would in, for example, DOF.

Mr Hughes: The handling of concerns is a management issue that is managed at departmental level. As Neil said, the profiles of the concerns that Departments get are quite different, so the arrangements are different in each Department.

Mr Harvey: I appreciate your answers. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): I have one brief question before I bring in Deirdre Hargey, who, I think, is our final questioner. Happily and coincidentally, your predecessor in the role that you hold now was formerly the director general of propriety and ethics at the Cabinet Office; the now Baroness Gray. She headed up a team that, according to the Cabinet Office website, provides guidance and support to Ministers and civil servants on ethical standards. Its responsibilities include advising on complex cases, providing support on high-profile ethical issues and assisting Ministers in same. Does no one in the Northern Ireland Civil Service do that?

Mr Gibson: DOF does not. That is the only answer that I have to that.

Mr Hughes: The same structures do not exist here as exist in the UK Government.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Obviously, I am aware that the same structures do not exist here. Is there an equivalent person or team? If it is not in DOF, is it in the head of the Civil Service's office?

Mr Hughes: No, because Departments are separate.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): There is no one who is advising centrally. That is why today's meeting is important; we have established that there is no central resource to advise Ministers or permanent secretaries on propriety, as your predecessor in the role that you hold now did in her previous job.

Miss Hargey: Thanks very much. I would like a bit more clarity on the designated officer and, I suppose, the firewall between them and the Minister. If the designated officer has concerns, how do you ensure that those concerns are not just pushed to the side. How does that relationship work to ensure that the integrity of the oversight role over the code of ethics is being protected? What way does that work? Earlier, you said that each Department may add additional codes of ethics. Do those codes still get approved centrally by you? I would like a bit more clarity on that.

Mr Gibson: I will just pick up the second point. There is only one code of ethics, but each Department might operationalise it differently. Departments might need a committee or group because they have so many concerns to deal with. That would be more the case on the operational side of things, but the policy is set centrally. There is only one code of ethics policy. David can speak to the independence issue. Of course, there could be questions coming in about me, for example, that David would then have to handle. There have to be appropriate checks. I, too, have a line manager.

Mr Hughes: With regard to the way in which concerns are identified and handled, what we have got to remember is that concerns cover a wide range of different issues. We are talking about concerns that someone may have breached the code of ethics, but there are other kinds of concerns that can be raised by members of the public or staff that something has gone wrong in some way. Each Department will do it slightly differently. Certainly, in the Department of Finance, anything that comes in that looks as though it is raising a concern that something has gone wrong will go to the raising concerns team. Then, there is an assessment of whether the concern can be dealt with in the business area to which it relates, whether it needs to be dealt with in a parallel business area or whether it needs to be looked at separately. In particular, if it involves the most senior colleagues, we need to handle it carefully to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. That clarity on conflicts of interest is necessary in all cases so that the person who is raising the concern knows that it will be handled with integrity.

Miss Hargey: The code states that civil servants must:

Does that include international law?

Mr Hughes: I am not aware of that question having been raised specifically with regard to the Civil Service code of ethics, or whether colleagues are aware of it in any other area.

Mr Gibson: The honest answer is that I do not know. I am not being untruthful: I do not know.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Do you think that it should be? Do you think it should, Deirdre?

Miss Hargey: I think that we need clarity on that point.

Mr Gibson: I will take that away and come back.

Miss Hargey: If people are raising concerns, they might not know that there is a designated officer who looks at the code of ethics for Ministers. If a complaint is raised in a Department, does that still go to the designated officer for the code of ethics to have a look to see whether there has been any breach of the code of ethics?

Mr Gibson: Yes. Actually, quite a bit of work is done to ensure that awareness is high and that, if you google it — other browsers are available — you will be able to find the name of the designated officer. It is also important in your leadership group and team that you constantly re-communicate that that is where you bring any concerns if you have them. David does a lot of triage to look at cases that are not appropriate for that vehicle, but it is better to be safe than sorry. It is very important that there is clarity for our staff and for the public so that they feel that there is a place where they can bring concerns. We are doing quite a lot to ensure that that is well communicated and well understood, and that people know who those individuals are and can get to them when they need them.

Miss Hargey: I have one last question, which pertains to the issue at hand. It is appropriate that we get clarity on these things. It does not hurt anyone to understand the roles and responsibilities of Ministers and of the Civil Service holistically. A Minister has gone, in a personal capacity, on a visit that was paid for by a Government whose leaders have been accused of war crimes by an international court. As late as last summer, there were rulings by the International Court of Justice on breaches of international law by that Government, yet the Department of Education posted on social media, potentially in breach of that law. Do you not feel that there is code-of-ethics issue and a conflict of interest there?

Mr Gibson: Again, I do not want to speak on another Department's behalf. I can speak only to the issues that DOF has to deal with, and that has not come up in my Department.

Miss Hargey: If that Department says that it does not believe that there was a breach, what other routes are there if the public are concerned about the matter?

Mr Gibson: There are different routes. As we have said, if you believe that there are issues to do with the Civil Service, they will be handled through the raising a concern policy of a Department and, ultimately, will be passed up the chain that David spoke about. There are procedures for ministerial matters, to which I, obviously, do not speak.

Miss Hargey: OK. If I can get clarity on the international law aspect, that would be good. Thank you.

Mr Gibson: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Yes, we would like to get clarity on that. I want to bring this to a conclusion now. Thank you for your time.

I want to say a couple of things for the record. It was extremely important that we had this session. The permanent secretary of the Department of Education made a judgement. What we heard today was that it was primarily his judgement. I am not impugning him as an individual, because he has a relationship with a Minister to maintain, and that is understandable. If he is the judge and jury on the Civil Service code in his Department, however, that is something that we need to investigate and unpack further in this Committee, including the broader consequences, which include confidence in our system and the Civil Service more generally. The answer that I received, which was circulated to members, underlined the position that the visit to the Ofek School was not, in the Department of Education's view or that of the Minister, a "relevant meeting", because no official business was conducted. We discussed further today the position that, under the Functioning of Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (Northern Ireland ) 2021, it was not a relevant meeting.

I happen to have seen a separate answer, which was given to our Committee colleague Mr Carroll, and explained the other attendees at that unofficial meeting with the Minister of Education. That unofficial meeting was attended by the principal of the school, but also Nina Zeltzman, senior deputy director general and head of the pedagogical administration in Israel's Ministry of Education, and that ministry's director of the division for international relations. That was quite a guest list for an unofficial meeting.

One of the things that has come out of this hearing is, I am afraid, that we have a bit of a Wild West in terms of the Civil Service code. This team has fronted up and has come to give us a broad outline, and I genuinely appreciate that. What we have heard today, however, is that it is primarily for individual Departments to set their own rules. The rules are set by the Department of Finance, but it has no role in enforcement, unlike in other jurisdictions, including at UK level. It is ultimately for the permanent secretary to decide what constitutes a breach of the Civil Service code and to interpret the code and, indeed, the law, by themselves.

When asked about it, that permanent secretary said at the Education Committee last week that he was mindful, first and foremost, of the fact that the Minister had made a request and that declining a ministerial request involves a high bar. That is concerning in itself, particularly when there appears to be no additional cover at the centre or from the head of the Civil Service in order to protect the Civil Service code and the impartiality of civil servants. That is something that we need to investigate further; it is very concerning.

It is disappointing that the head of the Civil Service was not here today to explain her position, say what she has discovered in her factual investigation and provide some reassurance to the public. That is doubly problematic in accountability terms when, as we know, there are very clear limits to the ability of the Assembly to enforce the ministerial code via its accountability mechanisms. The public are very concerned about accountability in these institutions, and I worry that the Civil Service has been dragged into that, and not by me.

Before we release the panel, I have one final point to make on another subject. It is another propriety issue, which relates to yesterday's oral ministerial statement. I have discovered that there was a press briefing yesterday morning at 9.45 am, before we were issued with the oral statement at 10.26 am.

As you will be aware, Standing Order 18A is very clear about when statements should be shared with the Assembly. Will the Department go away and look at whether that Standing Order was breached? I have already raised it with the Speaker's Office.

Mr Gibson: Yes, I will take that away. I do not have the answer to that.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Thank you. I am aware that journalists were briefed at 9.45 am on the rating statement, but none of us received it until 10.26 am. That is definitely an issue of propriety for the Department of Finance, so we would like an answer. Thank you. Cheers, guys. I appreciate you coming.

Mr Gibson: Thank you, members.