The third focus in our allocations is on promoting growth as a community, a further Programme for Government priority. We will start new pilots to see how housing estates can work together to tackle health, education and training needs, and build better community infrastructure working with district councils. We are also making a further allocation to fund the Executive's new victims strategy.

The fourth area on which the Executive have placed special emphasis is securing a competitive economy. For this purpose, major investment is needed from the Executive. We have started to invest further in transport infrastructure through the major roads schemes, ensuring that some of the major routes in Northern Ireland are developed effectively. That is on top of the extra investment in railways announced in the Budget as a pre-allocation from the infrastructure fund.

We are also determined to find a new sustainable future for our rural economy and new opportunities for tourism, an area where it is essential that we invest for a new future. We have backed new innovative schemes to help rural areas and assist tourist fishing. We will develop our creative industries through new seed funding, seeking to encourage new skills and new employment in this growing sector.

Finally, the Programme for Government emphasises the importance of investing in modern services to update the quality of our services, laying the foundations for e-government. The Executive programme funds allocations will provide the basis for more accessible, modern services. They include actions to modernise aspects of the Health Service. We are also investing in the core hardware and software, so that the Executive can provide new e-government services. There is also action to develop our libraries as key electronic centres for the public, while also producing a new electronic job market.

We are also determined to explore, creatively and imaginatively, the scope for new sources of funds to contribute to the necessary investment, especially in infrastructure. We know that there are no panaceas or magic bullets. Misconceptions and misunderstandings concerning private finance initiatives (PFIs) and public-private partnerships (PPPs) need to be resolved. Difficulties and deficiencies need to be overcome. Seemingly attractive options that would only amount to accessing new forms of borrowing are not in themselves the answer, carrying as they do some of the limitations and complications that we must resolve.

The Executive welcome the progress made by Departments, especially the Department of Education, in pursuing new approaches. We have set aside £2 million a year to ensure that the best options are explored and examined to achieve results that have the clear potential to repay that investment in the form of acceleration of PFI and PPP projects.

In short, through these funds and through these 62 projects we have started to make major progress together across Departments on addressing the needs of the young, on improving health, on assisting communities and victims, on securing a better economic future and on modernising our services. We have proved that we can work in a co-ordinated way across Departments to create real change.

I want now to deal briefly with the first tranche of allocations that we propose to make from each of the funds. I will not go into detail on every project but instead concentrate on how these allocations will support the priorities that we have collectively agreed upon as an Executive.

I will begin with the children's fund, which the Executive have established with the objective of providing support for children in need and young people at risk. Our children are the future, and we are determined to ensure that they have every opportunity to reach their full potential regardless of their circumstances. This fund has offered Departments a further means to demonstrate their support for children and young people, both through their own actions and through working with non-governmental organisations, including the voluntary and community sectors.

The Executive have decided that 12 projects should be supported in the first tranche of allocations from this fund, amounting to £10·5 million over the next three years. Our efforts through this fund have been focused on the most vulnerable and those children and young people in greatest need. We aim to make a significant impact on protecting children by developing specialist residential units, providing residential childcare places and supporting families. We have also recognised the needs of children with disabilities and paid particular attention to helping children who otherwise might fall out of education through a school-age mothers programme, a juvenile justice liaison service, new counselling services for pupils and referral units to support primary education. We will also make a start on the task of redeveloping the Youth Service.

I think that the Assembly will agree that these announcements mean that the children's fund is off to a good start, but I would emphasise that this is only the start. An interdepartmental working group has been established to work with the voluntary and community sectors to develop potential projects that can be supported by allocations from this fund in the future. I look forward to seeing the ideas that it will bring forward.

I now turn to allocations from the infrastructure and capital renewal fund. The objective that the Executive have set for this fund is to support the development and renewal of strategic assets owned by the public sector or that are used to provide services of utility to the public. It is the largest of the funds in terms of resources and therefore offers the opportunity to make a significant impact on the Executive's strategic priorities.

In the first tranche of allocations from this fund one of the Executive's concerns has been to move forward projects that will significantly strengthen the strategic roads network. These vital assets have been neglected, and we are determined to restore them step by step. The projects now supported are on key parts of some strategic routes: the A8 Belfast to Larne route; the Toome bypass, on the main A6 Derry to Belfast route; the A1 at Loughbrickland on the Belfast to Dublin road; and the A4 between Dungannon and Enniskillen. Taken together, they are a major contribution to the process. We have retained significant flexibility in this fund, so that in due course we may be able to consider other projects that will strengthen our strategic transport, energy and telecommunications networks when such projects are at a relevant stage of development.

The fund also has a role in supporting major assets that the community depends upon for vital services. The Executive have therefore authorised support for four additional schools capital projects, comprising two primary schools, a special school and one grammar school - each of these being of top priority within the schools planning lists. We have said that the Executive will support our children and their education, and this is proof of that commitment.

The infrastructure fund will also support very important developments in the Health Service. There is an allocation to provide 13 new homes for residential childcare, with 28 new places and 58 replacement places. Money is being provided to begin the redevelopment of the Ulster Hospital, which is a vital facility for many people. We are also providing a new medium secure unit to cater for the needs of some of the most tragically stricken members of our community. In total, these and other projects being supported from the fund will account for £79 million over the next three years.

The establishment of the new directions fund signalled the Executive's determination to promote new and innovative ways of developing and delivering public services. The allocations I am announcing from that fund today are preliminary and leave substantially larger amounts for future tranches. This will allow Departments to work together to produce further and, I hope, more distinctive bids on this fund in the future.

In beginning to set a new direction, the allocations from this fund include a seed fund for the creative industries, which will support projects designed to harness creativity and to achieve positive social, cultural, educational and economic outcomes. There are also four projects designed to improve the way the Health Service operates through improving IT and other forms of communication, to ensure that the Health Service can make use of more modern ways of working. This will reduce inefficiency and have benefits for patients that will make a difference.

New directions in education include particular initiatives to promote the social inclusion of children from groups whose first language is not English and for travellers' children. There is also provision for expanding the number of special places available for secondary age pupils.

The proposals include some important developments in agriculture, including assistance with the development of organic farming, action to minimise pollution from farms, and action to minimise the contribution made by agriculture to the phosphorisation of soils, which is affecting our fresh waters. These follow on from the support for the beef quality scheme, which was announced in the draft Budget statement on 17 October 2000, as a pre-allocation from this fund. There is also provision in support of the road safety strategy.

The Executive are determined to ensure that new directions are taken. At the strategic and detailed levels we want to encourage new ways of doing things within the full range of the public services for which we are responsible. The ideas announced this afternoon will contribute to that objective.

I will now turn to the service modernisation fund. We have sought to find means of promoting efficiency and innovation in the delivery of services by the public sector. Our focus has been on ways to make a difference to the way services are managed and delivered for the ultimate benefit of the public.

The actions proposed include several projects to improve the IT networks in Government. These are badly needed if important functions are to be carried out more efficiently and carefully, thus providing a foundation for work to improve support from Departments for Ministers and for the Assembly, to ensure the most effective and efficient delivery of services to the public.

Modernising the provision of libraries will include new electronic information services. This will represent an important enhancement of the range of services available and has potential for links with the school library system and with the public library system in the South. There is also a proposal to enhance the jobcentre online web site, which will improve online access to job vacancy information and enable clients of the jobcentres to apply for jobs online. This is an important development in electronic government. It will make a significant contribution to the objectives of the Department of Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment and the Department for Social Development.

Finally, I turn to the fund for social inclusion and community regeneration. As I explained on 12 February, this fund now includes an allocation of £2 million designed to provide a safety net on the issue of gap funding. The main point is that Departments can proceed to deal with the problems of the delay in the structural funds by anticipating that there will be draw-down money from the new round of programmes. This involves a judgement and should Department support something which ultimately does not receive support from the European programmes, this £2 million will provide a safety net from the Executive's own resources to cover the same purpose.

More widely, the social inclusion/community regeneration fund exists to support actions against poverty and to develop effective community measures in both urban and rural settings, as well as community relations and cultural diversity.

The Executive made an advance allocation from this fund when we provided for a pilot programme of housing schemes - announced in October - designed to meet the needs of travellers. The Executive have decided to support a range of activities under this heading. These include the additional match funding required to fully deliver the LEADER+ programme, which is currently being negotiated with the European Commission.

There are also important developments in the reading recovery programme, which is a fundamental foundation for social inclusion through the education system. The proposals also support action to improve youth services and leaving and aftercare services in conjunction with the Department of Education and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety.

Other important bids under this fund include actions targeted at the health of travellers, who are among the most excluded groups in our society. They badly need the kind of community-based health system and action on health promotion that is envisaged under the fund. The allocations also include a grant programme for local community-based projects that allow local people to design and manage their own actions in relation to public health, in partnership with voluntary agencies. That is targeted at the most disadvantaged and unhealthy 10% of electoral wards.

The programme also contains a contribution for a new initiative to improve adult literacy and numeracy. Finally, there is support for technical assistance to district councils to help draw up community support plans. That is particularly valuable because, under the proposal, every £1 invested by the Department for Social Development will draw in £4 from district councils for the same objectives.

As we proceed, it is our intention that the social inclusion fund should be increasingly well targeted and impact strategically upon excluded groups. There is much more work to be done on this, and I am sure that Members will wish to feed in views in this debate and in the subsequent consideration of the issues in Assembly Committees, particularly the Committee for Finance and Personnel. There are future funding rounds available that must be developed in order to make this and other funds as effective as possible.

As I said earlier, we were able to augment the provision made in the Budget for the Executive programme funds due to the outcome of the February monitoring round. I have explained in the past that the monitoring rounds are routine readjustments of expenditure plans to take account of the latest available information on spending patterns across public expenditure programmes. The February round is routinely the least significant. One of the main reasons for that is that it always takes place after the allocations in the spring Supplementary Estimates have been finalised. There is usually no scope to reallocate resources between Departments, because that would normally involve a change to the amounts in votes.

At this stage of the financial year there is limited scope to increase spending before the end of the financial year. Thus, the pattern is that some savings normally emerge. That proved to be the case in the recent February monitoring round. Departments declared savings amounting to £24·8 million. Total bids amounted to only £3·2 million. However, a proportion of the savings identified by Departments arose through issues of timing - commitments had been made that could not be fulfilled in the financial year.

In those cases the Executive agreed that subject to Assembly approval of the forthcoming Estimates, some £8·8 million should be carried forward for particular purposes. That included £950,000 for Department of Agriculture and Rural Development programmes, £7 million for some aspects of Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment expenditure and £900,000 for parts of Department of Finance and Personnel expenditure.

In addition, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is considering the possibility of a fishing vessel decommissioning scheme, and some provision has been held in reserve which could be used for that purpose in the 2001-02 financial year. Having covered the few bids that have been lodged by Departments and these amounts for carry-over, the amount remaining was £10 million. The Executive decided that this should be carried forward from 2000-01 into the 2001-02 year and added to the Executive programme funds.

In circumstances where the Executive are conscious of the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease and its adverse implications on so many fronts, it is prudent not to allocate all the money available from the monitoring round now. The Executive, assisted by the interdepartmental working group chaired by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, will be considering further regional responses to the critical difficulties. Notwithstanding the need to keep these matters under review, I hope that there will be a welcome for the Executive programme funds and monitoring round allocations announced for farming and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development programmes today. Details of the February monitoring reallocations are set out in the tables attached to the copies of the statement, which have been made available to Members.

The Executive have set out to make a difference through the allocation of the Executive programme funds, as I have outlined today. They are beginning to work in new and distinctive ways, and their existence provides a totally new way of drawing together the spending plans of many functions into a more coherent strategic approach.

The Executive began to make this difference in meetings held over recent weeks in preparation for these Executive programme funds allocations today. They have developed a strategy and made themselves more effective. They have also been able to address needs and opportunities in a range of services, including some major investments in capital infrastructure, while keeping a way open for others, which could be equally, if not more, important. The process of working together is increasingly important, given the range of departmental functions, which, in turn, represent a range of opportunities to make a difference for members of the public.

It is important that we maximise the benefits from these funds so as to make the most of the resources that we have, although we do not have enough to do all that we want to. The application of the Barnett formula means that the Treasury does not provide sufficient to match the full range of initiatives that the Government have decided to make affordable elsewhere. The Executive have responded to this problem creatively and imaginatively through these funds. They are determined to use them to make an impact on the way we do business and, most importantly, to make a difference through benefits to the public.

I will be discussing the proposals that I have announced today with the Finance and Personnel Committee. In particular, there will need to be consultation with that Committee on the approach to including these allocations in the Main Estimates. Some changes to detail for technical and other reasons may be required as the process of completing the Main Estimates proceeds over the next number of weeks prior to the deliberations on the next Budget Bill which will take place in late spring or early summer.

On behalf of the Executive, I commend these proposals to the Assembly.

We have one hour for questions to the Minister. I ask that question and answers be concise so that as many Members as possible may participate. I remind the House that the normal procedure is that points of order are taken at the end of the debate.

A LeasCheann Comhairle, go raibh maith agat. First, I welcome the Minister's statement today on these rounds and, although the Committee did not have the opportunity - and that is our main concern - of scrutinising and going through the departmental bids in the proper way, it does generally welcome the idea behind the fund itself and the allocations.

The Finance and Personnel Committee has severe concerns about the first round of allocations and the way that they have been managed. Those concerns are at two levels that will be dealt with through questions.

The Committee was unhappy that decisions regarding the allocations under this expenditure were taken with undue haste and insufficiently detailed consideration. Committee members felt that the principle of the funds - that they should be directed towards cross-departmental projects - had been set aside. Members felt that they did not get new and innovative programmes in the lines of departmental bids.

Is the Minister satisfied that the principles set out in the management of the funds have been followed? Is it not true that the Executive Committee's desire to gain early and positive publicity from the scheme - for which no justification has been forthcoming - has overridden the case for properly considered and equitable distribution of the money. The Finance and Personnel Committee certainly had great concerns about that last week.

A stated objective of the Programme for Government was the inclusion of projects that would assist the development of activity across departmental management lines. Can the Minister say how many of the successful bids fall into that category? I believe that the cross- departmental aim has been lost and the successful bids are for a continuation of the same issues.

The evidence given - [Interruption]

Please ask your question.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I understand your concern about the time, but the Finance and Personnel Committee has not been given enough time to deal with this issue, and there are a number of serious issues that must be dealt with. There was not enough time in the Committee sessions to ask the questions, so we need to ask them in the Assembly.

I appreciate that the Member has asked a number of questions. If he has one more, will he please put it.

I express my concern that the Committee did not have the time to deal with this issue and as such it is making a farce out of discussing it now. Can the Minister assure the House that the September round of Executive programme funds will be examined in a different way?

I thank the Chairperson of the Committee for Finance and Personnel for his points and I appreciate the concerns of the Committee as expressed by him. Given that this was the first round of Executive programme funds, matters were not dealt with perfectly. The situation is such that information is only made available to the Finance and Personnel Committee if similar information is being made available to other Committees. A more straightforward approach needs to be adopted in the future to ensure that information about bids goes to the Committee for Finance and Personnel automatically and does not depend on what is circulated to other Committees.

The first allocations from the Executive programme funds are not just a case of more of the same. I am not pretending that this first tranche of allocations achieves the degree of cross-cutting activity, interdepartmental bid development, and programme planning that the Executive want to see. This is the first tranche, and I would remind Members that we are dealing in the circumstances of Budget underfunding.

The number of demands and bids far exceeds our Budget allocations. Therefore it is not surprising that many of those, that have been of particular concern to Departments and Committees and which did not make it in the Budget, have found their way through to the Executive programme funds.

We would have been open to even more criticism if we had not embraced some of those key projects which have slipped departmental budget priorities and allocations to date but which have been able to qualify using the criteria and thinking for these funds. It is hoped that Members welcome that. The Executive need to develop their approaches in the future and that includes working with the Finance and Personnel Committee.

However, the Executive's future management of the programme funds will depend on their developing the relevant substructure. In my further dealings with the Finance and Personnel Committee, I will have to take account of the type of subcommittees or substructures that are created.

I agree with the Chairperson of the Finance and Personnel Committee's concerns about this process. The Committee for Social Development was not consulted on these bids. We had the bids for information purposes, but we had no input into them. There are no cross-cutting issues involved. I thought that these were new, innovative schemes with a cross- cutting element, but there is no cross-cutting element in the infrastructural fund for new schools and new roads, and that is a deviation from the original criteria. I am raising that issue because the Department for Social Development, out of a total allocation of £146 million, received slightly more than 1%. Given that there are people living on the periphery and in poverty, that is a disgrace.

The Social Development Committee envisaged the inclusion of schemes such as the installation of Economy 7 heating or replacement bathrooms and kitchens in houses. However, all those proposals were rejected on the grounds that they did not meet the criteria, although three schemes, which are of no particular interest to anyone living in poverty, have been accepted. The Committee has been totally ignored by the Department of Finance and Personnel and the Executive, but there is insufficient time to discuss these important issues.

Will the Member please ask his question.

I want the Minister to address such issues as fuel poverty and the need for a replacement of bathrooms and kitchens in houses, matters which the Social Development Committee has continually raised. Northern Ireland has the worst housing in western Europe. We talk about targeting social need, but the Minister absolutely excludes those who are living in poverty.

I take some of the points that the Member has made, and they need to be responded to. However, the Member cannot have it both ways. He cannot say "This is not new - it is just more of the same" and then say that he wanted more of the same. The measures that the Member has mentioned were covered, and allocations were made as part of the revised Budget to address fuel poverty and the replacement of kitchens and bathrooms, et cetera. Those measures fall to be funded from the allocations that we have already made to the Department for Social Development's budget. If we had made further allocations we would be entirely open to the criticism that we have just had: that there is nothing different between these allocations and those that were made in the Budget. We want the funds to work and develop on this cross-cutting basis to reflect regional priorities and the inputs and responsibilities of a range of Departments.

In this first tranche of funds, Departments have not yet been able to develop work to that degree or in that manner. The Executive do not yet have the full substructure to do that. It would not have been right for us to delay important allocations of much needed public funding before we had developed an absolutely perfect infrastructure, given that this is money from the new financial year.

With regard to consultation with the Social Development Committee, I am not responsible for what information the Committee did, or did not, receive. It was the responsibility of the Department for Social Development to make known its bids. Perhaps that Department, in its reading of the criteria, did not bid as widely as some other Departments. However, the allocations that have been made to the Department for Social Development will benefit people in need. The Department will use that money well to work with people who are trying to make a difference on the ground.

I welcome the Minister's statement. We are now beginning to see some tangible evidence of the Executive programme funds. I welcome particularly the funds for schools, roads and children's issues.

Can the Minister explain the rationale behind the grants programme for local communities to pursue local action in public health and promote stronger community development, particularly in large urban social housing developments? I particularly welcome the new school for Dromore. However, I am deeply disappointed that phase 3 of the Omagh throughpass is not in this current allocation.

The grants-based initiative to which the Member referred was put forward by the ministerial group on public health to deal with the impression that there is absolutely no cross-cutting inspiration to any of these bids. That initiative will target the most disadvantaged and unhealthy electoral wards - the 10%. It will allow people to design and manage their own actions in partnership with statutory and voluntary agencies and make a difference for people who need that difference. The initiative should stimulate community-based actions and should break into those cycles of deprivation and ill health.

I welcome the Member's support for the spending that we have announced today for roads. I note his disappointment that the spending does not include the further work he has identified on the A5. There is a huge underinvestment with regard to our roads infrastructure. That is something we have been trying to make good with the Budget allocations and through this particular fund. We need to continue to work on that in the future. It is not the case that we had a bid in for every project being identified in the Chamber today.

The Minister's statement reads:

I am disappointed, in the light of that, that funding for the upgrading of facilities for students with learning difficulties is not included. Since current funding allocations seem unlikely to meet the timetable for compliance with disability legislative requirements, can the Minister state, in the absence of an unsuccessful bid, how access arrangements for disabled students can be made a matter of priority funding to bring about equality of opportunity as soon as possible?

The Executive recognise the importance of the needs of students with disabilities, including those with learning difficulties. In relation to the issues of access that he has identified, that was not something that qualified in the allocations that we were making in this particular tranche. It is an issue of serious need that the Executive have identified, and our hope is that we will be able to address that issue in allocations that will be undertaken in future monitoring rounds.

The concept of Executive programme funds is one which I welcome. It offers many opportunities for the people of Northern Ireland, but the handling of this tranche has been nothing short of disastrous. How can the Minister convince the House that best value will be obtained through the allocation of these funds when, for example, the Finance and Personnel Committee was treated with what I can only refer to as contempt? It was given no opportunity to perform its statutory function of scrutiny. Furthermore, not for the first time, we were presented with a series of honeyed words by way of trying to cover up the fact that adequate time was not given for us to perform our statutory function.

Will the Member please put his question.

I have already asked the question: how can we be convinced of good value for money? The Committee that is fundamentally charged with the role of scrutiny of the Department of Finance and Personnel, and thus the other Committees, was not properly consulted and had no opportunity whatsoever to express its views. How, then, can the Minister state that

As we have said before, there must be no whitewash in the Assembly.

I have just been treated to another sermon from "the man from unction". There is no whitewash in the Assembly so far as the Executive are concerned - they have responsibilities as well. I accept and recognise the responsibilities and role of the Finance and Personnel Committee and the other Committees. The Executive also have a role: to come forward with allocations across a range of programmes and to commend them to the Assembly.

The allocations that I proposed today will receive all sorts of comment from various Committee representatives, including those from the Finance and Personnel Committee. I have made it clear that we need to improve how this works in future. I have made no pretence about the fact that I am an agent of the Executive so far as many - [Interruption]

If only Mr Close would actually listen.

The Executive have to consider the issues brought before them. I regret that the information which I thought was being made available to all Committees - and which the Executive agreed could be made available to them - was not, for some reason. That is a communication error, a serious omission that we need to overcome. It is not a whitewash.

I would be glad to hear if there are any particular allocations which this Member, or anyone else, actually disputes and wants us to set aside. I come to the House on many occasions to discuss process and procedure, and I am constantly criticised about it. The statements made here and the details of the proposed allocations are available to all the Committees to pursue and query with us if they want to. Most of Mr Close's criticism is about process - there is very little about substance.

I do not know how to follow that one.

There was a lot of flowery language in the Minister's opening remarks - particuarly in relation to young people - and several references to investment in education and schools, with a key line about people who might "fall out of education". However, the budget for youth services - in Belfast in particular; I do not know about the other boards - has been cut this year. Its £2·7 million budget has been reduced by £400,000, but in the Minister's statement on infrastructure we were told that this service would receive money. On the one hand the Executive are saying that they should cut youth services because the money is not needed; yet on the other hand, they are going to provide money for special youth projects. This does not seem to me to add up.

When the Minister read out the Executive's plans for infrastructure, he did not once mention youth services. He mentioned social services in the context of providing much needed homes for people who require placements - but he did not mention youth services. How did the Executive arrive at the decision to fund an element of youth services for which his Department had already cut the funding?

The Executive did not direct, or seek, cuts in the youth services in Belfast. The decision on those budgets was not made by the Executive. I just want to make that clear. The Executive do not direct every single pound of spend. Departments, and secondary budget holders working under Departments, make various decisions. The most important thing is that the Executive have been able to use the Executive programme fund to invest in redeveloping the Youth Service.

Investment in the Youth Service is not only in the infrastructure fund, which I referred to in my statement. The statement, long as it is, could not cover every bid. However, every bid is included in the table, so there has been no attempt to exclude anything. It is odd that I seem to be criticised for not actually talking up an allocation that was made. It contradicts some of the other criticism that we have received.

Go raibh maith agat, Madam Deputy Speaker. Unlike other Members, I welcome the Minister's announcement concerning children and young people. It is a positive first step, and I will not criticise any money going to services for children and young people. Is the money ring-fenced? If not, will the Minister ensure that it is ring-fenced to target these matters? Will the Minister inform us as to the criteria the community and voluntary sectors will need to meet to access these funds? Furthermore, can we have a list of those who are on the interdepartmental working group?

The funding will be used for the particular purposes for which it is allocated. Funding will be given for a particular purpose, although it can be used for a particular whim or legitimate pressure that arises. To that extent the money is clearly distinctive as regards ring-fencing. Some allocations, particularly some of the smaller ones, are clearly in respect of pilot schemes and initiatives. Therefore it is important that those schemes are tracked to ensure that the money is best used and to learn lessons for the future.

The interdepartmental working group is mostly connected with the children's fund. When we introduced that fund we recognised that Executive programme funds should be available and should be subject to bids from the Departments working together. We wanted to ensure that part of the children's fund was open to direct bidding from the community and voluntary sectors.

Several Departments are involved in the interdepartmental working group - the Department of Finance and Personnel, the Office of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister, the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, the Department for Social Development and the Department of Education.

I welcome the statement in the round although I also agree with the points that have already been well made. There are few genuinely interdepartmental plans in the statement. We are pleased that some moneys have been granted for basic adult literacy and numeracy education, given that the amount included under that heading - £2·4 million over three years - comes to less than 30% of the approximately £9 million initially bid for.

Incidentally, my Committee did get an adequate period to consult on the bid and I welcome that.

Given the proportion of the bid that has been granted, what is the Minister's assessment of the adequacy of the bid at this time? A quarter of the population of Northern Ireland will not be able to read the first few sentences of the statement - let alone its entirety - and probably will not be able to make much sense of the figures at the back as they cannot count. It is a social and economic scandal that needs to be dealt with. The statement is good as a starting point, but it does not go far enough.

I am glad that the Committee for Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment was satisfied that it had had access to information in reasonable time. I acknowledge that that is not the case for all Committees.

The allocation is just a start; it is not, by any stretch of the Executive's imagination, the end of our interest in - or commitment to - adult basic education and the promotion of literacy and numeracy skills. The Programme for Government referred specifically to work in that area, and that is reflected in the allocation. We also want to see it getting the priority that it deserves in the Department's budget, and that will be relevant to future Budget bids as well as to further allocation rounds.

Had we confined ourselves to meeting a certain number of bids in total, we would have been able to offer assistance in fewer areas. The Executive felt that it was important to make a commitment to starting and getting on with a number of key programme areas. We have tried to do that, and that decision was distinct from the normal Budget round. Had we acted on the normal Budget basis, we would have considered whether entire projects could have been finished at that stage or not. We believe that starting some programmes - perhaps without full funding at this stage - will put them in a stronger position for priority consideration in future Budget rounds. Previously, many of the key areas that Members consider to be the big needs have been unable to break through in the normal Budget round. I suppose that it is a bit like throwing a six to get onto the board. We have tried to do that in a number of areas with the Executive programme funds.

I welcome the announcement and congratulate the Minister and his team on their work. I know that many people will welcome the investment in schools, health and roads. I am grateful for the inclusion of the Toome bypass, having become daily more conscious of the need for it.

The Minister said that he had not fully allocated the infrastructure funds. Presumably, the next tranche of funding will allow the gas pipeline to the north-west to become a reality, so that we can be sure of a level playing field for economic development.

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