It was encouraging to note in the Minister's statement this morning an increase of 14·8% in the budget for the Department for Regional Development. However, a massive gap remains in the Department's funding if it is to address the infrastructure maintenance backlog. Perhaps the only way this can be tackled is by identifying other methods of funding.

It is disappointing to note that the Department for Regional Development was not successful in its bid to set up a central unit to examine alternative methods of funding. Does the Minister agree that this small amount of funding would have been money well spent, given the potential revenue it could generate? If further funds become available in the future, can the Department for Regional Development's bid be given sympathetic consideration?

The Executive have allocated money to try to ensure that they can do more to maximise the potential for public-private partnerships and to make sure that they make the most of whatever alternative sources of funding may be available. They have also established a working group on public-private partnerships on behalf of the Executive, and that involves representatives of different Departments, including the Department for Regional Development.

Its aim is to establish an overall framework for our approach to the issue. Depending on the outcome of that approach, it is possible that further departmental measures might be supported through Executive commitments. However, at this stage, the Executive are ensuring that there is a joined-up approach to developing and exploring the possibilities for alternative sources of funding and public-private partnerships. Several Departments have presented their own ideas, and we welcome their initiative and interest. However, we believe that those are best followed through in our collective effort. That does not preclude further distinctive approaches being taken by different Departments.

Although the Department for Regional Development will be disappointed at its lack of success in this round of Executive programme funds - the Deputy Chairperson of the Regional Development Committee has already registered his disappointment in that regard - that Department is a significant bidder for the infrastructure fund, which is not the subject of allocations at this stage.

I welcome the Minister's statement, particularly because the three bids by the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure were successful. The freedom of information (Public Record Office of Northern Ireland) and the Culture Northern Ireland web site bids were significant. However, the support for the soccer strategy must be seen as a major encouragement to all those who have contributed to that strategy and are working so hard to do something about soccer in Northern Ireland.

Does the Minister agree that this good work, and the funding in particular, represents further evidence that, with care and wisdom, we can work together, irrespective of our parties, for the common good? The Minister has been particularly prominent in this regard.

I welcome the Member's support for some of the announcements in today's statement. All Departments carry out important work. Not every initiative could be so well developed without a facility such as the Executive programme funds, a distinctive concept that was created by the Executive last year in their first home-grown Budget as a way in which to open up the strategic opportunities available to us. As well as allowing us to have more strategic discretion than we might otherwise have as an Executive, any opportunity that the programme funds give us for deliberating together on the best use of such moneys is beneficial politically.

The Minister stated that the £16·7 million to be allocated over the next three years to the new directions fund marks the Executive's determination to promote new and innovative ways to develop action against poverty in rural and urban areas. Will young farmers benefit from this regeneration fund? If so, what percentage of those funds are they likely to receive?

In regard to health, is the Minister aware that the funding needed to buy a scanner for the South Tyrone Hospital has been available for many years, but that there are no staff available to maintain that equipment? It is important that hospitals have up-to-date equipment, but it is of little use without staff. We need change that will benefit the entire public.

On the first point, the Executive have made it clear that they want to support actions in urban and rural areas through the social inclusion and community regeneration funds. That applies also in regard to the new directions fund. I cannot, however, pre-specify the proportion of the fund that will be allocated to rural or urban areas.

In many cases such decisions will be for the Departments or whoever is handling the money in the course of implementing the allocations. It will also be relevant to the Departments' consideration in preparing bids. If Departments could articulate more clearly occasions where particular bids would have a beneficial impact on needs in rural areas, I would be happy for that to be made more manifest when the bids are made.

I am not au fait with the funding that was available in the past for the South Tyrone Hospital. Details about hospital services fall to another Department so it is not for me, as Minister of Finance and Personnel, to address those issues. However, the Executive, through several in-year monitoring rounds - and announced by me on the Executive's behalf - made allocations to deal with some of the consequential impacts of the South Tyrone Hospital situation because it has put pressures on services elsewhere. Although we have been dealing with some of the financial consequences of the South Tyrone Hospital situation, it is not for my Department or me to deal with the hospital issue itself.

Will the Minister confirm that there are still some hard choices to be made and that the Committees have an important role to play in scrutinising their departmental budgets to ensure that money is spent effectively? Will the Minister go further and urge that all Committees should, as a matter of policy, closely consider reports from the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee? Many of their reports have been highly critical of departmental spending, particularly during the years of direct rule when proper scrutiny was not possible.

In my Budget statement today I said that I hoped Committees would do their bit and exercise their responsibilities by scrutinising spending and the quality of the targeting and planning of public expenditure.

The announcements that I make in the Chamber and the type of scrutiny that such statements are subjected to by questioning, and the subsequent scrutiny in Committees, scratches only the surface of major issues of public expenditure. The more scrutiny that can be applied at departmental level, the more effective it will be.

I remind Mr Dallat of the point I made earlier in relation to Seamus Close's assertion that Executive programme funds are a grey area of public expenditure. They receive more scrutiny and accountability in the Assembly than the much bigger allocation decisions that are routinely taken by Departments. However, anything more that Committees can do to ensure greater scrutiny of public expenditure and to assure the public that best use of public money is being made would be well placed.

It is right that the relevant Committees should pay close attention to the reports from the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee, particularly in relation to the future work on audit and accountability.

I would like to see whether the Executive could provide more joined-up scrutiny in the Assembly by allowing the Public Accounts Committee to highlight budget lines where there have been particular concerns. In turn, the relevant Committee, knowing that there has been an issue, could follow up those budget lines over a period of some years. One must consider that in little over a year and a half there could be significant changes in the Chamber and in Committee memberships. This device would ensure that a concern raised at one point could be followed through over some years to ensure that recommendations are followed and implemented properly, which would be beneficial. More joined- up scrutiny would be an achievement for the Assembly.

I join other Members to welcome the Executive programme fund spending for next year. It is interesting that this innovative manner of dealing with cameo spending has been introduced in the Assembly and that it comes as a consequence of devolution.

It is also interesting to note that there has been a great acceptance of this process, contrary to that evidenced in the Chamber when it was first introduced. I congratulate the Minister in presenting a clear budget for the Executive programme funds.

I want to ask a rather oblique question. Is there any mechanism by which bids can be made for Executive programme funding other than through Departments? In other words, can community groups apply directly to the Executive for funding? I have some experience of the particular requirement of cross-cutting departmental boundaries, where Departments are reluctant to take a lead in getting together. The area of New TSN is highly significant; it involves section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, and it is cross-cutting - so how can we handle this if a Department is not prepared to take the lead on a particular issue?

I acknowledge the positive observations made by Eddie McGrady about how the role of Executive programme funds is now better understood, and I recognised that earlier.

Given the amounts of money involved in some of the tranches, it would not be feasible to open up the Executive programme funds to random bidding. Due to the fact that they are Executive programme funds, it is right that we ask Departments to advance bids, either on their own or working together.

However, when bids are brought forward, there is no reason why a Department would not effectively be acting as a sponsor for another group, whether they are non-departmental public bodies or, in some cases, relevant partners in the community and voluntary sector. We are taking that approach partly to avoid creating a bureaucracy around these funds. Some members of the Committee for Finance and Personnel appear concerned that there is a degree of bureaucracy even with the current shorthand approach. Those concerns would be more real if we were to open up the programme funds to general bidding. It would also make us less efficient in our allocation time.

The one exception to that in the Executive programme funds has been the children's fund. When the children's fund was established, we deliberately said that an arm of the fund should be directly amenable to bidding by the community and voluntary sector. We are making good that commitment through a current consultation exercise to find the best way of providing for that - whether through some kind of intermediary funding body arrangement or through several other mechanisms that are set out in the consultation paper. It is important to do this and not just copy the Chancellor's children's fund across the water, as we are putting more money into it than would carry across from the Chancellor's children's fund.

However, we believe that when it comes to innovation in children's services and dealing with children in need and youth at risk, the community and voluntary sector are in a position to make distinctive proposals. The result of that consultation will inform the next allocation from the children's fund.

On behalf of the Committee, I welcome the provision for children with severe learning and physical difficulties to have access to information and communication technology. The Committee believed that that provision should have been an important feature of the Executive programme funds, and it is welcomed that the Minister has found funds for it.

I am also pleased that the Minister has provided money for outreach workers in the upper Shankill and west, north and east Belfast. However, is the Minister aware that the Committee expressed concern at the inequality of provision, in view of the problems with youths right across the city? The unattached youth workers who will be funded by these programmes are an important component in dealing with that problem. There will be nine workers for upper Shankill and west Belfast and only five to cover all of east and north Belfast. The Committee asked for equality of provision, and I want to know why that was not listened to.

Mr Dallat said that Committees ought to scrutinise how Departments spend money, and he is quite right. In the Executive programme funds I notice that, once again, the Minister is targeting money on the youngsters who are most vulnerable in the education system, with the Making a Good Start scheme being extended from primary one to primary two. That is in line with how the Minister has targeted money in previous announcements. However, is he aware that, despite all the extra money being spent, the Department of Education has reduced its targets for youngsters achieving satisfactory grades at Key Stage 2? The extra money is designed to help those children and youngsters who are truants at secondary school level. What scrutiny has the Minister's Department undertaken to ensure that the funds help to raise targets? Targets should not be reduced at the same time that money is given.

Some of the Member's points are not for my Department, but rather for the Minister of Education and his Department. I reiterate that just because the Executive allocate money, the Department of Finance and Personnel recommends those allocations and I am presenting this statement, that does not make us responsible for micromanaging and micromonitoring every area of expenditure in each programme. It is up to the Departments to undertake and discharge their responsibilities. The Committees can make a contribution.

We understood and were conscious that the Making a Good Start scheme was well supported by the Committee. We hope that we are making a contribution to improving prospects for children's achievements and educational outcomes. We will pay attention to any evidence that the Committee or anyone else provides.

With respect to the outreach youth workers, the provision for upper Shankill and west Belfast is continued funding for something that is already there, and I note the Member's appreciation for the work involved. The funding for north and east Belfast is to extend the programme. At this stage I cannot prejudge whether there will be further allocations to develop that programme in the future.

The Committee may wish to look at the wider issue of whether money is being used effectively. As I pointed out this morning, there are several needs and effectiveness evaluations under way, and one of those relates to schools. The Department of Education, the Department of Finance and Personnel and the Economic Policy Unit are considering some of these matters. I hope that, when we produce work on needs and effectiveness, the Committee will make some useful contributions to our thinking.

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Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Draft Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill

I beg to move

(a) the proposal for a draft Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill; and

(b) the criminal justice review implementation plan be changed from 11 December 2001 to 14 January 2002.

Following the resolution of the Assembly on 19 November 2001, the Ad Hoc Committee held its first meeting, and I was elected Chairperson.

At that meeting, the Committee discussed its terms of reference and came to the unanimous conclusion that, as a Committee, we could not properly discharge our responsibilities to the Assembly - and to our constituents - if we were to consider such crucial and detailed proposals and report within the timescale that was set down. Mr Des Browne, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, has extended the consultation date to 7 January; that timescale is still unworkable.

The Committee is not oblivious to the bigger picture. It has considered that it can best make its input if it is given the opportunity to make its report by 14 January 2002. I believe that we can make our proposals and report by 14 January. That will give time for the views of the Committee and the views of this House to be taken into consideration in time for any necessary amendments to the Bill at Westminster.

The Secretary of State gave the House an extremely limited period in which to consider crucial reforms to the system of criminal proceedings in Northern Ireland. The reforms will be of enormous significance for many years. It was absurd to bounce the House into dealing with the matter in three to four weeks. Rightly, the Committee felt that the Government should be told that the House would not be bounced in that way. We will take the time that we feel is necessary to deal appropriately with such matters.

(a) the proposal for a draft Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill; and

(b) the criminal justice review implementation plan be changed from 11 December 2001 to 14 January 2002.

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