Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): I welcome, from the Department of Finance, Jill Minne, deputy secretary, people and organisational development; Catherine Shannon, deputy secretary, Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) human resources (HR); and Paul Duffy, deputy secretary, Integr8 programme and finance shared services.

I invite Jill to give us an opening statement. Members should indicate whether they wish to ask questions.

Ms Jill Minne (Department of Finance): Thank you very much, Chair and members of the Committee, for the opportunity to attend today. We welcome the inquiry into the performance and culture of the Civil Service and your focus on people as the route to better public service delivery. I am here as the senior responsible owner (SRO) for the NICS people strategy 2025-2030 and as NICS lead for HR policy and strategy. Catherine is deputy secretary of NICS HR, and she is responsible for leading HR shared services as well as for key aspects of the people strategy, particularly around recruitment and employee well-being. Paul is the SRO for the Integr8 programme, which is an enabling action for the people strategy.

In simple terms, the people strategy is the system-wide plan to ensure that the Civil Service has the skills, capacity, leadership and culture that it needs in order to support Ministers, the Executive and, ultimately, public service delivery. It is structured around three priorities: skills and capacity; experience and environment; and leadership and inclusion. The issues that you want to explore as a Committee, including capability, recruitment, retention, sickness absence, vacancies, inconsistent practice and stronger workforce planning, align with the people strategy's programme of work, as well as NICS HR's service delivery and improvement agenda and the enabling action of Integr8, the new finance and HR IT system.

It is also extremely important to recognise the wider context of independent scrutiny. The Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) follow-up report 'Leading and Resourcing the Northern Ireland Civil Service' highlights workforce pressure and calls for sustained collective leadership and pace in delivery. We welcome that scrutiny, which recognises strengthened governance and the people strategy as the programme through which recommendations must be addressed, and much of that work is under way. The central point for delivery, however, is that the people strategy cannot be delivered by one Minister, one Department or one senior leader; it is a system programme. Real change comes through consistent leadership, decision-making and day-to-day management practice across all Departments.

The Department of Finance has a central and specific role. Under the people strategy's governance model, the Minister of Finance holds formal decision-making authority for the strategy and any substantive changes to its scope, direction or delivery. The Department of Finance leads Civil Service workforce policy and provides HR shared services, including guidance toolkits and operational HR processes, as well as the systems that support consistent practice. However, the centre cannot and does not manage the day-to-day operational people management of a workforce of 24,000 people. Departments manage their own staff and delivery, including performance, attendance and the practical application of HR policy. Departments also set their affordable workforce requirements and raise vacancies to meet their business needs. Our shared objective under the people strategy is a more consistent system with clearer accountability for outcomes.

Turning to progress and next steps, there are three key areas for performance, culture and value for money. The first is the new Civil Service workforce model, through job families and professional groups, which gives a shared language for job roles and skills across Departments, supporting clearer role definition and more targeted recruitment. Our milestones are job families and professional groups by the end of this month; staff alignment in quarter 2 to quarter 3 of 2026; and career frameworks in place by March 2027, subject to agreement by the Civil Service trade unions. The second area is strategic workforce planning. That is how we will move from reactive staffing to planned, evidence-based workforce management. We have published guidance and are building cross-departmental capability and consistency. Departmental strategic workforce plans have been requested by 31 March 2028 so that they can be consolidated into a Civil Service-wide plan thereafter. Those dates were set out in the Audit Office report. The third area is policy renewal and practical implementation support. That directly relates to the areas that you have signalled, including sickness absence, hybrid working, discipline and performance. The focus is very much on modernising key policies and strengthening support for line managers so that practice is more consistent across Departments. The people strategy is designed to deliver changes that staff and the public can feel, including clearer roles and pathways, streamlined recruitment into priority areas, stronger workforce planning, more consistent people management practice and stronger leadership capability and culture.

The Audit Office has reinforced the need to accelerate delivery, and we are doing that through the people strategy programme and associated governance arrangements, particularly through the NICS Board and its people committee and by having permanent secretary sponsors for each of the key initiatives in the strategy. What will make the difference now is collective leadership across the Civil Service, with Departments and the centre playing their respective roles so that performance and culture improve in a way that is sustainable, measurable and focused on public value.

Thank you, Chair. I am happy to take questions.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Thank you very much, and thank you for coming in. Members, as always, please indicate if you wish to ask a question.

You said that the NIAO report reinforced the need to accelerate delivery: is that not a diplomatic or management-speak way of saying that, since the previous Audit Office report, the Civil Service has gone backwards instead of making progress?

Ms Minne: No, it does not say that it went backwards; it indicates that a number of the recommendations were achieved and that others were in train and under way. Of the 23 recommendations made in 2020, five were achieved, 13 were partially achieved and five were not achieved. Of 12 recommendations in the Public Accounts Committee's (PAC) report, three were achieved, seven were partially achieved and two were not achieved. With respect, that is not going backwards.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Five out of 23 is coming up to one fifth. If between a quarter and a fifth of your targets have been met, you can hardly call that "progress".

Ms Minne: Well, five have been achieved and 13 have been partially achieved, which demonstrates that work is under way. Moreover, you have to think about the context within which we operate, which is not set out in the NIAO report. The NIAO reviewed a five-year time frame. Within that time frame, from 2017 to 2020, we had no Executive and therefore no ability to agree or change any HR policies. We also had Brexit. From 2020 to 2022, we had COVID and then COVID recovery, and, from 2022 to 2024, we had no Executive and therefore, again, no ability to change, review or make policy. Within the five-year review period that the NIAO report talked about, four years were impacted by what were, frankly, shocks to the system.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK. Looking at page 25 of the report, which is 'Part Two: Progress since the 2020 Report', I think that it is fair to say that progress is not being made on a significant number of key areas. I am not saying that to be churlish, but clearly there has been a dramatic increase in the number of Civil Service vacancies. It is up by more than 4,000. At the same time, the overall headcount is up by more than 1,600, which is a significant amount. The median age is still too high: it is basically the same as it was. Sickness absence is still extremely high. There is a very small increase in the number of "unsatisfactory" assessments. I am not saying that we want all civil servants to be found to be "unsatisfactory", but, back in 2019, there was a genuine belief or a widespread view that 19 people out of a workforce of more than 20,000 being deemed "unsatisfactory" was an improbably low number. Surely, 32 is also an improbably low number. I will put it to you again: do you understand why people look at the Audit Office report published a few weeks ago and think, "I am not sure that enough progress is being made here"?

Ms Minne: Of course I do. That is why we welcome the independent review. We also welcome the recommendations, and DOF has accepted those recommendations. I think, though, that one has to understand the context within which the Civil Service is operating, what it can and cannot do and what it has done. If you look purely at what it says in the evidence about how many are in train, it talks about various improvements that have been made. However, I do not disagree. Following the restoration of the Executive, we had a one-year people plan, and we now have a five-year people strategy. Everything that was set out in the Audit Office report and in the PAC report has been forensically analysed to make sure that it sits within the people strategy and will be delivered.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): I want to pick out a couple of specific things that are persistent issues in the Civil Service. One is sickness absence, which is high. That is not to demonise people; sick leave is obviously hugely important. People take it, and there may well be issues that we do not understand. Mental health appears to be a significant one. However, it is not satisfactory that we are leading the way. The Northern Ireland Civil Service is a bit ahead of local government here. It is doing a bit better than local government with sickness absence, but it is behind all other comparable workforces on these islands. Why is that?

Ms Minne: I can describe the absence policy. There are two things. The policy provision is not outwith any other jurisdiction or organisation. Notwithstanding that, it has just been reviewed, and it will be the subject of consultation with the Civil Service trade unions. There are two aspects to the role of DOF, which is to have a good policy in place. Then there is the operational delivery of HR processes. As I said at the start, there are line managers across the nine Departments and the 24,000 staff, and they are responsible for managing absence.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Someone must have a view on why we have higher sickness absence. The question was this: why do we have higher sickness absence? It may be a complicated one. It may be to do with digital pressures and workload, but the Civil Service must have a view on why it has high absence levels.

Ms Catherine Shannon (Department of Finance): There are a number of reasons. Since I was last up before the Committee, we have embarked on work with the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) to ask why our sickness absence levels are the way that they are. I would caution against comparing with other organisations, because I want to make sure that we compare like with like. We are undertaking that work so that we can ensure that the initiatives and support that we put in place are reactive and we get in before our staff go off sick.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): I think that it is fair to say that you can look at another public sector workforce in these islands and look at sickness absence levels in Scotland, England and the Republic of Ireland. We compare ourselves with those jurisdictions for a reason: we are very like them. It is not unreasonable to compare those numbers.

Ms Shannon: No, it is not unreasonable, but every jurisdiction counts and captures their sickness absences in a slightly different way. That is not to say that we are not concerned about the absence levels of our staff: we are. That is why we are trying to be proactive in that space. We are looking as a society at mental health absences and mental health-related absences and sickness. We know that those are broader societal issues. That is something that we are trying to impact on from our occupational health perspective.

We are also looking at a multidisciplinary team. For example, we brought in a physio on a part-time basis to look at how we address our industrial staff or the needs of our staff in the environment in which they work. We are trying to be as proactive as we can. We are working with colleagues from NISRA to get in underneath that issue and see why are we performing the way we are, what we can do better and how we can compare ourselves more favourably with other organisations, counting our absences in the same way so that we are not comparing apples with oranges.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Is it fair to say that, in general, there is no set view of NICS HR or the Civil Service as to why, even if it is for a number of different reasons? You have no specific analysis yet of why we are distinct and specifically higher. It is a work in progress.

Ms Shannon: It is a work in progress in terms of the analysis that we have. As I say, we are doing a more in-depth look with colleagues in NISRA to get to the statistics and see what that tells us.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): The higher absence levels have been going on for a long time. It is not unreasonable to ask why it is taking so long for us to establish a position. On the people strategy, obviously this is core workforce management, and the absence could well indicate other issues. You are HR professionals, and I am not. I did not see clearly from the people strategy a specific target or intention to get down towards a certain level or percentage: why was that?

Ms Shannon: As I have mentioned before, it is not just about setting targets for Departments to reach; it is more important for us is to understand the reasons why our staff are absent and to address those. If we were in a better position with our management information and understanding the breadth of our absence, as well as the reasons why our staff may be absent in the first place, maybe we could get into that position. As a Department, the Department of Finance does not put those questions to other Departments. Our role is to support managers and our staff to support absence and so that staff do not go off on absence in the first place and to identify those issues quickly.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): So, at the minute, the work in progress is to get better information from NISRA about what is driving this: is that fair?

Ms Shannon: A couple of things. There is the work that we are doing with NISRA — the official statistics, which are important — but we are also trying to look at our own management information. NISRA has a bit of a lag time around the information that we are looking at. We are looking at developing our management information so that we can see patterns, identify hotspots more quickly and be more proactive in that space. We are looking at how we do our own management information to help us then inform on a more real-time basis.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): This has been an issue for a while; it is not a new thing. Fair enough, Jill was challenged earlier on talking about progress. I think that you said that I was sort of misquoting or misinterpreting the NIAO report when talking about how little progress there was. There is a subheading In the actual NIAO report which says:

Honestly, I was not making it up.

One question that is germane to all of this relates to senior-level ownership. Whom do you report to? Obviously, you are the seniors, and we are happy that you are here today answering questions, but is it the head of the Civil Service or the permanent secretary of the Department of Finance who is ultimately responsible for this? I have been unclear about that.

Ms Minne: On the people strategy?

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): All of these things. If I was to say, "Leading and Resourcing the Northern Ireland Civil Service", who is the overall owner of addressing the things that are in the NIAO report, which includes the people strategy actions?

Ms Minne: I suppose, Chair, that is what makes delivery difficult and probably makes it difficult for you, as the Committee: the constitution and the nature of the Civil Service is such that DOF has a particular role. As Catherine was saying about absence, for example, all the things that we are trying to do are to see how we can improve the management of that; how we can support line managers; whether our policies are fit for purpose and up to date; and whether all the tools are there. Ultimately, the Departments manage their workforces. There is a role for the centre and for DOF and there is a role for the head of the Civil Service and for the Minister of Finance, but ultimately they are distinct roles, and, if they do not come together, we will not get the change that we need.

The Department of Finance can do only what it is responsible for doing. To effect the change, however, you need the nine Departments to go along with that and to strategically workforce-plan, implement the policies that DOF sets, use the guidance that we give them and implement the training.

It is difficult to determine. We sit in the Department of Finance, so we report to the permanent secretary and the Minister, but, clearly, the head of the Civil Service has an overall role, and she has effected considerable change to the governance of the people strategy. For example, she set up the people committee under the NICS Board, and she has, for the first time ever, put in charge permanent secretary sponsors and permanent secretary leads for each of the nine key initiatives in the people strategy. That demonstrates the need for collective leadership.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Those are all fair points about the constitutional way that the Civil Service is set up, but people listening will think, "Surely the head of the Civil Service is responsible for improving the Civil Service".

Ms Minne: If only it was as easy as that. Change is not brought about by holding just one person to account, because there are certain —

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): She is paid a large amount of money, and is

the public, so who should be held to account?

Ms Minne: I understand. With regard to the role, I am not talking about the person, but —

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): I am not either, but whoever is the head of the Civil Service is very senior and is paid a lot of money.

Ms Minne: Absolutely. Each Department has a Minister and an accounting officer, so each Department is, for example, responsible for its budget and for making sure that its workforce is the right shape and size. I know that I am probably not giving you the answer that you might want.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Is there an argument for changing the way that the Northern Ireland Civil Service is constituted so that the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service is directly able to intervene on workforce management in individual Departments and the Civil Service workforce at large? It appears to be a consistent problem, and it seems to map some of what happens at a political level where stuff does not get delivered because there is the silo issue. If you face the same problem in improving the workforce as Ministers face in working together or getting things done because, in this wee region, we cannot break down barriers, surely someone should just say, "Right, we need to change the way we do things. The head of the Civil Service needs to be actually responsible for running the Civil Service rather than being a kind of well-paid titular figure with unclear executive responsibilities".

Ms Minne: As a HR official, I am not best placed to comment on that. There is no doubt that whatever has been within that role's gift has been, as far as I can see, around the people strategy — the most significant thing that has been done, certainly in my time in the Civil Service — by setting up the non-executive directors (NEDs) on the NICS Board and the people committee and asking for collective leadership at the NICS Board table on the people strategy. That has not been the case before.

Ms Forsythe: Thank you all for being here as we start our inquiry. Obviously the inquiry has been very much driven by the Audit Office report, the PAC report, the

delivering all the recommendations and how that looks to the public.

I recognise the work that has gone into the people strategy; it is comprehensive and covers all the issues. It was launched last year, five years after the report said that progress was slow, but I want to recognise that we have something.

What mechanisms are in place to set targets, reviews and reports? The strategy was launched last April: will there be a 2025-26 report on progress? Are there specific built-in targets? I think that Neil Gibson might have shared something with the Committee about a dashboard. Can you give a little more information about the monitoring mechanisms and how they are progressing?

Ms Minne: There are two elements. The head of the Civil Service and the chair of the people committee have asked for an end-of-year report, and we are more than happy to share that with the Committee. The NICS Board will receive a highlight report every time it meets on the nine initiatives in the people strategy and the red, amber and green (RAG) status of the milestones. There is a two-year road map plan for the milestones, and that shows how we are doing. There will be an end-of-year report and regular reports to the people committee about progress. Additionally, there are Civil Service and departmental dashboards setting out the best practice indicators to show the health — I do not mean sickness absences — of the progress.

Ms Forsythe: That must be what Neil shared with us. I remember that it had things like payment days, but it had some people information.

Ms Minne: It contains the staff turnover, average age and all that sort of information.

Ms Forsythe: How are those targets set? I wanted to marry up the people strategy, which says that it will do all those things — I like that it is called "the people strategy" and that it puts the human element at its heart — but, ultimately, when the dashboard reports on progress and numbers, how will the targets be driven? Is it set centrally by the Department of Finance, or is it in partnership with individual Departments? Obviously, the departments will have different issues.

Ms Minne: The dashboard has the total workforce employees, temporary promotion, agency workers and all the staff who are in post. The dashboard shows the trends, and there is no target for those issues or absences, as Catherine said. However, we want absences to come down, and the dashboard looks at the trend, which shows the operational day-to-day health of the organisation.

Ms Forsythe: There probably need to be a few more targets. We have looked at the Audit Office and PAC reports, and there are questions that come to us as the scrutiny Committee.

There are about 24,000 staff in the Civil Service.

Ms Minne: There are 24,500 staff.

Ms Forsythe: What is the Civil Service's total salary cost for the year?

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): It is over £1 billion.

Ms Minne: It is £1·57 billion.

Ms Forsythe: There are huge numbers of staff who come at a huge cost. We are looking at the details of the people strategy, and we are trying to understand whether there are targets. We are not suggesting robust targets that hit people hard. Is there a way to indicate what is being worked towards with a shared view? That way, we could go back to the Audit Office and PAC reports and say, "OK. We can see that we have not met the recommendations, but we have set targets, and here is how we are progressing". I am trying to tease that out.

Ms Shannon: I have responsibility for the initiative to standardise and streamline recruitment. You would expect to see key performance indicators (KPIs) for recruitment: time to fill and time to hire. Next week, we launch our competition dashboard, which will enable us to see how many posts take from nought to three months to six months. I am happy to share that with the Committee. It will probably tell us what we knew anecdotally. It will allow us to say, "OK, if some competitions take 12 weeks, 16 weeks, three months or six months, what KPI would we realistically expect to see and what should we be working towards?".

As you know, we have moved to looking at a different recruitment model and at area recruitment in the north-west. Our KPI for competitions that we run through that model will be 12 to 14 weeks, and we know that we can do it within that 12-to-14-week time frame. We know that the general KPI for some of our recruitment activity that is run through that model is 12 weeks. Equally, once we have our competition dashboards, we will set those targets centrally.

We run competitions centrally, so it is easier for us to set KPI for recruitment centrally. Once we have the dashboards, I want us to be in a position where we can say what we expect to see for particular competitions, such as saying that it is 16 weeks for a senior civil servant competition. We would then work on the basis that that is what we want to report on. If we know that certain competitions take a lot of time, we will be able to pinpoint at what point on the journey they started taking that time and whether we need to do something different, such as applying automation.

For that initiative, it is easier for us to get to a point at which we can drive forward KPIs. I am happy to report that we are starting to get to that position. That is where I want that initiative in particular to be. I know that that causes a bit of angst across the whole system, and you have raised it a number of times. However, it will help us to drive forward action on any delays in recruitment. There are certain areas of the people strategy where we can start to drive forward those KPIs.

Ms Forsythe: That is important. It is also important to be brave and come out with the numbers at the start, even if they are not the numbers that anybody wants to see. If you do not show the starting point, you cannot show the improvement that has been made from it.

You talked about recruitment: the Audit Office report talks about capacity, capability and specific areas of expertise in which you struggle to recruit. In the past month, a recruitment campaign for 120 generalist deputy principal (DP) staff was launched. How does that align with the fact that you have specific skills gaps? You are not targeting those but running another generalist campaign. That seems to be in conflict with the direction.

Ms Shannon: I absolutely agree. As Jill said, however, our journey is one of looking at job families and career frameworks. We are working with our trade union colleagues to do that, but we had to weigh it up. We had not had a DP competition since 2022, and we did not have a supply of DPs. Due to those vacancies, there was an obvious gap in Departments' ability to deliver their services. We created that competition to get supply to help Departments and start aligning people to the job family roles. The competition was about weighing up what we needed to do to help Departments to fill their vacancies, particularly in critical areas. On the journey, we will ultimately align all our staff to the job families. Once it has been agreed, it will enable us to have recruitment that is very much on that basis. That is where we want to get to. We will start that as soon as we have the job families.

Ms Forsythe: We talked about the high number of temporary promotions (TPs): presumably running the DP competition will afford some of those on temporary DP promotions the opportunity to become permanent. Without the competition, would that not be a possibility?

Ms Shannon: For probably the first time since I joined the Civil Service, we are nearly at the position where we have supply at all those grades, meaning that we can start drilling into why there are TPs in some areas. The one frustration that Departments have had is having TPs and agency staff because they simply do not have the supply of staff that is needed. We are now in a position to supply.

The other group for which we do not have supply is staff officer (SO). We hope to come out with a competition for that role soon. That at least means that, where a Department has determined that a vacancy is affordable, it can draw from the list that we have. Ultimately, its impact will be that, where a person is in a TP role, it will be possible to slot someone into that role on a substantive basis. That will cause a ripple effect whereby, if somebody gets a promotion, they will potentially leave a post behind. If we have supply at all grades, it means that we will not impact on Departments and create problems elsewhere.

Ms Forsythe: I want to ask about responsibility, which Jill has talked about a wee bit. I have found that, because the Civil Service has moved to the shared service, which sits in the Department of Finance, when I ask Departments about things such as sick leave and vacancies, I get rebuttals that say, "This is managed by Department of Finance shared services", yet, when I ask things of the Department of Finance or the Finance Minister, I get generic answers saying, "This is managed operationally by individual Departments". It feels as though that is buck-passing, with nobody taking responsibility.

I am not complaining about being bounced about by the Civil Service; I am thinking about the people involved. I get feedback from civil servants in certain Departments that nobody is taking care of the human element. I do not want to identify individuals, but let us say that someone in a Department has an issue with, for example, recruitment and training, sick leave or skills gaps. People tell me that, when they try to raise such an issue, the culture embedded in the Department is such that they are told to go to HR Connect or elsewhere in shared services rather than being able to have the human conversation that is often needed.

My perception of how the Civil Service operates is that, because it has become so big — 24,500 staff — there is a perception that everything sits in the Department of Finance for shared services to deal with. The problem is that, because that culture has evolved, front-line civil servants — those who deliver public services — who have issues do not feel as though their Department has responsibility for building the human aspect of line management. Is that something that you recognise? Are you addressing or taking action on it? It feels as though, at a high level, that is what the culture has become, and I am concerned about the outworkings of that, given that front-line staff feel it.

Ms Shannon: The crux of the people strategy, which is the collective ownership piece, will help to address that. As Jill said, different permanent secretaries sponsor the different initiatives. Even the recruitment initiative is sponsored not by our permanent secretary but by the Department for Communities, which is the biggest customer for our services. The people strategy will help to address the issues that you raise.

Ms Forsythe: There should be a communication piece on the people strategy for operational staff. The strategy is high-level, technical and strategic, which is great to see, but the message needs to get through to the staff in Departments. Many staff work from home, not always by choice but because of their role, and feel a bit detached, so it needs to be more accessible. It is about saying, "This is what we are doing with the people strategy: come forward and do this".

There is feedback on the electronic element of shared services about how, for self-certification, you just click a button when you are off work and click a button when you come back. People sometimes cry out for human contact, but, because everything has gone electronic, we have lost the personal interface. You talked about mental health: a lot of staff with mental health issues, especially those who are not in the office a lot, are crying out for a meeting with a line manager or for someone to reach out. My priority would be to increase the human aspect.

Ms Minne: One of the strands of the people strategy is about HR policy renewal, but that is being looked at through a particular lens, because there is nothing technically wrong with our policies. Nothing in them is outwith what is in other jurisdictions' policies; they are legally compliant and all of that. The real questions are about why they are not being implemented consistently and whether they are being implemented to the highest level in every way. The focus is on making sure that the policies are fit for purpose, but it is also about employee experience. That is discussed in the strategy, which says, in essence, that it starts with the experience that you get before you even become a civil servant — when you apply — and is about your whole journey or life cycle in the Civil Service, including your career development and how you are dealt with if you are unfortunate enough to be sick or to have a disability. It is about how we manage the whole life cycle.

Policy is one bit of it; the other is line-management capability. We have to provide them, and, when it comes to roles and responsibilities, it is our strong responsibility — we take it very seriously — not just to develop a policy and say, "There you go"; it is, as you rightly say, about communicating it, training people and giving them guidance and toolkits. That is where the emphasis is. It is not a case of, "Here is your guidance on strategic workforce planning. Off you go". We see this as a change management programme. It is not just about HR; it is about how we manage the change. We recognise that, done properly, it can bring significant change. Otherwise, it could be extremely disruptive.

Ms Forsythe: We are putting out a survey and getting views back from different levels. We will be keen to engage with you further later in the process.

Ms Minne: Absolutely.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): You have kind of agreed to come back and answer questions about the survey, which you may not have intended to do. [Laughter.]

Ms Minne: We are more than happy to do that.

Ms Forsythe: If you are nice to people, they will come back, Matthew.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): I have never learned that lesson; I have found that they do not come back either way. I am only joking.

Would it help with the development if there were more than two box markings? Does that need to change?

Ms Minne: That is under review.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): This was in 2019. You have nearly 25,000 people, and, essentially, a primary-school class worth of them were found to be "unsatisfactory", with the other 99% just "satisfactory". That is not just failing to performance-manage people who clearly are not doing well — the couple of handfuls of people who are "unsatisfactory" — but failing all the people whom Diane just talked about, who are working hard and want to be incentivised and encouraged. Under the box-markings system, you can be working as hard as you like, delivering great public services and delivering for Ministers and for the public, but you can only ever be "satisfactory".

Ms Minne: It goes back to the conversation about the difference between policy development and implementation. We are responsible for the policy, which is no different from anybody else's policy, but, clearly, there is something happening if those are the numbers that we are talking about. Of course, that is the formal policy: somebody has formally been declared "unsatisfactory". It depends on whether you want to adopt an approach that, all the research, best practice and benchmarking show, all other jurisdictions, including the large ones, as well as the private sector and other areas are moving away from. They are moving away from having a mid-year review or end-of-year review with "satisfactory" and "unsatisfactory" outcomes or, indeed, four-box, three-box or five-box systems. It is a case of constant, continual performance management. We have involved behavioural scientists to see what is going on, given that our Civil Service policy does not look so different from anybody else's.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK. That is helpful. We might come back to that.

Mr Kingston: Thank you for your attendance. I like the way that the people strategy is presented: a clear document that includes road maps. We are already a year into it, and you have answered my first question about what progress there has been.

Under the "Skills and Capacity" road map, the first point is "Right size and shape". Does the strategy include looking at the size of the Northern Ireland Civil Service? It is 40% larger than the Civil Service in England per 1,000 people. It is the highest figure in the UK. In England, there are 80 public-sector employees per 1,000 people, whereas the figure is 106 in Wales, 108 in Scotland and 119 in Northern Ireland. We would all make the case that we are a smaller place and so on, but is our public sector too complicated? We passed a motion this week, albeit amended, on avoiding the unnecessary creation of new public bodies. Does the strategy include looking at rightsizing the Civil Service and seeing where it could be made less complicated and therefore more efficient?

Ms Minne: To be clear, there is a difference between the wider public sector and how it compares with other jurisdictions and the Northern Ireland Civil Service, which is different from that.

The people strategy is focused on the right size and shape. It is not taking the approach of a blunt or specific instrument of x per cent reduction, a voluntary exit scheme (VES) or something similar. Every Department needs to be clear about what it needs to deliver its priorities for the public and politicians. We are saying that, in order to do that, you need to be clear about what your workforce model is. That is why we are trying to move away from a huge amount of general service, although that is subject to consultation with the trade unions. That will be built into job families.

On strategic workforce planning, we have given detailed guidance to Departments on looking at spans and layers. How many layers of management do you have? How many layers do you have from management down to the ground? What is your management-to-staff ratio? Departments will also have to look at critical posts and what they constitute as a critical post. In the meantime, while we are working towards the new workforce model and new strategic workforce planning, they need to get a grip on not continuing to fill like with like. They need to think about what they need. Do they need a particular post? Could it be filled in another way?

Other jurisdictions have grown a lot more than we have. A few years ago — not even that long ago — we were criticised for not filling vacancies quickly enough. If we had filled the vacancies that we had been asked to fill, I am not sure that it would have been affordable. The strategy's approach says that we have to move away from the reactive one of every Department submitting its vacancies to the centre to a more planned approach. Departments will have to look at critical posts; spans and layers; skill sets; technology and whether there is a way that something could be done more effectively; and duplication and whether something could be removed. Every Department will have to do that, and that will be aggregated into one strategic workforce plan for the Civil Service.

Mr Kingston: I welcome what you say about layers, because people end up spending their time reporting up and reporting down. It consumes time and effort in the structure.

I have a few supplementary questions. You touched on the vacancies being carried and the slow recruitment rate being a problem. It seems that a large number of vacancies are being carried, particularly in the Department for Communities. I was on the Communities Committee. Do you have a view on what is going on there? The Finance Minister made the point about the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) posts for the contracts that we have there — he specifically made that regarding agency workers — but a large number of vacancies is still being carried. At some stage, will those vacancies need to be challenged and removed, as you have suggested?

In your time in Belfast City Council, Jill — I knew you there as HR manager — there were efficiency targets each year. I have gone on to that topic. There might be more forensic examinations of every post, and the importance of every post, in private-sector organisations. We want our workers to be valued, but we want them all to perform a critical role. Is an analysis being done of whether all the vacancies that are being carried are necessary or whether vacancies could be removed or repurposed rather than simply carried over?

Ms Minne: That, effectively, is exactly what the people strategy is trying to do with the strategic workforce planning, the job families, the skill sets and all of that kind of thing. In the meantime, there is — I think this, and I think that others will — a genuine need to almost get a grip on the transition to that. Are we absolutely sure that all of the vacancies not just in DFC but in all Departments are true and affordable? Bear in mind that, in the system at the minute, every Department is responsible for determining its workforce complement and whether its vacancies are affordable.

There is some work on what is called a "vacancy reset". The real game changer — I do not want to say "panacea" — in that regard will be a proper, consistent approach to strategic workforce planning. In the meantime, every Department should assure itself that it is not just automatically filling like with like and that, rather, it is looking at some sort of vacancy control process.

Ms Shannon: Part of the issue has been the slowness of recruitment and the inability to get people into post quickly, particularly in the Department for Communities for the delivery of the DWP contract, for example. We have been looking at a different model, so that we can have a rolling supply for Departments and so that they are not carrying vacancies because we simply do not have the supply. If we were in a supply position, it would give Departments the space to say, "OK, now that we know, and we can fill our absolutely business-critical posts, let's look at the other posts that we may think are vacancies but which are not". Filling the vacancies and having that supply for Departments would give them the opportunity to take stock of what they actually need to fill.

There have been some delays in our being able to provide supply, but we are now starting to provide that for Departments, which will give them a clear line of sight about what their actual vacancies are, as opposed to posts that may just be nice to have. That could be reframed and looked at slightly differently.

Mr Kingston: Is looking at those vacancies an area of focus in the strategy?

Ms Shannon: That is part of that broader piece of the recruitment initiative, but, again, it is intertwined with the vacancy position, the speed of recruitment and the job families work. The people strategy brings all of those strands together.

Mr Kingston: Could it go as far as, referring to the motion that was passed this week, efficiency targets for each Department?

Ms Shannon: It provides each Department with an opportunity to look at what it can deliver and what is affordable within the budget that it has and at what staff it needs in the particular families and professions to deliver its services. It provides Departments with an opportunity to have a clear line of sight of what staff they have, what staff they need and what, ultimately, they can afford.

Mr Kingston: I have one final question, Chair, if we are OK for time. It is about the open-book exercise with HM Treasury. Whether or not it is fair, there is a feeling that the Northern Ireland Civil Service is a place apart from the GB Civil Service or Home Civil Service, if that is the right term. Do you see value in ongoing openness with HM Treasury, given all that we have talked about, such as ensuring efficiency in government and having in place the right structures?

Ms Minne: Can I phone a friend? [Laughter.]

Can I ring Joanne McBurney? [Laughter.]

I am not well placed to answer that question. However, from a workforce perspective, there is absolutely a need for Finance people and HR to work hand in hand to make sure that the workforce is the right shape and size. It is not just about size but about shape. Is it fit for the future? Have we future-proofed it? Have we looked at skills and things such as our attrition rate? That is that piece on proper, strategic workforce planning. That is distinct from resource planning, which, effectively, is what we do at the minute; I am talking about that much bigger, more strategic piece. However, I am not the right person to ask about the open-book exercise.

Mr Kingston: It is more of a political question.

I have one other quick question. Jill, you talked about having a common structure across Departments: do you see that as enabling staff to move between Departments, rather than each Department being almost a silo and people tending to stay in one Department?

Ms Minne: It will be a better way for people to move across Departments.

Mr Kingston: To broaden their experience and so on.

Ms Minne: Yes. At the minute, people in a grade that is usually general or a big general service role will apply for promotion, but that might not be in their career path. The new structure will allow for a bit of both, if you know what I mean. It will not just be about going to another Department; we will have a career path in place for all the professions. Somebody may say, "I want to be in HR", "I want to be an operational person" or, "I want to be a policy person". They will be able to look up the whole career path and see the skills and competencies that they will need, depending on the route that they wish to take.

Mr Kingston: It will open up more routes to people.

Ms Minne: I think so. It will be better for the business, because it will use skills better.

Dr Aiken: Thank you for the evidence that you have given so far, team. I will try to keep this short.

I am looking at the nine points that are being delivered. In the past couple of minutes, we have been talking about clearer roles and professional structures, including job families and professional frameworks to support consistent standards. How many job descriptions does the Civil Service have?

Ms Minne: How many job descriptions?

Dr Aiken: Yes. How many job descriptions do you have for roles? How many roles are there in the Civil Service? What is the number?

Ms Minne: At the minute, there are 26 professions.

Dr Aiken: But how many roles are there? There are 26 professions —.

Ms Minne: That is the whole point: we do not have roles as such. Recruitment is done by grade. The Civil Service's workforce model is divided into general service and professional and technical categories. There are 26 professions, and then there are technical roles and general service roles. One of the main differences between the Civil Service and other employers is that, at the minute, we recruit largely to grade.

Dr Aiken: You have grades and particular lines of work. It is very stovepiped. You said that you do not have roles, but, if there are no job descriptions, how do you know the skill profiles and competencies that are required for those roles?

Ms Shannon: Steve, there are job descriptions. If we recruit to a post, we need to be clear about the eligibility criteria for it, so we have those. We have been trying to streamline that process. The work on job families will help us to create a job library, which means that we will have a more standardised and focused set of jobs aligned to job families and career frameworks, with clearly defined criteria for eligibility, skills and experience. It is about moving away from having x amount of job descriptions, which we currently have, and towards a more systematic approach of saying, "Here are the job families, and here are the particular sets of criteria against each one". The recruitment process will be streamlined further, because we will have a smaller number of job profiles, as opposed to the huge number of job descriptions that we currently have, which sometimes have varying degrees of consistency. The job families will help to drive that approach.

Dr Aiken: How many job families do we have?

Ms Minne: That is under consultation with the trade unions. We have a draft job family framework, which has, I think, 17 job families and about 70 new professions. Those are not like the old professions. There will be 17 overarching job families: commercial and procurement; comms and engagement; corporate; data research; digital and technology; engineering; finance and audit; health and social care; human resources; knowledge information and management; legal and parliamentary; operational delivery; policy; project delivery; advice and regulation; science; and veterinary. There will then be professions within those families. That is all being consulted on with the trade unions. Within that, there will be new professions. That is the way in which the new job family framework and professions framework will work.

Dr Aiken: OK. Has every one of the nine Departments bought into that?

Ms Minne: Every one of the nine Departments has been engaged in it. There is a community of practice and a programme board, and the programme board has recently signed it off. All Departments and all professions are represented on that.

Dr Aiken: They have all agreed to it. It is an overarching, cross-Northern Ireland Civil Service HR strategy; everybody has signed up to it.

Ms Minne: Yes, but, obviously, we need to consult the trade unions.

Dr Aiken: OK. I am just getting my head around that. There are nine Departments, and there are the job families. Within the job families, there are the professions. Within the professions, you do not do roles, as you have just said, but there is some kind of description that comes with them.

Ms Minne: There will be a career path within each of them.

Dr Aiken: OK; career paths. I think that I get that.

Close to 75% of the budget is delivered by the 101 arm's-length bodies (ALBs). Does any of that reflect on the ALBs, or do they do their own thing?

Ms Minne: We cannot speak for the ALBs because we have no authority over them. The individual Departments have authority over their ALBs; those employees are not ours. If you are a Northern Ireland civil servant, this will apply to you, assuming that we have it agreed with the trade unions and it is implemented. We do not have jurisdiction over those who are not in the Northern Ireland Civil Service.

Dr Aiken: We are trying to look at efficiencies and to consider whether we are getting good value for money and whether we are able to make the changes in the Programme for Government. We have to be able to do that, but we need to understand how we manage that. The Civil Service is the delivery mechanism to achieve that. If the ALBs are not following the same process — for example, the health trusts will, potentially, be doing something entirely different from the Health Department — how do we get the alignment of purpose in what should be an HR strategy across the whole system to get delivery?

Ms Minne: My understanding is that local government and Health, for example, have different systems.

Dr Aiken: Yes, they do.

Ms Minne: They do not have what we have in our current approach of having general service professionals and technical staff. They have much more of an establishment and job roles in that. I do not know whether you would apply that to an ALB, because it might not suit the ALB when it comes to delivery. Catherine came from Health, and I came from local government, so we can talk about that perspective. However, on locus, it is not really —.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Can I just ensure that we are all talking about the same thing? Steve, when you say "ALBs", you are talking about —

Dr Aiken: Arm's-length bodies.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): — members of the Northern Ireland Civil Service who are working for ALBs, as opposed to public servants who are not civil servants but are working for ALBs.

Dr Aiken: Chair, it is more about the philosophy of the thing. We have to deliver on £13·5 billion in resource costs, and it is about how that is utilised across the piece. One of our concerns has always been about the delivery mechanism to achieve that, and, obviously, a lot through the Civil Service and how it delivers that. We have achieved only nine of the 23 reforms in the Civil Service. How can we check whether we get value for money in that regard if most of the delivery is being done through ALBs, which have 75% of the money? It seems that we are focusing on a small element of a much bigger problem, but that is my perspective. I will feed that in later.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): It is important to say, Steve, that, in fairness to the witnesses, the people who work in trusts, for example, are not civil servants, so their workforce issues are not —.

Dr Aiken: But we are looking at the delivery of government. If 75% of the funding is going to arm's-length bodies, jobs are subdivided in Departments and the Departments have families that are linked into professions, grades, lines and all the rest of it, we need to really understand the whole picture.

That is what I am trying to say. We might understand little bits of it when we talk about the HR process and how it has been reformed, but, if we are reforming only a small bit of it, how are we achieving the aim?

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Those may well be fair points, but this inquiry and evidence session is about the Civil Service. There may well be other issues.

Are you happy enough, Steve, or do you have other questions?

Dr Aiken: No, Chair. That is fine.

Miss Dolan: I thank you all for attending today. There has been reference to this issue a couple of times, but what consultation, if any, has taken place with trade unions on the strategy?

Ms Minne: There has been considerable consultation. The way in which we developed the people strategy was different from how previous people strategies were developed in that we had a one-year people plan, but we developed the five-year people strategy in parallel with it. An engagement panel was set up that involved staff from a cross section of all Departments and grades. Internal and external stakeholders and trade union representatives were also on that engagement panel. In addition, we had a sort of "critical friend" team, made up of those from the UK Government (UKG), the Irish Civil Service, academia and professional bodies.

The trade unions are key to the people strategy, because it is such a significant change programme. There is, obviously, a requirement through our industrial relations machinery, which is the Whitley structure, to consult on basically everything that might be in that strategy to do with all the new policy changes, the new approach to strategic workforce planning, job families and all those things. The trade unions have engaged with that and will continue to do so. They have been critical to the delivery of the strategy in that they not only helped us to develop it but were heavily consulted on its elements.

Miss Dolan: That is brilliant. That is really positive. As you say, they are critical to that.

This is my final question: what are some of the milestones for the implementation of the strategy in the time ahead?

Ms Minne: The big issues are around the clearer job roles, targeted recruitment, strategic workforce planning and all those things, which I have already talked about. The job family framework has already been done, but we are engaging on it. The milestone for it was the end of this month. Quarters 2 and 3 of 2026 are about staff alignment. That is about placing all the current staff into those job families. By March 2027, the career frameworks that we talked about are to be in place, so that all those issues are set out under each of them. By March 2027, recruitment will have come back in-house from HR Connect into the Civil Service. As is set out in the Audit Office report, by March 2028, all Departments must have their workforce plans in place, so that we can aggregate them and develop an NICS-wide workforce plan. Those are the main ones, but there are lots more.

Miss Dolan: That is fair enough. Thank you.

Mr Carroll: Thanks for the presentation. My first question is about sickness: have you done any work around how sickness levels are connected to civil servants on low pay?

Ms Shannon: Not particularly, Gerry. We can probably tease that out in our work with NISRA. We could look at the demographics of staff, the socio-economic contexts from which our staff come and their salaries. You would probably see some correlation between some staff, whether they are our staff in administrative assistant (AA) or administrative officer (AO) roles or industrial staff, and potentially higher sickness levels, but that needs to be seen in the context of the work that they do and broader issues. There is definitely something that we could do in the broader work that we are taking forward with NISRA.

Ms Minne: We look at it by grade. When NISRA presents it, it looks at sickness levels by grade. Obviously, we are a living wage employer. It looks at AO as being the lowest grade. As Catherine says, there are other elements in those grades, such as age profile and gender profile. We do it by grade, but there are other factors that have to be taken into account when it comes to the stats.

Mr Carroll: I am not sure whether that was shared with the Committee, but it would be useful if we could get that.

I have a question about the people survey. I think that I am right in saying that only 48% of respondents said that they received sufficient learning and development opportunities. Will you expand on the engagement that you have had? Jemma asked about it earlier, but can you tell us which grades and types of workers feel most disengaged? I imagine that, again, they are probably lower-paid workers. The document looks well, but, with respect, a glossy document will not solve issues that relate to low pay, morale and job security. Those are the issues that I tend to hear about from civil servants. They need to be addressed. Will you expand on that engagement and on which workers are the most disengaged?

Ms Minne: I absolutely do not see the people strategy as just a glossy document; quite the reverse. I am glad that you think that it looks good, but, genuinely, a lot of work went into it. It took a long time to get to where we got to, because we engaged constructively with trade unions and a wide range of staff. We looked at the people survey, the timing of which was absolutely perfect for the people strategy because it gave us our baseline. We want to see those engagement figures go up.

As you know, a number of factors go into making up an engagement index, such as how people feel at work, how included they feel, their learning and development and all those things. It actually increased by two percentage points. Clearly, there is still a lot more work to be done. Seven of the nine groups that you look at went up as well. We will do further people surveys, and we can give you a breakdown. The people survey is published in different categories, including grade and all the rest of it. I am happy to make that available. It is available, as I said.

The most important thing is that we do not rely just on the people survey, which is a one- or two-year survey. We will do much more work with focus groups and around staff engagement to pinpoint the issues. As I said at the start, the crux of the people strategy is providing value for money and having the right shape and size of workforce and all of those things. However, it is also just as much about employee experience, so that, when staff apply for jobs and during their whole life cycle in the Civil Service, they are treated properly and with respect, they are looked after with the right policies, and we attract and retain a diverse workforce. There is a lot of work around that, Gerry.

Mr Carroll: I appreciate that. However, it is stark that 52% of respondents felt that they were not getting the right training and development. Obviously, that needs to be addressed.

I go back to the people strategy. Jemma touched on the role of the unions. Obviously, central trade union side is listed as a key stakeholder. As I understand it, however, the document has been approved ultimately by the Finance Minister and the Civil Service Board. I think that you mentioned, Jill, that some of the policies — for example, those on discipline issues and sickness and absence — have not yet been agreed by unions. How do you ensure that involving the unions is not just a tick-box exercise and that the strategy is co-designed, rather than just saying, "We'll give you a seat at the table"?

Ms Minne: Honestly, it makes business sense to us, frankly, to involve the trade unions from day 1 because, as we said, we want the change to land. They have been instrumental in getting agreement on and deliverability of some of the policies that could have been incredibly tricky to implement, such as hybrid working. They have been involved from the very start. In addition, there is a formal process, which is the industrial relations consultation machinery. The first thing that my Minister will say if he is asking me how policies, pay negotiations or anything like that are going, is, "What do the trade unions, stakeholders and various Departments think and feel?". There is no point in us writing a policy without engaging with key stakeholders and partners, frankly, so I genuinely do not think that it is a tick-box exercise.

Mr Carroll: I still think that it is maybe co-design, but we can come back to that.

My final question is for Paul. Paul, you have got off lightly. [Laughter.]

Ms Shannon: We forgot you were here. [Laughter.]

Mr Carroll: You are due a question. I have one anyway. It is about the Integr8 programme. Obviously, it is not just your fault, Paul, but there has been a bit of a history of IT programmes not being delivered on time and going over budget, to put it politely. What is the total projected cost of Integr8; how much has been spent to date; and how will you ensure that there is some oversight of developing Integr8 to address the financial issues and any other issues that may develop over time?

Mr Paul Duffy (Department of Finance): You are right about the challenges that we face with IT projects. This is a common enterprise resource planning (ERP) tool that we are putting in place, but they are notorious because they run late and over budget, so they are high-risk projects. We are aware of what the common issues tend to be around failure in delivering such projects. The main ones are around business adoption. This is very much a change programme, not just introducing IT, so how do we bring people with us on that journey? That change management bit is really important because we are seeking to simplify and standardise a lot of our policies and processes, so the change element is critical.

Technology tends not to be the main issue, apart from data, so, again, how do we ensure that we bring across data from legacy systems, which tends to be inconsistent? Jill and Catherine talked about some of the challenges that we have around management information. There is a real opportunity for us to join up finance and HR data to inform future interventions and the ones that we are currently undertaking to see whether they add value.

The other delivery risk that I see in the programme is that people are busy with the day job, so how do we deliver change at the same time as delivering all the things that are set out in, for example, the people strategy and what people are doing as part of their everyday job? Those are the main challenges. We are aware of them and are trying to build mitigations around them as much as possible.

With regard to spend, the business case for the programme was approved in 2023: it is about £294 million. That is from starting the development right through to services being delivered up to 2034-35. To date, we have spent about £37 million on it. That covers a host of things: we have bought licences for the new solutions and things like that. Something that is in the business case but for which we have not incurred any cost so far is the new payroll service. We have just gone out to procure that, so, over the next few months, we will have a better idea of how much that will cost.

Mr Carroll: With the petrodollar and the global situation, is there an expectation that the cost of materials will rise? If so, has there been any benchmarking of what that could rise to?

Mr Duffy: At the moment, most of our costs are largely around building the new system. Now that we have procured the licences for it, we have a fairly good handle on what the projected costs will be because they are contractually committed. The key for us is ensuring that we do everything that we can to deliver on time because costs tend to escalate when there are slippages in the programmes.

Data seems to be one of the key risks. If we end up having data issues, a lot of reworking must be done after the programme goes live, and, again, that leads to an escalation in costs. We are very aware of that from having looked at what has happened in other jurisdictions and other programmes. We have a couple of critical friends involved in delivering similar programmes in UK government who sit on our programme board and give us extra advice and challenge around it.

We try to mitigate the risk as much as possible, but the risk in delivering with a busy Civil Service will be one of the major challenges.

Mr Carroll: OK. Thanks, everybody.

Mr Harvey: We will maybe keep at Paul, since we are getting him warmed up. [Laughter.]

Paul, what benefits will staff experience from the Integr8 programme?

Mr Duffy: The Integr8 programme will provide a solution that will impact on every member of staff in the Civil Service. At the moment, we have two separate finance and HR systems. They have been in place since 2006. That is 20 years of outdated, fragmented systems, so the technology is not great for people trying to navigate the system. Diane talked about how clunky it can be for people even to access that system. It will provide a more user-intuitive solution for people. We look at it not just as a technology programme or a change programme; we are standardising policies and processes, so that will make it simpler to use and understand. One of the key things is that it will give, particularly to line managers, better management information, so that they can manage their staff and give them better insight into some of the issues that they face.

The important thing is that this is not just a HR solution but a finance solution. It will join up our finance and HR data. We talked about vacancies: often, Departments sit with vacancies on the HR system but might not have an associated budget sitting on the finance system, so reconciling those has always been a problem. When we have a clear view of what affordable vacancies are on a system, it helps with evidence-informed decision-making.

Mr Harvey: What lessons were taken from other jurisdictions?

Mr Duffy: We have looked at lots of other programmes. The most significant one was that used by Birmingham City Council, which implemented its ERP system. The key issue that caused the failure of its first implementation was a heavy customisation of the system. Most of the solutions tend to be cloud-based. However, what we have is an Oracle Fusion solution. Once you start tinkering with what comes out of the box, it becomes more complex to maintain and more costly. Standardising your process is really important. That is one key learning that came from Birmingham City Council.

The Scottish Government's key issues were around data, data migration and quality of data. We are very aware of that. We are looking across other programmes in other jurisdictions, and, as I said, we have people who have been on this journey on our programme board to give us support and advice.

Mr Harvey: Jill, how does the strategy ensure that people feel valued, recognised and even rewarded?

Ms Minne: Well, we want to do all of the above; there is no doubt about it.

I suppose that that is really what I was saying about the work that we did to develop the strategy. We were asking, "What are the things that are going to make a difference in that regard?" but also having a clear nod and consideration, if you like, to running the Civil Service in a value-for-money way. How do you genuinely get the right balance between that and making sure that staff feel that they are included and have a career path? We went through all those issues, but, at the same time, we have to ensure delivery and value for money for the people whom we serve. That has to be managed, and we looked at it through engaging with trade unions and staff but also looking at what "good" looks like elsewhere and the outcome of the people survey. It is very much an evidence-based strategy.

Ms Shannon: For example, the health and well-being initiative has members from across trade unions and groups of staff who are involved in the mental health forums. The health and well-being strategy has representation from all the Departments. In the implementation and delivery, we make sure that we involve all the Departments in how it is taken forward, so we do it together and it is co-designed. As Jill said, the strategy was developed to include as many views as possible. In the delivery of some of those initiatives, it is important that we continue with that approach to see how it looks and feels for staff and that we involve staff in the process.

Mr Harvey: Thank you very much.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): I have a couple of final questions. The people strategy looks good — that is not me being cynical: it is a worthy document — but it is not a workforce plan. It is not what, the NIAO said, was needed, which was a workforce plan. Is that fair?

Ms Minne: No. Are you talking about a strategic workforce plan?

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Yes.

Ms Minne: No. That is an element of the people strategy.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): In the NIAO's report, there is frustration at the absence of a strategic workforce plan. Has it misunderstood the people strategy, or has it not been given due credit?

Ms Minne: I completely agree with the NIAO: it is front and centre. Therefore, strategic workforce planning is front and centre to the people strategy. There are quite a few steps that are needed before there can be strategic workforce planning. The first thing to do before strategic workforce planning is to make sure that the workforce model is right. The first year of the people strategy has a new workforce model and strategic workforce planning guidance, requests to the Departments and guidance on spans, layers and controls. All those things are in year 1 of the people strategy, along with the milestone for departmental strategic workforce plans and then the overall strategic workforce plan.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK. You mentioned that the absence of the Executive and, therefore, the Assembly had an impact on the Civil Service. What is the impact on the culture of the Civil Service? I do not mean the day-to-day impact of ministerial decisions not being signed off — we know that that is a nightmare — but what is the impact on recruitment, morale, HR issues and the issues covered in the various reports? What challenges does political dysfunction in Stormont create? Please be honest. Does it make it hard to recruit civil servants?

Ms Shannon: There are a number of factors that make people want to work for the Civil Service, and there are probably too many to list.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Have you had feedback, even qualitatively, about whether school-leavers, graduates or mid-career professionals look at this place and more generally at our political culture and the dysfunction and say, "No thanks", even if they are committed to public service?

Ms Shannon: That is not borne out in the number of applications that we receive for posts.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK.

Ms Shannon: We have professions and particular posts that are difficult to recruit for, but they are specific posts that require a professional qualification or particular experience. Given the number of people who apply for jobs in the Civil Service, our political institutions do not put people off.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): It does not stop people applying for jobs when there are recruitment exercises. Does it impact on the performance of existing civil servants? You mentioned in your note that it was a factor that made what you are doing harder. Why does it make your work harder? Is it just because budgets are set at the last minute, or is there a broader cultural problem?

Ms Minne: In simple terms, if we do not have Ministers, we cannot pass policy. That is very simple.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): As in HR policy?

Ms Minne: Yes, HR policy. The Finance Minister is responsible for policy, so you cannot do that. You could not do normal workforce planning in the middle of a pandemic or in the middle of preparations for Brexit, because they were shocks to the system, and they were asking for a surge of staff.

You are talking about people applying for the Civil Service: you could not say that we do not have big numbers. You might want to look into where they come from. It is not just about quantity but about quality.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Would the Northern Ireland Civil Service be a more attractive place to work if our politics were less dysfunctional?

Ms Minne: I am not going to answer that. [Laughter.]

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Fair enough; I tried.

Mr Harvey: Come on, Chair.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): It is a reasonable question. Put it this way: would more people be attracted to work in the Civil Service if there were fewer absences of an Executive? You said that the absence of an Executive had an impact on HR.

Ms Minne: I would not be fair or right for me to answer that. However, I can say that, when I sat down to think about my tenure, what has gone on and why we were not in the position to have a strategic workforce plan before now, for example, I considered the facts that, in 2014, there was a VES and then a recruitment freeze, a restructuring of Departments in 2016 and no Executive from 2017 to 2020. Those make delivery more difficult. I cannot answer the question, but policy has to be passed.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): In relation to the Senior Civil Service, there has been concern about churn at permanent secretary level — there is movement there at the minute. Are you confident that that is not going to disrupt the delivery of the strategy? Might it help its delivery? I ask that because a lot of people see the permanent secretary class here as almost a strange College of Cardinals unto itself that circulates around.

As you said, it is clearly an issue that there are silos. The ability of the centre, be that the head of the Civil Service or the Finance Minister — whoever wants to take ownership — or yourselves, to deliver real, meaningful improvement in the performance of the Civil Service is limited because of the silo quality. Are you confident that the evolving caste of permanent secretaries is committed to delivering meaningful change in a different way?

Ms Minne: I am not going to comment on individuals, but I will say, as I have said before, that this is the first time that a head of the Civil Service has put permanent secretaries as lead sponsors on a people initiative that will focus on workforce matters across the Civil Service, rather than have it reside entirely in DOF. The head of the Civil Service has made significant changes to permanent secretary performance appraisal — the whole system around that — and putting collective leadership issues in place. I can only talk about the collective leadership piece. I was not responsible for the permanent secretary recruitment competition — Catherine and the head of the Civil Service were — but it was extremely effective and improved. All of that bodes well.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): You say that part of the performance appraisal of the permanent secretaries will be on how they do on HR matters, how they improve the culture in their Departments, how they perform on the things that are in the people strategy and, presumably, how they address the recommendations of the NIAO. Will those be in the head of the Civil Service’s performance appraisal?

Ms Minne: The head of the Civil Service does not have a formal performance appraisal.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): That is an important subject that we may want to address further. There is nothing formal. Does anyone have a conversation? I think that there was some practice, in the past, with the Cabinet Secretary.

Ms Minne: No, there has been nothing since 1999. My understanding is that it goes to the role as opposed to the individual. The role of the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service has never had formal performance appraisal. There is a system in place in policy for misconduct, and that involves the Cabinet Secretary in UKG. Since we have been fully devolved, however, there has never a process. I looked back through all the previous HOCS, and none of them had that. The performance management policy is under review, and —

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): For the head of the Civil Service?

Ms Minne: For the whole system.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK.

Ms Minne: We have also looked at how other jurisdictions operate. Of course, they are not comparable, because we are unique in that regard.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Do you mean that we are unique because we are not part of the UK Civil Service but are separate?

Ms Minne: Yes, because we are fully devolved. The heads of the Civil Service in Scotland and Wales are UKG permanent secretaries.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): They are appraised by —

Ms Minne: They are appraised by the Cabinet Secretary —

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): — the Cabinet Secretary.

Ms Minne: — and the Cabinet Secretary in UKG is ultimately appraised by the Prime Minister.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): For the record, then, there is no formal appraisal approach for the head of the Civil Service here, so, if we were to recommend, suggest or further discuss potential assessment of the head of the Civil Service in the context of the improved performance of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, that would be a new thing that would have to be designed.

Ms Minne: That would be a new thing, as of 1999, and it would be new for the individual post holder. To be clear, that policy is absolutely being looked at. We have benchmarked against all the other jurisdictions and looked at all potential options. The only thing that we do not have is legal advice on whether that would constitute a change to the terms and conditions of employment, because no other post holder has ever had that.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): If the performance appraisal for that role is being looked at — we are talking about the role, not the individual — in the context of Civil Service improvement matters, we would have to take into account the fact that the individual levers for the head of the Civil Service are limited in individual Departments. That is another constitutional, structural thing that we may wish to look at.

Ms Minne: Yes. Similarly —

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): They cannot, or she cannot, or, were it to be a he, he could not —

Ms Minne: It is a she this time only; all the others have been a he.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): The role is held by a she this time, and it was briefly a she previously. They — whoever is in the role — cannot say to the permanent secretary of the Department of Justice or the Department for Communities, "You have to change your performance management processes. I am mandating that". They cannot do that.

Ms Minne: No, but, as she is line manager for the permanent secretaries, she can and has put in a considerable change to the performance appraisal of permanent secretaries. She has done that.

Similarly, the crux of the reason why the post of the head of the Civil Service does not have a performance appraisal is the line management; there is no organisational structure. Similarly, therefore, that post has no ability to avail itself of all the other policies that every other post in the Civil Service has if, for example, she had an issue with dignity at work or a grievance or anything. It works both ways.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK. Are there direct reports to the head of the Civil Service? I presume that there are staff who report directly to the head of the Civil Service: the permanent secretaries.

Ms Minne: Yes, permanent secretaries are direct reports.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): All that was extremely helpful. We look forward to, hopefully, hearing from you again at some point during our inquiry. We appreciate you all coming in. Thank you, Paul; we will maybe think of some more tough questions about Integr8. [Laughter.]

I note that there was an underspend on Integr8 this year: am I right in saying that?

Mr Duffy: You are right. It is an underspend as a result of good financial management: not paying suppliers ahead of their providing the services.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): I hope that you are paying them promptly.

Thank you all very much. We appreciate that. I am sure that we will hear from you further in the course of the inquiry.