PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE

OFFICIAL REPORT
(Hansard)

Inquiry into Creating Effective Partnerships between Government and the Voluntary and Community Sector

12 October 2011

Members present for all or part of the proceedings:

Mr Paul Maskey (Chairperson)
Mr Joe Byrne (Deputy Chairperson)
Mr Sydney Anderson
Mr Michael Copeland
Mr John Dallat
Mr Alex Easton
Mr Paul Frew
Mr Paul Girvan
Mr Ross Hussey
Ms Jennifer McCann

Witnesses:

Mr Gordon Bell	)
Mr Will Haire	)	Department for Social Development
Ms Maeve Walls	)
Mr Seamus McAleavey	)	Northern Ireland Community and Voluntary Association

Also in Attendance :
Mr Kieran Donnelly	)	Comptroller and Auditor General
Ms Fiona Hamill	)	Treasury Officer of Accounts

The Chairperson:

We are joined today by Mr Will Haire, accounting officer for the Department for Social Development (DSD); Ms Maeve Walls, the director of the voluntary and community unit in DSD; and Gordon Bell. We are also joined by Mr Seamus McAleavey, the chief executive of NICVA. You are all very welcome.

Hansard will be reporting today's meeting. I ask everybody to switch off their mobile phones and electronic devices because they interfere with the recording system. Hansard have a hard enough job to report accurately what we are saying, and interference makes their job even more difficult.

Mr Hussey:

I have two very quick questions. You said that you want to reduce bureaucracy. I know that in another part of the voluntary sector bureaucracy has increased. I look forward to an assurance that there will be a reduction in bureaucracy, because anybody who is involved in the voluntary and community sector realises the amount of paperwork that they have to fill in. The paper trail is getting longer in another section of the voluntary and community sector, and I want an assurance that every step will be taken to reduce bureaucracy because, clearly, every time it is looked at, it seems to increase. Do you have any comment on that?

Mr Haire:

That will be a core issue arising from the report. We have done various exercises on how to reduce some of the paperwork. A lot of that comes back to the issue of public accountability and comes back to this Committee and our colleagues in the Audit Office. We have lead partners in relation to capital projects, which have a start date, a clear, agreed objective and an end date. In those areas, we have been able to have a reasonably streamlined system. The bureaucracy that Seamus and I have been talking about are the complexities that exist when organisations apply to a variety of different organisations that have different projects with different outcomes that need to be achieved in different timescales and, maybe, in different areas. It has proven extremely difficult for us to have one system of accountability, hence we are trying to work with the Law Centre as a reasonably easy example of where we might be able to see whether there are ways to share information or to develop and process it. However, those issues come back to this Committee and to public accountability. How can we give you the reassurance that you rightly seek that public money is being spent correctly?

There is a wide range of activities, lots of projects and lots of ways of people claiming for money and so on. There is work through which we can get best practice. We should be spreading that best practice across the system, and my Department, as a lead Department, has a role, working with Seamus, to try to encourage that. We are very committed to working hard on this issue, but there are often very complex issues. I am not sure that I can give you any easy reassurance that, in complex cases, there is a simple solution that will give you the answer.

Mr Hussey:

I am not dealing with complex cases. In a specific, fairly easy project, the paperwork is getting more complicated. However, I will leave that one for the moment. You said that you are working with a number of councils. How many councils is that?

Mr Haire:

In relation to the database, we have used the north east cluster and Derry. They have come forward to try to make sure that the software and the system work effectively there. Next year, our aim is to try to push this right across the council system.

Mr Dallat:

Chairperson, I want to go over something you said. The register of charities was to be in operation by June 2010 but it is now October 2011.

The Chairperson:

It was to commence in June 2010.

Mr Dallat:

Yes. From the evidence I have heard, no one seems to be absolutely certain where it is. Is anyone demanding weekly reports on this so that we get to a conclusion? Or is it just something that drifts?

Mr Haire:

“The Sector's involvement in government's policy processes has been limited”.

That is despite that involvement being a key theme in DSD's 'Partners for Change (2006-2008)' and 'Positive Steps' strategies. In view of DSD's lead role in promoting the sector across government, the Committee expects it to lead by example.

Could you explain to us how the sector has been consulted and involved in the decisions on the nature of the changes and the new policy that is emerging in relation to the Department's regional infrastructure programme?

Mr Haire:

I will ask Maeve to speak about the regional infrastructure programme, because she has been heavily involved in that.

In a wider sense, we are creating an action group to try to explore the policy process more fully. The report is saying that the systems on policy involvement have been more focused at the early stage of policy development, but there may be questions around policy evaluation and monitoring and later stages of policy. I must admit that, from my experience as permanent secretary in spending Departments such as the Department of Education, in areas such as youth policy and early years I felt that there was a reasonably strong involvement of the sector later in the process. However, like everybody else, I faced a complex issue when I started to do formal evaluations of the sector because I had to do so independently of the sector itself. That is because you are often evaluating work around that. However, we want to work closely to get the best answer and the best system that works for the improvement of policy.

Maeve, did you want to talk a bit about the regional infrastructure programme?

Ms Walls:

We in the unit aspire to lead by example. I am thinking about the work that we were engaged in with the areas at risk programme. From the very outset, community organisations and voluntary groups in local areas worked hand-in-hand with us in shaping that programme. When it came to delivering that programme, they were absolutely critical to the delivery process. Those same organisations worked very closely with the evaluators when it came to the evaluation of that programme last year in reaching a view about the benefits of it.

We have adopted the same approach on the review of the regional infrastructure programme that was mentioned. Our consultation extended to something like 300 organisations and not just those that we were funding. Although we recognised that they had an important voice in it, organisations beyond that, who used the services of those that we funded, were also included. Again, in preparing the new framework and priorities for that programme, the organisations that we worked with in that consultation have been critical in helping us to shape it.

The Chairperson:

Was the overview group — [Interruption.]

Someone will run the risk of being asked to leave the meeting if they do not turn their phone off. Please double check that your phones are switched off.

Ms Walls:

The overview group that is mentioned in the report is an interesting model. Will has mentioned the new arrangements that we are putting in place to drive forward implementation of this concordat. They are going to be scrutinising from the outset, and I have no doubt that Seamus and his colleagues will keep the pressure on us to make sure that the implementation arrangements here are really robust. I am confident that the scrutiny function of that group will help us to know whether there is need for another oversight group, or whether something in the mechanics that we have in place already will be sufficient. Time will tell.

The Chairperson:

Again, the same paragraphs refer to people and organisations that do not always have enough personnel. They may not be able to afford it on many occasions because their staff are out doing many different initiatives. How does that tie in? I declared an interest earlier because I am involved in a number of groups, and I know that sometimes it is hard to release a staff member when something else crops up. Sometimes there can be one or two groups or lead groups; how do you think that is working?

Ms Walls:

There is also a lot of work for us in our sector. We talk a lot about partnership. We have to consider how our bigger voluntary organisations, which are big service deliverers, partner much better with community organisations. Some of them do that well.

We have to recognise there is a huge difference in scale. The report picks up on some of NICVA's research. It looks at 4,700 organisations. When we looked at where the money was, we found that more than 50% of all of our sector’s income — the whole range of money coming from the public purse, the public and independent charitable trusts — goes to less than 4% of organisations. That is because the vast majority of money tends to be in big service delivery areas such as mental health and children’s services.

A very large number of organisations survive on little or no money or have no connection with government, any other agencies or financing. They are incredibly important in what they do. We must not see the voluntary and community sector in a one-dimensional way; in other words, that the “bit I know is what the rest looks like”, because that is not the case. Your point is important. I tend to describe it as a continuum and we have to recognise that we have to engage with it in a proportionate way. A lot of the stuff that comes up in the report is important and key to that.

Mr Copeland:

Thank you. I personally think that the investment of an “S” might bring considerable return for that investment, as well as kudos with the smallest groups that operate at the very bottom of the pile. Figure 2 on page 13 of the NIAO report sets out the key themes of Positive Steps. If I may use an analogy from school, a place I left many years ago; if Positive Steps represents your Department's homework, how well do you think you have done?

Mr Haire:

To mark my own work is very creative. The Positive Steps report was published in 2005. In preparing for this meeting, I looked at each of those areas and thought about how we did against that process. I can see movement in significant parts of those areas. We can look at regulation, lead Ministers, community investment funds and departmental leads. I can go through the list and give you a detailed, blow-by-blow account. Through the various reports and systems, we have been able to implement a fair proportion of it.

However, what we have not done, perhaps, is to find a resolution on the complex issue of bureaucracy. That is the question Mr Hussey asked. Do we have a streamlined system that avoids undue pressure? Although we have not achieved that, I would say that it is a very difficult area and we did try to do so. In 2007, we issued all the information, advice and very good documentation that we had. We had a “Dear Accounting Officer” letter that set out, with the agreement of the Audit Office, how best to practice in this area. We did all those things, but clearly it is not necessarily the system as a whole that is not implementing well.

We did work on policy and sector involvement, yet we hear that the sector is not happy about that process. So, there is more to be done on that. With regard to outcomes and getting an outcome process, the report emphasises that we have done some very good initial work. We have developed that work, but there is still more to be done before we move towards the use of outputs and outcomes as a measurement in the process.

We achieved a lot, but a lot more is to be done. Therefore, I would hope to give ourselves at least a seven out of 10.

Mr Copeland:

Will you comment on dormant bank accounts in the table in “Note 1”, whereby the money in an account on which there have been no transactions for 15 years will go to social and environmental purposes, commencing in 2010? What activity has there been on that front?

Mr Haire:

I may ask Maeve or Gordon to give details of the process, but my understanding is that it has been a much wider issue. Obviously, the Treasury is lying behind the issue of access to dormant accounts. The situation has not been resolved yet, but the Finance Minister has been taking a strong personal interest in the area and is working to try to get a resolution. The issue is how the money can be accessed and where it can be used. My understanding is that the forecast of how much money will be available is, perhaps, significantly lower than what was hoped for in the early, rather optimistic, phase.

Ms Fiona Hamill (Treasury Officer of Accounts):

Northern Ireland received its first tranche of funding in August. It received £800,000. The Minister of Finance is currently considering proposals for using that money in Northern Ireland. Following that, he will, first, consult with the Committee for Finance and Personnel, and then, through the First Minister and deputy First Minister, take it to the Executive. It is not the very large sums of money that we had hoped for initially.

Mr Copeland:

I thank you for that clarification. By the way Will was talking; I thought for a moment that the Finance Minister maybe had a dormant bank account. [Laughter.]

I move now to paragraph 1.11 of the report. What is the difference between the compact and the concordat?

Mr Haire:

Perhaps Maeve will give you the detail on that. The compact was a rather general statement about working together. It was a general approach and process, which came from the direct rule period. It was an issue that Departments took into account. The Committee has copies of the concordat in the papers that were circulated today. It sets out a process whereby, every year, my Minister has to go to the Executive to give a report on how well the sector, the Department, as the lead Department, and all the other Departments are working to resolve some of the key issues and how well that has been achieved. If you look at the document, you will see some of the commitments in areas in which we agree we have to work through and get agreement on. We have moved down to 12 commitments. In early discussions, we identified four or five commitments, which we see as key for the first year's work.

The key difference is in the public accountability for the relationship and the fact that there are going to be annual reports, rather than the more generalised process there has been up to now. I think that the concordat is more likely to get traction than the compact.

Mr McAleavey:

Mr Dallat:

That is a fair answer.

Mr McAleavey:

The key bit about the concordat is its implementation. It is about the points that Will referred to, such as the working groups that will deal with bureaucracy, policy influence, outcome-focused funding and reviewing the structure of the joint forum. The big thing that comes out of the report the need to streamline bureaucracy. NICVA says that accounting for public money is absolutely important. We are not looking for a light touch in this regard. We are looking for something sensible and streamlined and that does not interfere with the delivery of key outcomes and services.

I have been clear to Will in our discussions that, to try to crack bureaucracy, we need to have the involvement of officials from the Department of Finance and Personnel, the Northern Ireland Audit Office and others. The issues that are going round — lead funder was mentioned — are very important to me. We know of organisations that have had five different teams in a week coming to check. That needs to be sorted out.

I am forever quoting the Treasury document, ‘Improving financial relationships with the third sector: Guidance to funders and purchasers’, which states:

“Where organisations are multi-funded it is good practice to appoint a lead funder to streamline application processes, co-ordinate monitoring and inspection arrangements and to minimise the number of evaluation systems and visits.”

We talked to the Audit Office and a lot of other people at the time of the task force that looked at the voluntary sector. I remember engaging in those meetings with the Audit Office, and its view was that a lead funder was a good thing because it took an overview and could give assurance to Departments and agencies. As Will says, this is incredibly difficult to crack. I have sympathy with the Department in trying to gain authority across all the others in the arrangements. It is not about the DSD; it is about every Department and all their agencies. So, it is incredibly important for us to begin to crack that issue, and this will help to deliver for people on the ground.

We are not trying to duck responsibilities. We are just trying to make sure that they are streamlined and that we spend the majority of the money on the activity. It is about value for money. You do not want a huge amount to be wasted. People tell me that the goalposts change all the time. Three years into a project, someone will come along and say that they are now looking for a certain sort of reporting and information. That is not fair; it is mad, and it is maddening for people. If we know what we are supposed to do, we will conform with that. We are not looking to duck the issue. We are just looking for something sensible. Those are the teeth that Will talked about.

Mr Copeland:

You will be glad to hear, Seamus, that this is my final question. Are the sectors that make up the sector — if I can put it like that — signed up to the concordat? In your view, what more needs to be done to create effective partnerships between government and the sectors involved?

Mr McAleavey:

At the high level, partnership between government and the voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland is very good, and it has been progressing, particularly under devolution. Our sector recognises that the Executive and the Departments have listened, particularly during past couple of years, when we have been talking about the difficult issues of public expenditure and where that is going. We think that we have been treated fairly and that they have listened. For instance, I asked Will to organise a meeting with the chief finance officers of all the Departments, and he did so. Such a meeting has probably never taken place before in which all of the principal finance officers have met a group of people outside the Departments to discuss issues. So, at the highest level across Departments, things are quite good. We need to try to push that down through what is a massive system.

In our sector, for example, ordinary groups and organisations in east Belfast might say to me that the concordat is very good but that, if it does not deliver for them, it will mean nothing. They want to see change and that the daily relationship is constructive. Things often fail on the reporting and audit side, not at the level at which you are trying to negotiate arrangements for the sector as a whole.

Mr Hussey:

To be perfectly honest, a lot of community groups would not know what a concordat was if it landed in front of them, and they would not be interested. Paragraph 1.26 of the NIAO report alludes to the funding pressures being placed on the sector and government. What is the sector's response to that? Are amalgamations and downsizing ways of ensuring the sustainability of the sector and improving its effectiveness?

Mr McAleavey:

Our sector and NICVA has done quite a lot given the funding environment and economic situation in which we find ourselves. Since 2008, we have been setting out the environment that we are in. We recognise the squeeze on public expenditure, and we have been making the point to government that we want to ensure that organisations are not treated unfairly. We want them to be measured on the basis of their outputs and outcomes. Quite a lot of organisations are often involved in prevention rather than cure, and, ultimately, help to save the state quite a lot of money. We should focus on that. The danger to our sector is that many funders might deem the activity to be peripheral; so, there will be a lot of threats to organisations before opportunities come along. Many organisations in our sector can do a lot to help government achieve their objectives in very tight financial circumstances, but they need to be treated fairly. That is a key issue.

We worry that opportunities are just taken, and that the opportunity of a crisis allows people to make crude cuts. One thing that NICVA is trying to do is to monitor that situation. We have asked government to ensure that we are treated fairly. We will try to monitor government's treatment of the sector, and if we see that it is not fair we will say something about that and put it into the public domain.

Mr Hussey:

Following on from that and moving on to Mr Haire; how is the public sector responding to those pressures and how is it supporting change in the sector?

Mr Haire:

One of the key processes that we put in place in the past while was the modernisation fund, into which we put £18 million. It was for a range of initiatives that sought to help create a rationalisation, or better working together, of the sector, and a better use of support activities across the sector. We have a wide range of projects, and I will ask Maeve to give you some examples of those.

There have been some significant moves, and some organisations in the sector have improved their own processes. For example, work has been done by the advice sector, and there have been significant amalgamations and developments in the volunteering sector. It is a very difficult thing for organisations to go through, but people have seen that it is the right way to go, as it is a way of driving out certain costs and improving service quality. We have supported that process and we will continue to see how we can give the best advice to people on how they can deal with that issue.

There is a big challenge coming. The NIAO report has correctly told us that a very significant part of the sector — in its broadest sense, going back to Mr Copeland’s point — is being funded with public money in return for public services. In what will be a much more competitive environment, and one in which quality will be important, there will be pressure on the sector to demonstrate the quality of its work, and that will require larger organisations to perform consistently. There is a major challenge in balancing this with local community involvement in the process. We are facing quite a significant time, and the pressures on budgets will make that worse. Maeve, do you want to talk a bit about the modernisation work that we have supported?

Ms Walls:

Will mentioned the capital modernisation fund. The aim behind that fund was to provide capital funding for organisations across Northern Ireland to secure premises that would allow them to co-exist with others. The Omagh Community House is an example of organisations having been able to come together in a shared space to drive down their cost structures. We evaluated that programme from the beginning and we have some very positive indications from it. We must bear in mind that we are not at the end of the process yet and that the evaluation is being running in tandem as the projects develop. However, the figures indicate that 87% of the projects that we supported indicated that the grant had enabled them to increase their range of services, and 87% felt that they were better able to share a resource and organisational space as a result of their grant they received. Therefore, there are encouraging signs about how that money is being put to good use.

In addition, and as Will mentioned, we have supported some collaboration and merger work. We invested a small amount of money in the Building Change Trust, which is an important initiative that helps organisations to come together and to work together differently, again to drive down costs or to identify new sources of money. We supported the merger operation in the former Volunteer Development Agency and we did some work for Citizens Advice. Beyond that, an important strand of our work is helping organisations that are doing good work to prove the worth of that work. That work is referenced in the social return on investment document as a technique to help organisations large and small to demonstrate the impact and the public value that their work has giving rise to, and to leave them in a stronger position to bid for money in the future.

Mr Hussey:

I think you referred to Volunteer Now. I want to put a wee spoke in for them. It is an excellent organisation. I am not sure whether anybody is here from that organisation, but I did a course with them and there is more than a tick in the box for them.

Mr Girvan:

The document throws up a number of areas of concern. Paragraphs 2.2 to 2.8 deal with the funders' database and highlight its importance in strategically managing and co-ordinating the funding of the sector. Your Department has been responsible for developing and managing that, so why, after seven years, is it so limited that it does not even hold complete records of basic information such as who paid what to whom and for what? That is a glaring breach that needs to be closed.

Mr Haire:

We worked on the basis of trying to win people's hearts and minds to use that database. That has worked in central government. We got all Departments signed up to use that process. We also got a fair amount of agencies on board, but there has been an issue for the health trusts and the education and library boards because they argued that they have their own systems, knew what they were funding and did not see a particular value for them in putting the resource into that new system. At a time when both organisations were setting changes, the message came that it was not a priority for them. I have written again to my health colleague to ask him to look into that issue.

We are unique in the British Isles. No other Administration has anything like this. We have a much fuller database than anybody else because of that process. So, we have worked through that and we have been able to get a database that is now being used around the system. It is particularly valuable for Departments, organisations and funders to check what other organisations are being funded and given resources for, so they get a better sense of those organisations.

That transparency creates more public confidence about whether there is any question of double funding, etc. The database has been useful in that sense, but you are right: we need to push it further. We are working with the five councils coming on this year and will then push it to the rest of the councils. The question of the health trusts is one that we are trying to resolve.

We improved the functionality of the software, so people can interrogate it more. We worked with focus groups to help us to improve that and we have a team pushing that forward. The amount of data on the database is quite sophisticated. The database does answer a fair amount of what is set out in paragraph 2.4. We have some ability to give a reasonable level of answers about a number of those areas.

The database gives the objective of each grant, the type and nature of the funding and the target groups. I think that the related letters of offer are also available through the database. That is at a lower level but people can get all the letters of offer, and a good letter of offer will answer all the points made. So, it is quite an extensive database. It is just a matter of trying to make sure that everybody signs up to that process, and we have not achieved that yet.

Mr Girvan:

What mechanism is in place to ensure that there is no double or even treble funding? We appreciate that the sector deals with hundreds of millions of pounds as well as some European funding, which may not necessarily always be accounted through the same sector because it could be looked at by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) or whatever. We are aware of examples of double or treble funding, although this is perhaps not the right forum to discuss them. However, there have been glaring irregularities in the past. I am not going back into history; I am talking about the recent past. I want to know what mechanism is there to ensure the accuracy of the database and its overall usefulness.

Mr Haire:

It is a requirement under the dear accounting officer letters that went out, which form the background to this, that the internal audit of Departments should check that the funds that they give are entered appropriately in the database. For example, in my Department and others, we have checked that out and we are happy with it. We drill down and check out the database and our stuff appears to be accurate.

However, you touch on a key wider issue. The database is a useful tool, but it is just a tool in a process. It requires, and the Committee often requires us, to do spot checks and send people into those organisations to do that. Often, when a group has three or four funders, it inevitably means that a number of different internal auditors have to go into that organisation. Yet, understandably, Seamus and the team say that they are being audited to death. There is a big issue about bureaucracy and how we go about it. It is a question of balance and risk management; that is one of the key issues. How do we manage the risk?

My Department funds a large number of organisations because we are in the wide area of community development. In the last couple of years, we have pioneered a system whereby we risk assess organisations. We use all the knowledge we have and ask ourselves whether the organisation has a reasonable track record or whether it has still to prove itself. We are reasonably happy with 91% of the organisations we fund. Because of that, we go in and check all the expenditure of such organisations in one quarter of the year. We randomly select that quarter, of course. We test drill such organisations in that way; we are not going to check everything. That still requires a lot of work, from their point of view.

For the 9% of organisations that have still has not proven themselves, we have to go in and ask lots of detailed questions. That is frustrating for the organisation, but it is the only way that we can look you in the face and say that we have done our job to ensure that public money is protected. The difficulty that Seamus, Maeve and I have is to find mechanisms that work appropriately for all these organisations.

Mr Girvan:

Our difficulty is that, perhaps historically, one or two bad eggs have made it very difficult for everyone, and we have now had to audit to death this whole Department, to ensure that public money is not wrongfully used. It takes only one or two organisations to create a major problem for the whole industry, and that is exactly what has happened here. On that basis, we now have to be totally accountable, open and transparent in every single transaction. I appreciate that we are dealing with multiple organisations. I use the example of SEUPB because it dispenses somewhere in the region of £90 million throughout this sector. If that £90 million is not accounted for on your database, how can we be sure that there is not a dual-funding approach? It could be dealt with through one area, yet SEUPB could be delivering it but not adding it to the database.

Mr Haire:

No database will give you the protection that you want. It cannot work that way; you cannot have an absolute check. However, the database is at least a useful guide to those doing the audit. It helps them check those things out. Ultimately, you have to have checks and go into the organisations in quite a bit of detail to give you that confidence.

Mr McAleavey:

To follow up on that, your second question was about double funding. The idea of a lead funder is that there is a single audit and then assurance is given to the multiplicity of the public funders that might be involved. I discussed that issue with the previous Comptroller and Auditor General, John Dowdall. He said that, in respect of double funding, the presence of a lead funder gave him assurance, because someone or some body was taking an overview. They were not checking on their portion of the funding in an organisation, but taking an overview. I am inclined to agree with that. I think that a lead funder gives you that type of assurance.

The second issue is the database and the importance of that. We have to realise the context. Under British law, what is not proscribed is legal. We can form organisations and we do not have to tell anyone. In the early part of the meeting, we talked about the Charity Commission. As Will said, regulation of the bodies that have been given charitable status by the tax authorities in Bootle is being transferred to the Charity Commission. All we know about those bodies is that they were given tax exemption, based on their charitable purposes. We will have to find out how many of those organisations are still active. Not all voluntary and community organisations will be charitable. Therefore, once that register is in absolutely tip-top shape, it will not take care of absolutely everyone. There will always be difficulties.

In continental Europe, the opposite is the case: what is not legal is prescribed. In France, you can be told exactly how many organisations exist and what they do, because, in law, they must have statutes, and they must reply. The British system is the opposite of that and allows freedom of association. That is very important.

A database like this is a big help and offers some added value. The report also says that we in NICVA have some of the best information in the sector from the research that we have carried out. We would like to depend on the database too, because we would like to be able to check everything. We look at voluntary organisations’ accounts, and we gather that information and report on it. We would like to check it against the database, and we would like to know who has a grant, who has grant and aid, and who is in receipt of a contract, for instance. That would allow us to comment on that.

One of the difficulties that we have to recognise is that if there is not absolute authority behind something like this, the Department, at times, has difficulty delivering on it. However, others who have no responsibility to the Department for Social Development can say that it is not a priority for them. I am wondering whether there is an authority issue, although I accept Will’s point. NICVA has a fairly big database too, and I accept that once you have a database, it will never be absolutely accurate, but you always strive to make it accurate. I wonder whether it is the authority behind the Department that ensures that all the other public bodies play a part and see it as a priority issue. [Interruption.]

The Chairperson:

I want to bring in Paul Frew for a supplementary question. I remind everyone to switch off their mobile phones. Unfortunately, we cannot tell what area the noise is coming from.

Mr Frew:

Paul asked his question in respect of double funding. I want to ask the same question with regard to the different levels of accounting and auditing. Take, for instance, a voluntary body that goes to receive funding, and there are at least three levels of funding from various sources, but usually from the same block. Usually, the different levels are asking the same questions in a different way, which produces a different answer. How stifling is that to the organisations that you represent?

Mr McAleavey:

It can be horrendous. We have an organisation in east Belfast that was carrying out a project. It did a check on the amount of time, effort and money that was put into the reporting and believed it to be 30%. People have to realise that there is a cost associated with excessive reporting, and, ultimately, that cost comes out of the resource that is being spent on whatever the activity is. Therefore, it can be horrendous.

It is mentioned regularly in the Treasury document. Treasury talks about being proportionate. We hear horror stories of very small organisations with small amounts of money being asked to report almost as if they were a Department. Treasury has commented on that as well. It has also pointed out that government finds voluntary and community organisations useful in getting to places that they cannot. They have to realise that the last thing that you want to do is turn those organisations into an extension of the Department.

Everyone agrees that that needs to be tackled: the Audit Office agrees, Treasury agrees, and the Treasury document is backed by the National Audit Office in England. The key point is how we translate that into real action. That is why I am hopeful that we will get some action this time and crack it through the proposals that Will is putting forward. Otherwise, we waste public money.

Ms Walls:

I will say something about the horns of our dilemma with this. A short number of years ago, the Department invited external scrutiny of its funding arrangements with this question in mind: were the arrangements proportionate and appropriate? The view that was returned was that they were. Those staff were not exercising discretion that may have been available to them. The staff who work with me in the administration of grants place huge importance on ensuring that we are fully compliant and that we return satisfactory assurance ratings on audits. So, that group of people are doing their job and following procedures. However, Seamus pointed to something more fundamental and more systemic about how grant making works at the minute. As Will said, the concordat now needs to look at, in practical terms, what we might do to resolve some of this.

Mr Haire:

My Department's accounts were qualified for several years for exactly that reason. Several years ago, we had a long, bad period for grant giving. Therefore, we worked with our Audit Office colleagues over many years and got to a good system. Our accounts are clear on that issue. In those areas, we are often implementing requirements that, ultimately, flow from this Committee and from the authority of the Assembly. It all points to the need to approach all Departments to see whether we can have dialogue about how to learn from best practice and align our processes and systems appropriately. However, we need to go to the Department of Finance and Personnel and, ultimately, to the Audit Office to sign off any agreement on that issue, because staff involved in that area are genuinely trying to do their job effectively.

Ultimately, if we are to get a solution, this Committee has to be involved in the compact or concordat. It will be difficult. Our Scottish colleagues have tried this for some time and have not succeeded. I often feel that they have nearly given up on the idea. I do not know what Dublin has done in that area, but I know that London has talked about it for a long time and I am not too sure whether any easy solutions have been found there. So, let us focus on this issue, but let us be realistic: there are some very complex issues to be addressed.

Mr McAleavey:

We should not abdicate any of our responsibilities with regard to European programmes. A lot of things are open to interpretation. We get more horror stories associated with European funding than anything else. For example, a women’s organisation bought stationery over the period of a project on a quarterly or six-monthly basis, and the amounts were relatively small. That spending was approved and vouched for by the relevant organisation and was passed by its finance officer. When a final audit was done after three years, it was decided that the organisation had broken procurement rules because the cost of stationery had reached the sum of about £5,000 over the life of the project. The organisation was told that it should have procured for the lifetime of the project. The organisation was disallowed that money, having had it approved and vouched for. The largest amount of money that it spent during the time was £258. Therefore, over £5,000 was taken from a very small organisation, which will have to find that from other charitable funds. People just cannot understand the fairness of that; they think that it is about interpretation.

It means that things move very slowly. We engaged on this issue; and one of the things we looked at through the task force on resourcing the community and voluntary sector was supporting organisations at a Northern Ireland level, perhaps through a generic body like NICVA. However, there would also be bodies such as Disability Action or the Rural Community Network that might provide particular support to organisations locally.

On Maeve’s point about RPA, I talked to organisations locally in different district council areas. One of those, the Confederation of Community Groups in Newry has been mentioned, and there was also a Confederation of Voluntary Groups in Armagh. What we said to those groups then was that it was clear that we were moving towards a scenario in which we would provide one support organisation in what would have been 11 district council areas. That slowed and then stopped, with the result that an organisation such as the Confederation of Voluntary Groups in Armagh is not there anymore; it is gone. Therefore, this does have an impact and change takes longer than we would all like.

Our thinking has also moved on about this, and we are looking at a lot more vertical and horizontal integration. What I know from NICVA member organisations, whether they are community groups or voluntary organisations, is that, at the end of the day, they will look to those who give them the service support that helps them and their work. They are becoming increasingly clear about that.

Things take an awful lot longer than we sometimes expect. They get held up by different processes, such as RPA, but we really need to begin to focus on such things and streamline them to the help and betterment of all existing groups or new organisations that emerge.

Ms J McCann:

Paragraph 2.28 refers to a skills survey that was carried out in 2008. It states that that survey identified a significant skills gap in management and leadership. Has anything been done to address that?

Mr McAleavey:

We in NICVA did some work on management and leadership. Using trust fund money, we invested in providing support to organisations, and 650 people went through our management development programme at different levels from postgraduate right down to introductory management. In our sector, educational qualification levels are high. We have a lot of people at degree level and higher, but they have only basic management skills, so it is a big area.

We have engaged with the sector skills councils, but all we really see there is talk and a discussion about how skills gaps can be dealt with. Not a lot has actually happened. We have found that voluntary and community organisations are left to their own devices in the sense that it is about what they can do for themselves. We have always had that ongoing skills problem. Our sector is diverse, and we have a broad range of the required skills.

Ms Walls:

We were encouraged by the findings that seven in eight people in the sector have the necessary skills, and that is not being complacent for a second. We treat the issue seriously, and that is why we are giving the amount of resource that we are giving to organisations such as NICVA so that the sector is supported in its skills base. At a time of change in the sector, seven out of eight people are saying that they have the skills that they need to do the job. We are not complacent, but we take reassurance that our support budget is being well directed on training activity.

Ms J McCann:

The sector’s ability to deliver public services has been touched. Paragraphs 2.11 to 2.13 deal with the commissioning of services from the sector. How could more be done to promote that? A lot of people, particularly from the social economy sector and those who work in the voluntary and community sector, do not think that there is an even playing field, particularly where government procurement is concerned. Is there a way that that could be promoted better?

Mr Haire:

Last year, our colleagues in the Central Procurement Directorate of the Department of Finance and Personnel issued advice and guidance on commissioning in relation to social economy enterprises. They are taking very seriously the point about how we get advice to Departments and how to deal with that area. We find it encouraging that they seem to be focused on that process. We see the intelligent commissioning concept as one of the areas on which we need to work.

Seamus and Maeve might be aware that one of the working groups that we are setting up is about outcomes and outputs. Intelligent commissioning is in the area of how you work that all together and how you get alignment in the process. We need to get a better sense of how that is working and a spread of best practice to ensure that we genuinely use the real expertise that is in the social enterprise sector.

Ms Walls:

In England, an intelligent commissioning programme was developed by what was then called the Office of the Third Sector in the Cabinet Office, which is the equivalent of our unit there. That involved collaborative work with the New Economics Foundation and what was then called the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA), a local government think tank organisation. We can learn lessons as the concordat implementation develops from that.

Some very interesting work was done in two areas: helping organisations describe and measure their benefit; and helping commissioners better understand the value that voluntary and community organisations can deliver. So, there is great scope for some really positive work on that over the next year.

Ms J McCann:

You touched briefly on the social return on investment earlier. That is crucial, and we could maybe look at the social clauses. The social outcomes of a government contract could be looked at just as much as the value for money and environmental sides of it. It is a hobby horse of mine, but that could maybe be looked at.

Mr McAleavey:

You mentioned the social return on investment. On page 44 of the report, there is a case study on the NOW project, which is very good at showing how it has helped people. It is about distance travelled and being able to recognise the cost savings elsewhere. In this case, savings were made in the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety through transport costs and all that. That needs to be able to be counted.

However, if we move to the situation of saying that we are going to pay for outcomes, it may be a very good thing, but understand that you are into very different business and one to which I am not sure whether a lot of our voluntary and community sector can afford to go. It is, therefore, probably best if we focus on reasonable intermediate outputs, where there are things that can, at least, give us an indication that we are doing the right things. It is an important area to look at, but there are a lot of complexities to be thought through. There are a lot of risks in outcome measurement and in outcome payment.

Mr Frew:

There is not as much resource about now, so, of course, everything has to be tightened up. How does your Department determine its priorities now, when there is no uniformity? This might be controversial, but there is a high degree of importance placed on need and deprivation levels. There are organisations which, if given a pot of money, would have it spent in the morning. That money would immediately go directly to the ground. I am talking about the Broughshane Community Associations of this world. There is no doubt that they have the capacity, but they do not have the factors involved and the surrounding issues. Nor do they have the need or levels of deprivation in their area that could draw down a lot of money. Then there are the community associations, groups and organisations that are in areas of deep deprivation and need, but they do not have the capacity to spend. When you award or grant money to those organisations, you find that it could take years to see a worth or to get an outcome. Even if there were to be a quick outcome, it could all be gone within a few years. Do you take that into consideration? That would be a big bugbear for some organisations that do have the capacity but are, unfortunately, not in a deprived area.

Mr Haire:

It clearly depends on how Ministers interpret the objectives of the Programme for Government. For example, our neighbourhood renewal programme says very clearly that we are targeting the 10% most deprived communities. We measure that carefully, and we recognise that that is where the funding is to go. The clear objective of the policy is to offer people in those communities an opportunity to have the same benefits as others because of the particular issues involved. That is the logic of the policy. However, there are lots of different types of policies in different areas.

Likewise, many organisations have the capacity not to use government funding. The major UK-wide funders and foundations knew that there was European funding in Northern Ireland, and the question was why they would be here. We need them here because we have major issues. Things are changing in that process. There are horses for courses. There are opportunities, but it depends entirely on the focus of a programme.

Mr Frew:

I understand that, but there is a perception that there is a certain neglect of a certain calibre of association or organisation. That should not be forgotten about either. It comes down to programmes at the highest level, but this is worth mentioning.

Mr Byrne:

Paragraph 3.2 indicates that public sector bodies do not lack the manuals, guidelines and access to good practice to be efficient and effective funders. This is the whole issue of funding arrangements. Mencap is a fairly reputable organisation that does a lot of work for young people and adults with a disability. The document states that Mencap:

“experiences administrative inefﬁciencies, difﬁculties recovering all appropriate costs, and delays in cost recovery in some public sector and EU funded programmes.”

Some of those difficulties are then listed. Why does the report contain so many examples of inappropriate and inefficient practices? Why do so many organisations feel that there has been very little improvement in the funding partnership or relationship? You made some references to that earlier, but who will take the lead and get that streamlined?

Mr Haire:

Mr Byrne:

To be honest, I think that you are dismissing it too lightly. You are not really appreciating the pain that some organisations go through. One of the concerns is that a sensible approach is not being taken to well-run organisations that are properly managed and that have a proper billing and invoicing system.

Ms Walls:

We accepted and communicated to Departments that we support the principle of full cost recovery. The core of the principle is that organisations that deliver public services should not have to subsidise those services from their own fundraising efforts. The principle was established primarily for those organisations that deliver an aspect of public service under contract. In all likelihood, the small organisations that you are describing will not be engaged in the delivery of public services. If they are, full cost recovery would kick in because, when they tendered or competed to deliver the service, the onus was on them to cost that service delivery and cost it well. We have a responsibility to make sure that organisations in the sector are good at costing and understand how to construct their costs. They need to know that it is not only staff time but that overheads will be associated with that.

The National Audit Office described full cost recovery as a blunt instrument in cases where government are giving a grant to an organisation but it is not necessarily associated with a very clear service delivery. The terminology of a gift or an investment in the organisation comes in when it is more difficult to structure full cost recovery because we are simply contributing to the overall running costs of an organisation, and there may well be other funders. So, it is not for a second that we are insensitive to it, and, as Will said, the working group will look at costs as part of the concordat. The guidance on that may need to be refreshed and reissued.

Mr McAleavey:

Joe, it goes across many Departments and many agencies. The issue of full cost recovery came up as a UK one, and it was where funders only ever wanted to pay the marginal cost. They said, “I am funding you to do this, and I do not want to hear about the other costs”. The Treasury said that there is no reason why service procurers should disallow the inclusion of relevant overhead costs in a bid, recognising that there are a lot more costs involved and that charities and other bodies should not have to subsidise the cost of the delivery from elsewhere.

I thank everyone for coming along this afternoon.

From reading paragraph 3.12 of the report, there seems to be some misunderstanding about what is meant by the longer-term, outcome-focused approach. We are all well aware from our own communities that the sector is calling out for longer-term funding arrangements, but that is not happening. There is a great need to seriously address that issue. Why is that not happening?

Mr Haire:

In past couple of years, and with the settlement of the CSR, we are seeing a move towards three-year funding and sometimes four-year funding. That is something that we stress as being important. In the Department, we have been able to move to three- to four-year funding.

The Treasury is very clear in its guidance and makes the point that the length of funding is entirely dependent on the objective. It says that short-term funding in certain cases is the right thing to do. We have a number of cases, and this document covers a number of cases, where we have provided one year of funding and then another year of funding. That is often because the project has not fully demonstrated its need or clarified its objectives. It is then quite appropriate, in order to protect public funding, to allow organisations a year or so to develop and refine their needs and objectives. In a number of cases, organisations receive short-term funding because Departments require that. That is the right thing to do in certain cases. However, we have clearly had an on/off situation. We have had budget issues. It has taken time for Ministers to settle budgets and for the Budget process to work. We all recognise that too many short-term, one-year processes have been expensive to organisations and to us. Our clear direction of travel is to move away from that.

Mr S Anderson:

From your response, may I take it that you agree that the absence of that certainty clearly restricts groups in moving forward? Do you also accept that such a lack of clarity makes it difficult for groups to establish what they intend to do?

Mr Haire:

That is the downside of short-term funding. It is not cost-effective for people to spend so much time going through the process of searching out funds. However, as I said, our aim is to move to longer-term, three to four-year funding because that is, generally, the CSR period and it is difficult for us to commit beyond that. Against that, however, there are times when short-term funding is needed. For example, at the moment the Minister has asked us to make sure that we get the budget so that there is more money for innovation in the sector. If we are to fund innovatory projects, that will probably be on a one- or two-year basis, because we will still be trying to search out the right programme and the right way to do it. So, there are times when short-term funding is the way to start new programmes. I do not want to give you the idea that all new programmes will be funded on a three-year basis.

Mr S Anderson:

Case study eight in the report is on Focus on Family. That case study contrasts one organisation’s experiences in securing funding from different funders. In that particular case, the staff had been put on protective notice before funding came through at the last minute. I think part of your comments earlier on neighbourhood renewal referred to that. The Department does not come out well in that case study. What went wrong? Does your Department appreciate the stress and anxiety that goes along with such cases?

Mr Haire:

I will ask Gordon to come in on that issue because there is an interesting story there.

Mr Gordon Bell (Department for Social Development):

Mr Haire:

That is one of the issues. At the start of the recent neighbourhood renewal cycle, a number of projects were funded on a one-year basis. Some were because they were projects that we were looking for greater detail and clarity on, and some were just because of the nature of the budgets and the way that ministerial agreements on budgets emerged. Now that we have agreement with our Ministers, our aim is that we will move towards three-year funding. That is the process that we are trying to implement for the very reason that we were constantly being caught in a situation where we were not getting budget clearance for the system, and, therefore, people had to put themselves on protective notice. That was clearly damaging for morale and it was not a good way forward, hence we have changed that process.

The Chairperson:

Some groups have heard for a number of years now that funding will be on a long-term, three-year basis. However, that is yet to happen. I will be surprised if it happens this time or if the next term is going to be for three years. I hope it is, because it certainly needs that wee bit of reality and sustainability brought into it. I know of groups, including the one in the case study, that got their funding two or three days prior to the end of their contract period. Some groups have had their funding run out at the end of the financial year in March, yet they have not got a letter of offer until August or September. That is completely wrong, yet it has happened time and time again.

The Department needs to take a serious look at that, because it could lead to groups losing their best staff and losing people from that sector altogether. There are people who want to do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, and then they become financially screwed because they have mortgages to pay and families to keep. I do not think Will, Maeve, Gordon or anybody else in this room would want to work like that: would you? That is the reality of it. If you would like to work like that, that is good enough, but do not expect others to.

Mr McAleavey:

I have experience of this across Departments and agencies. In the past two weeks, I have met the director of an organisation, not related to DSD, that receives major funding from a Department. The director told me that, last year, their application had been in for the best part of a year before it was met in February. They then received a letter asking whether they would like an advance. There is an issue there, and I have discussed this with officials.

This year, that organisation is not prepared to take the same sort of risk, because of the financial climate that we are in. The director told me that they had put nine people on notice and they really needed to get a decision. However, their application has been in from the beginning of the financial year, and they feel that it has not progressed. That may be a case of bad practice or total inefficiency on somebody’s part. I have talked to officials about how we begin to deal with that across Departments because, sometimes, it is down to people rather than procedures. Maeve and I have spoken about trying to include that.

Ms Walls:

It is not good practice, and we would not support it. It is not in keeping with the principles and commitments of the concordat. We will be actively vigilant on that issue. If there is a concentration of this, I would expect to see that featured in a report through the Minister to the Executive and remedial action taken.

The Chairperson:

It is a very serious issue, and I hope that this Committee makes a number of recommendations, because the community sector cannot sustain that haemorrhaging of good staff. Fair play to the people who have stayed in the community sector for years because they are committed to it and they are committed to making sure that the communities they are representing are better. They have to be commended for that.

I see from the case studies that some of the groups might have had a surplus of £90,000. Some groups are not allowed to have a surplus of money. How do they survive? How are they supposed to try to pay their staff?

Mr McAleavey:

I can give you a very clear example. Youthlife works with young people at risk of suicide and self-harm. It received funding over the past 19 years through in-year slippage money. The person in charge of the organisation did not take her wages for 10 months last year because she did not have the money to cover them. I do not know how she does that but I assume she is relying on her husband being in work. Despite all that, the group had 36 referrals in June 2011, 34 of which came from the statutory sector. They were getting the referrals but not getting the help. A lot of that is happening across the board. That is an issue we have to try to tackle.

The Treasury report, which Will and I have quoted, talks about timeliness. If we were making payments to private sector organisations for work done they would be timely. The Government gives a commitment to a one-month return. If there are problems, I am happy that they be dealt with. I am not saying that people should get away with not holding up their end, but I have had to intervene many times and phone permanent secretaries and say, “These people are going to close at the end of the week.” Generally, you get action then.

The Chairperson:

The main point is not about jobs but the services that those individuals provide. That is what is being affected.

Ms J McCann:

You made a key point. Obviously, people’s jobs are important. However, we have had this discussion for years. I remember going to a round table discussion in 2006 about neighbourhood renewal in west Belfast and they were talking about 10-year core funding for core posts. That has still not materialised. Core funding is the main issue, particularly for the community sector. Where there is a need for a service, you cannot keep delivering that service on a year-by-year basis. That just cannot be done. We are taking about outcomes and funding being outcome-based. How can it be that a project is funded for a year and then the funding is taken away and a different project is funded? That just does not make sense given the services being provided, particularly those focusing on early intervention. If you are going to make any long-term difference to people’s quality of life, you have to give the core funding to those organisations and the people who are delivering that service. Otherwise, you are throwing good money after bad. Core funding for those services is a key issue.

Mr Frew:

The long-term strategies of the voluntary sector are the crux of the matter. I am not talking about the jobs and the people in the jobs, although that is important; the key concern is the people they cater for. Probably the worst thing for someone in need or who is being serviced by the voluntary sector is to give them a service and then take it away. Sometimes, that can be more damaging than the initial problem.

There are two aspects to this issue. One is the short-term nature of the contract, the one-year funding. It would be great to get three- or four-year programme funding. However, when we get to the end of that process, whether it be three, two or four years, will the same thing happen again, with people left at the very end of contracts and programmes without future funding? Can you give us an assurance that if we have a three-year funding programme, renewal of that funding will be looked at sooner, within a year of it running out, so that there is continuity?

Mr Haire:

There is no disagreement between what we, as officials, are saying and what you are saying. We totally agree. There is, therefore, a need to look at the question in the political process. For example, in the early 2002-04 period we had a lot of one-year Executive programme funds. I was in the Department of Education when Secretary of State Hain introduced the children’s fund. As officials at that time, we said that we would be happy with that and commit to it as long as it was mainstreamed into our budget. However, we said that if it was to be two-year funding only, we would be doing exactly what you have described here: getting groups active and then having to put them down. We were assured at that time that it was long-term funding but, to be fair, a new Government came in and took a different view on that issue. They were totally right to take a different view on that process. However, if you are going to do this, you have to take a political view, being very careful about pilots, innovations and new processes, and you need to look very carefully and strategically at how you back some projects and get your funding right. We also have to make sure that our budget processes are right.

You are absolutely clear: we should be making evaluations of schemes well before the end of the funding period so that, if the scheme is coming to an end, we can give people the time to prepare for that or, if it is going on, we can give them that assurance. That is good governance, and we are totally with you on that. If the Committee includes that point in its recommendations, we would be very keen on it, because there is no disagreement between the sector and officials on that issue. It is about trying to find the correct way but accepting that there will be times when people will want to innovate or that it is right to have one-year funding in certain areas. I would always keep those options open. However, we totally agree with the points that you make.

The Chairperson:

I was not aware of the French system, but as soon as I heard about it, it occurred to me that it would be a way in which we might have a database or register. My goodness; it does not seem to be to be an infringement of democratic rights if organisations that apply for funding are asked to register. The benefits that would flow from that would be enormous, not just for the Department but for lots of other people who want access to information on where such groups exist.

Ms Walls:

Many of the organisations that we fund take great pride in the external accreditation systems that they operate, whether it is Investors in People, Picasso or another of the many validation systems that exist to independently verify their work.

Mr McAleavey:

That is right. NICVA places a strong emphasis on good governance. We have a number of staff who work in that area and help organisations to improve their governance. As Will said, the advent of the Charity Commission is really important. It is important to us because it is about public confidence, a term that Maeve used earlier.

In the past, if people had a doubt about an organisation, the only place that they could go to was the police. However, quite often, your doubt was not that a criminal act was taking place. People did not really know what to do. If people have doubts now, they can go to the Charity Commission. If there is something that needs to be looked at, the Charity Commission has the power and authority to investigate it. That protects us all. The public need to be confident that, when they make donations to charities or other organisations, the money will be put to the intended purpose.

I agree totally with what Will said about good regulation. On our side, it can be about helping organisations. Sometimes, we find that organisations' poor governance is not mal-intent. It may just be that an organisation is not alert to governance, does not review its governing documents, does not look at the powers that it has and so on. It can be important to help organisations to improve their practices.

The Chairperson:

Fiona, do you want to come in on the question that Alex asked about paragraphs 3.24 and 3.27?

Ms Hamill:

Will is correct. The prompt payment regulations apply to firms doing business with government. I am aware of the work that the DSD has done on the pilots to ensure the prompt release of funds to organisations. There is a difference between grant funding and paying for goods and services under an invoice. However, the principles are correct, and we can do more work on that as part of the group.

The Chairperson:

Thank you. You will be glad to hear that that is your lot. There are no more questions. It has been a very interesting session. It has been an odd session in that it is the first time this term that we have held a meeting away from Stormont.

A number of issues have been raised. Seamus raised an issue about reports. We will make recommendations. The Department will respond, which we will go through to see how we take the matter forward. In some cases, we look for an update report within 12 months. That is part of the process that we embark on, and the accountability mechanisms will kick in. Following on from Seamus’s point, how do you see this process looking four years from now?

Mr Haire:

A long-term vision is needed to answer that. We will push forward on this one. I expect that it will take more than one year to crack all the funding issues. I hope that we will be able to streamline in some areas. The big challenge is the voluntary and community sector. There will be intriguing issues about public service delivery through the voluntary and community sector. We will have to move that issue forward.

There will be big challenges about the size, nature and governance of the sector and the way in which it delivers. Much of the voluntary and community sector does things without government money, which is fantastic. My Minister made a speech here about it. We are delighted that they do that; it is nothing to do with us. People do that of their own free will, and they are very creative. We should be encouraging that. There is a whole area where things will be done very effectively. As regards the broader process, there will be tough times, and having an effective partnership is the key issue. I am sure that there will be tough issues between us at times. That goes back to the point that you made, Chairperson, about the quality of delivery to the public. That is the only issue.

The Chairperson:

Paul Girvan promises to be very brief.

Mr Girvan:

I will be brief, Chairperson. Perhaps Fiona could answer my question. I want to ask about the emphasis on getting a balance between delivery and audit and to ensure that that is done. What engagement has gone on at your level, Fiona, to determine whether we can streamline that process and ensure that the balance is right between accountability and delivery and does not become too bureaucratic? We started by talking about bureaucracy, and I wanted to know whether DFP is doing any work about putting procedures in place to help the delivery to the voluntary sector.

Ms Hamill:

In 2006, in its response to Positive Steps, DFP tried to streamline things. We put forward a proposal for a type of kite mark system whereby an organisation could obtain a rating which could dictate how it would be scrutinised. That proposal did not go anywhere at the time, but now that we are going back to it under the concordat, we want to determine what we can do about the core guidance for provider costs to the public sector and to try to standardise the approach and the levels of scrutiny, particularly for the smaller organisations to which we referred — the sub-£10,000 a year bodies — and make sure that, at least, there is proportionality. As Will said, very correctly, we are going to have to take it a bite at a time and, rather than fix it all in one go, we are going to have to take each group in each set and try to find a solution and some improvements. We are very committed to working with DSD and NICVA under the concordat to try to drive out some significant improvements.

Mr Copeland:

I noticed that you said that a number of groups did things at no charge to government. I am sure that the more they do, the more they will get to do.

The Chairperson:

Thank you very much, folks.

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE

OFFICIAL REPORT (Hansard)

Inquiry into Creating Effective Partnerships between Government and the Voluntary and Community Sector

12 October 2011

Members present for all or part of the proceedings:

Witnesses:

The Chairperson:

Ms J McCann:

Mr Copeland:

Mr Girvan:

Mr Hussey:

Mr Byrne:

The Chairperson:

Mr Will Haire (Department for Social Development):

The Chairperson:

Mr Seamus McAleavey (Northern Ireland Community and Voluntary Association):

The Chairperson:

Mr Haire:

The Chairperson:

Mr Haire:

The Chairperson:

Mr Haire:

The Chairperson:

Mr Haire:

Ms Maeve Walls (Department for Social Development):

The Chairperson:

Mr Haire:

The Chairperson:

Mr Haire:

The Chairperson:

Ms Walls:

The Chairperson:

Mr Haire:

The Chairperson:

Ms Walls:

The Chairperson:

Mr Hussey:

Mr Haire:

Mr Hussey:

Mr Haire:

Mr Dallat:

The Chairperson:

Mr Dallat:

Mr Haire:

Mr Dallat:

Mr Haire:

Mr Dallat:

Mr Haire:

Mr Byrne:

Ms Walls:

Mr Byrne:

Mr Haire:

Mr Byrne:

Mr Haire:

The Chairperson:

Mr Haire:

Ms Walls:

The Chairperson:

Ms Walls:

The Chairperson:

Ms Walls:

The Chairperson:

Ms Walls:

The Chairperson:

Ms Walls:

The Chairperson:

Ms Walls:

The Chairperson:

Ms Walls:

Mr Copeland:

Mr Haire:

Mr McAleavey:

Mr Copeland:

Mr Haire:

Mr Copeland:

Mr Haire:

Ms Fiona Hamill (Treasury Officer of Accounts):

Mr Copeland:

Mr Haire:

Mr McAleavey:

OFFICIAL REPORT
(Hansard)