agendaNi issue 107

...informing Northern Ireland’s decision-makers

Planning for a net zero future SSE Ireland’s Mark Ennis Director of Digital

Justice Minister

FT Economics

Shared Services

Naomi Long MLA

Editor Chris Giles

Iggy O’Doherty on

discusses reform,

outlines Brexit loss

digital transformation

recovery and

and Covid impact

in government

resources Issue issue107 8 Feb/Mar Aug/Sep2022 11

Justice government Public•affairs Carbon•TaxDigital • Special Reports:•Health ICT

£2.95 €4.95 / £2.95

Digital

Events

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18 04

Contents

Print

52

46

66

04

Matters arising

63

Digital Government 64

08

Issues

O’Doherty on digital transformation in

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Budget: ‘relative winners and losers’

government

14

The DUP’s Protocol gamble

18

Cover story: SSE Ireland’s Mark Ennis

West on a more sustainable and resilient

discusses renewable opportunities

service

22

Path to net zero energy

34

The FT’s Chris Giles on Brexit, Covid and climate economic impact

45

Director of Digital Shared Services, Iggy

Justice 46

52

72

Health’s Chief Digital Information Officer Dan

Public affairs 74

Electronic and remote voting

78

Political platform: Ciara Ferguson MLA

80

Back page: Sinéad McLaughlin MLA

Minister Naomi Long MLA on reform,

discusses men taking the lead on cultural

recovery and resources

change

Justice Permanent Secretary Peter May discusses digital justice innovation

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66

Justice (Sex Offences and Trafficking Victims) Bill

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agendaNi Issue 107 Feb/Mar 2022 Digital

Events

Print Editorial Owen McQuade, Managing Editor owen.mcquade@agendani.com

The Protocol gamble…

Fearing that the UK Government was once again about to acquiesce to a deal with the EU that fell well short of its demand for a complete scrappage of the Protocol, the DUP has played its last remaining hand: semi-paralysis of Stormont.

In close proximity to an Assembly election, it is no coincidence that despite the DUP’s consistent objections to the imposition of the Irish Sea border necessitated by the Protocol’s terms, the First Minister has opted to now tender his resignation, thereby pulling down the Executive.

The DUP knows that going empty-handed into the first Assembly election since the Brexit it championed took effect could be a hard sell for its traditional base. On the other hand, the party sees an advantage in being able to claim any deal that significantly reduces checks at Northern Ireland’s ports for British goods as its success.

Either outcome comes at a cost of stability domestically. At a time when Northern Ireland is already a laggard in comparison to its counterparts in relation to era-defining challenges such as climate change, energy decarbonisation, and the post-Covid recovery, decision-making has been hindered.

Exacerbating the dysfunctionality of the devolved institutions at such a decisive moment is a huge gamble.

Those preeminent challenges are explored extensively in this edition of agendaNi. In our cover story we speak to SSE’s Mark Ennis about the opportunities for renewables if the new Energy Strategy is properly backed across government and we look closely at what transformation a multiannual budget could provide to a crisis hit health sector and across Executive departments.

Other highlights include an interview with Justice Minister Naomi Long MLA about her department’s busy legislative programme and the challenges ahead of a shortened mandate and the FT’s Chris Giles about the economic impact of Covid-19 and Brexit.

David Whelan

www.agendaNi.com

David Whelan, Editor david.whelan@agendani.com Fiona McCarthy fiona.mccarthy@agendani.com Ciarán Galway ciaran.galway@agendani.com Odrán Waldron odran.waldron@agendani.com Circulation and Marketing Lynda Millar lynda.millar@agendani.com Events Olivia Ross olivia.ross@agendani.com Advertising Leanne Brannigan leanne.brannigan@agendani.com Design Gareth Duffy, Head of Design gareth.duffy@agendani.com Paul Rooney, Graphic Design paul.rooney@agendani.com Subscriptions Sharon Morrison Email: subscriptions@agendani.com Online: www.agendani.com agendaNi bmf Business Services 19a Maghaberry Road Maghaberry, Co Antrim, BT67 0JE Tel: +44 (0) 28 9261 9933 Twitter: @agendani Web: www.agendani.com Printed by: GPS Colour Graphics

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matters arising

ISSUES

Devolution but not as we know it Northern Ireland Assembly Speaker Alex Maskey MLA, has approved a fast-tracked plan by parties to try and progress as many of the 28 bills currently moving through the house before the end of the current mandate.

The resignation of First Minister Paul Givan MLA in early February 2022, ending the Executive’s governing powers, has raised the possibility of an earlier election than the originally scheduled date on 5 May and put additional pressure on an already busy legislative programme.

Givan’s resignation, in protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol, appears timed to coincide with legislation going through Westminster that avoids the immediate collapse of the institutions.

Under the NI Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern Bill, which will apply retrospectively, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland no longer needs to set a date for an election if the First and deputy First Minister’s posts are not filled seven days after either portfolio is vacated.

without the need for the Executive to meet for at least six months, with ministers continuing to run their respective departments.

The terms could also apply for a period post-election if an agreement to fill the First and deputy First Ministers’ posts is not reached.

A total of 28 bills are progressing through the Assembly, at various stages, including climate change legislation, the Private Tenancies Bill and the School Age Bill.

Executive Bills will ultimately take priority, meaning that even with extra sittings of the Assembly being scheduled, and proposed time limits on debates, it is likely that some bills will fall when the Assembly winds up at the end of March.

Outside of immediate legislation, the absence of the Executive will have a significant impact on services, given that the Executive had yet to agree a three-year budget, an opportunity to install longer-term investment on transforming a broken health service.

The Bill allows for the Northern Ireland Assembly to continue

PLANNING

Planning system ‘increasingly financially unsustainable’ Northern Ireland’s planning system is failing to deliver for the economy, communities, and the environment.

In an assessment of how the planning system has operated since the devolution of most planning functions from central to local government in 2015, a joint report by the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Local Government Auditor says that the current planning system is not working efficiently and highlighted “significant silo working” in the planning system.

It also highlighted that the most important planning applications are still taking too long to process, pointing out that almost three-quarters of regionally significant and major planning applications processed between 2017/18 and 2019/20 were not completed within the statutory target of 30 weeks. Over half (56 per cent) had taken more than one year to process, and 19 per cent more than three years.

Separately, it points to “notable variances” between

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agenda matters

councils in their decision-making processes, including the extent to which planning decisions are delegated from elected representatives to professional planning officials, and how councils resolve enforcement cases where there are potential breaches of policies or planning conditions.

Recognising the increased complexity of planning decisions, the report highlights that planning fees have not been adjusted year-on-year to keep pace with inflation, resulting in the planning system being “increasingly financially unsustainable”, with the gap between the income generated from planning activities by councils and the cost of those activities increasing significantly.

It said that these pressures had contributed to the slow progress in the creation of local development plans by councils, none of which are complete seven years after the transfer of planning powers.

matters arising

H E A LT H

New Chief Nursing Officer Northern Ireland’s new Chief Nursing Officer, Maria McIlgorm, will take up post in March 2022.

and worked as a general nurse in Drogheda, County Louth before moving to London to train as a midwife.

McIlgorm will lead the nursing, midwifery, and allied health professionals’ contribution to the development and implementation of health and social care policy in Northern Ireland, following Charlotte McArdle’s decision to step down from the post after almost nine years and take up a new role as deputy CNO for Patient Safety and Improvement for NHS England.

In 2003 she was appointed as the Chief Midwife/Nurse for Women’s Services within the Women’s and Children’s Directorate of NHS Lothian. In 2012, her role was extended to include the Directorate of Neurology and Neurosciences. In 2015, she moved to the role as the Chief Nurse for Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership at the beginning of Health and Social Care Integration in Scotland.

McIlgorm trained as a nurse and a midwife and worked in the NHS for nearly 30 years. Most recently, she worked as a professional advisor within the CNO directorate at the Scottish Government, where she contributed to policy development across health and social care.

Described as having extensive leadership, management and strategic experience working across the life span of care within acute and community settings across Health and Social Care, Belfast-born McIlgorm initially trained

Health Minister Robin Swann MLA announced her appointment in January 2022, stating: “I am delighted to announce Maria McIlgorm as Northern Ireland’s new Chief Nursing Officer. Maria brings with her a wealth of experience and knowledge that will complement the dedication and professionalism of the nurses, midwives and allied health professionals across the health and care sector.”

E D U C AT I O N

McIlveen: Decision to stand down teaching regulator a ‘risk’ Education Minister Michelle McIlveen MLA has admitted that the Department is at risk of potential legal challenges to her decision to stand down the General Teaching Council of Northern Ireland (GTCNI).

and a breakdown of working relationships within the Council, with the Minister stating that the Council had “not fulfilled its responsibilities and been the voice for the teaching profession that it was intended to be”.

Addressing the Assembly’s Education Committee, McIlveen said that as the use of the duty had not occurred before, its application had not been tested in court and that there was no case law or prior court judgments to give insight into how a court might rule in such a case.

The GTCNI was set up in 2002 and was responsible for registering teachers in the region and upholding professional standards. In December, the Minister said that arrangements were already being put in place to ensure GTCNI registration, a legal requirement for all Northern Ireland teachers, continues without interruption.

“As our counsel pointed out, there is therefore a risk to the department that former members of GTCNI could potentially challenge my decisions,” said McIlveen.

In December 2021, the Minister moved to immediately suspend the professional body’s council and its committees, which regulates teachers in Northern Ireland, and outlined plans to bring forward legislation to dissolve the non-departmental public body.

The Department of Education will now bring forward a public consultation exercise to identify which of the Council’s functions are critical to the wider education system and must be preserved. Meanwhile, the Minister is expected to seek accelerated passage on a Bill to be introduced in early February to allow her to issue directions to the GTCNI.

McIlveen took the decision after an independent effectiveness review which has revealed systemic failures

agenda matters

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matters arising

JUSTICE

‘Effective solitary confinement’ for some prisoners Justice Minister Naomi Long MLA has apologised to prisoners who did not receive the minimum standard level of engagement, after a report revealed that some prisoners in Northern Ireland are being subjected to effective solitary confinement, which does not meet the expected United Nations Standard Minimum Rules.

Commissioned by the Minister, the report by Criminal Justice Inspection (CJI) raised “significant concerns about the treatment of prisoners”, including CCTV footage which over a five-day period showed 20 inmates at Maghaberry Prison did not leave their cells.

It also found that prisoners with severe mental health illness and/or challenging behaviours were still being segregated in care and supervision units.

The Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice in Northern Ireland, Jacqui Durkin said that without appropriate evidence, it was not possible to provide satisfactory assurance “that prisoners held in CSUs in Northern

Ireland’s prisons experienced a regime that met required minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners”.

Inspectors have made three strategic and 11 operational recommendations for improvement as a result of their findings.

Speaking in the Assembly, Minister Long said: “I have no hesitation in apologising to those prisoners who did not receive the level of engagement that the report identifies as the minimum standard expected. In reading the entire report and numerous others that have been published in recent years, members will see that the Prison Service has a willingness to learn and a determination to drive continuous improvement. The report sets out some significant challenges. However, in delivering its recommendations, the Prison Service will be better, as will be the experience of the people who are committed to our care.”

H E A LT H

All targets for Northern Ireland’s cancer waiting times missed In a three-month period, over 600 people urgently referred by their GP for treatment of suspected cancer were not seen within the Department of Health’s target timeframe.

Statistics released by the Department of Health highlight how the existing health crisis and pandemic pressures are having a detrimental impact on cancer care in Northern Ireland.

From July to September 2021, every target set by the Department in relation to cancer waiting times was missed.

In September 2021, almost a quarter (24.5 per cent) of patients, urgently referred for suspected breast cancer, were not seen within the 14-day target set by the Department of Health. A total of 872 patients were not

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seen within the targeted time over the three-month period.

Also in September, less than half (42.5 per cent) of suspected cancer patients began treatment within 62 days of an urgent GP referral, significantly below the targeted 95 per cent.

It means that over a three-month period, 622 patients urgently referred for treatment for suspected cancer by a GP did not commence their first treatment within the Department’s target of 62 days.

In June 2021, Health Minister Robin Swann MLA published a Cancer Recovery Plan, which he said would address immediate service improvement requirements, and address around 70 per cent of the first three years of recommendations to be including in a 10-year Cancer Strategy for Northern Ireland currently being developed by the Department.

issues agenda

Budget proposals create ‘relative winners and losers’ Northern Ireland’s new fiscal watchdog has criticised the lack of evidence of strategic priority-setting beyond health in the Department of Finance’s Draft Budget published for consultation at the end of 2021.

Although the Executive failed to agree a Draft Budget before the end of 2021, agreement was reached to publish Finance Minister Conor Murphy MLA’s proposals as a basis for consultation.

Published on 13 December 2021, the Draft Budget, in contrast to the preceding seven successive single-year budgets, set out potential multi-annual spending allocations for each of the Executive’s departments for 2022/23 until 2024/25.

In his 2021 Autumn Budget and Spending Review, UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak MP outlined an allocation which he described as the largest annual funding settlement for devolved governments since 1998.

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However, an extra £1.6 billion per year for public services in Northern Ireland outlined by Sunak was challenged by Murphy, who insisted that the reality was of a “marginal real terms increase” of an additional £1.9 billion over three years, something he described as “nowhere near enough”.

In his Draft Budget proposals, the Finance Minister set out his plans to increase capital borrowing, freeze regional rates and increase departmental spending, particularly in health.

Prior to the Draft Budget proposals, the Executive had agreed to prioritise health and wellbeing while recovering from the pandemic and the Department of Finance has acknowledged this by

issues agenda

Proposed spending and financing by the Executive £ million 2021–22 (October)

2022–23

2023–24

2024–25

FINANCING Resource Block grant

15,848

15,001

15,207

15,305

Regional rates

367

577

628

630

Capital borrowing (RRI)

140

140

194

200

Irish Government funding for A5

6

7

25

25

16,361

15,725

16,054

16,160

Resource

14,301

13,571

13,841

14,035

Capital

1,932

1,991

2,147

2,063

FTC

128

163

66

62

16,361

15,725

16,054

16,160

Departmental spending

16,245

15,515

15,957

16,077

Held centrally for later allocation

70

164

51

38

Total financing pays for SPENDING

Total spending

Debt interest (RRI) Total spending

46

46

46

46

16,361

15,725

16,054

16,160

proposing to increase the allocation to health. The allocation to health is 10 per cent higher in 2024/25, in real terms, adjusting for inflation, than the Department of Finance’s baseline figure. It means that health, in 2024/25, has been allocated 51 per cent of the Executive’s almost £14 billion total resource spending. By comparison, education is 18 per cent and justice is 8 per cent.

In order to facilitate the increased spend in health,

the Minister’s proposals necessitate a 2 per cent cut from most other departments. The Department of Finance applied a two per cent cut across almost all departments, but then allocated additional funding arising from an increase in the block grant.

Following the increased block grant allocation, departments will not see a reduction in their baseline allocation, but will be 2 per cent below

4

Change in funding from 2% cut and general allocations The Executive Office Health Ombudsman Total Education Audit Office Agriculture etc.

Assembly Commission Infrastructure Economy Finance Communities

Executive department

Foods Standard Agency

Non-Executive department

Public Prosecution Service Justice Per cent Source: Department of Finance

agenda issues

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issues agenda

Additional resource spending requested by departments £ million 2022–23

2023–24

2024–25

Average requested as % of baseline

1,801

2,267

2,718

37

Education

435

510

599

23

Communities

315

397

420

48

Justice

275

171

200

20

Economy

157

217

256

26

Infrastructure

148

131

162

35

63

76

91

34

6

11

11

6

3,199

3,782

4,456

32

Department Health

Agriculture etc.

Finance Total

Source: Departmental submissions to the Department of Finance

“Budget resource and capital plans are still not presented alongside a comparable set of outturn data for recent years or an up-to-date forecast for the current year. And no explanation is provided for the distribution of general allocations to departments in the resource budget.”

what could have been expected without the diversion to health.

The Fiscal Council says that it is satisfied the proposals “balance” the Budget, as required, but highlight a lack of evidence of strategic prioritysetting beyond health and the absence of concrete proposals for consultation in areas such as efficiencies, charging and the halting of unnecessary services.

Chair of the Fiscal Council, Robert Chote says that while the approach “sounds even-handed”, the proposed distribution of the increased block grant “creates relative winners and losers” among the departments, adding: “There is little explanation of the choices made.”

The assessment of the proposed Budget by the Fiscal Council describes it is “regrettable” that the Executive could not publish its draft Investment Strategy in time to inform to capital spending proposals.

“Looking beyond the election, it is also essential that the incoming Executive establishes a close

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link between its budget allocations and the Programme for Government that it will be required by legislation to agree,” says Chote.

Publishing the Draft Budget, the Finance Minister acknowledged that the 10 per cent uplift for health by the end of the budget period would create challenges.

“The additional investment in health inevitably creates challenges for other public services. This Draft Budget therefore underlines our commitment to prioritise health,” stated Murphy.

The public consultation on the Draft Budget intends to run until 7 March 2022. However, following the resignation of First Minister Paul Givan MLA, failure to reform an Executive before the end of the current mandate could eliminate any chance of a multi-year budget agreement.

Building a sustainable culture highlighted by Hays in its recently published 2022 Salary Guide. Principal among these is a tangible commitment to employee wellbeing, the introduction of flexible working arrangements, a focus on communications and building a strong sense of connection to the company’s purpose.

At RiverRidge, we have a clear purpose: To treat waste as a valuable resource to ensure a positive outcome for our planet and communities. That is our north star and is the reason we began to develop an Environmental Social Governance (ESG) structure in 2021.

Our ESG Strategy, when published later this year, will set out clearly all the steps we are taking to achieve our purpose covering every aspect of our business, including those commitments we are making to our employees.

Brett Ross, CEO, RiverRidge.

As we begin to imagine a post-Covid world, businesses must again pivot to a new normal beyond the pandemic. At RiverRidge, we recognise that while the current crisis may be abating, there are lots of new challenges and considerations competing for attention, the most important of which is people.

A recent survey of firms in Northern Ireland found that the availability of workers was the single biggest issue facing employers in 2022. We have already seen the impact of driver shortages on our industry, which has led to intense competition for skills and we expect to see this trend continue for the

foreseeable future. And while we acknowledge that many organisations have reviewed salaries to help address this problem, we believe a more holistic approach is required.

Other aspects of working life are valued equally or more by employees, a fact

As a company that has seen its workforce increase ten-fold since 2011, we have learned to continually evolve and adapt as we have grown. However, this next stage of our journey must be navigated carefully and with genuine intent.

New environment We have to recognise the seismic changes that are happening within society and the increased prioritising of a more sustainable work life balance. Our people strategy must pivot to the new environment if we are to retain employees and attract new entrants.

While Covid has allowed the company to explore different options such as remote working during the pandemic, for a waste management company such as ours, it does not suit all of our roles and whatever steps we take next, we must ensure that they fit our business model.

We must also look creatively at other possible solutions to improve the working conditions of those who perform hands-on roles, such as our drivers, helpers and production employees.

Key to the development of our people strategy is communication. When we were a smaller company, RiverRidge was like a family and informal communication worked well. However, with nearly 300 employees spread across five different sites, we have seen the need for a more structured approach to support a positive company culture.

If anything, the past two years have highlighted the need for strong communication. Today, it is more necessary than ever, to keep employees connected and informed, and to also give them a strong sense of belonging at a time when there is a myriad of issues affecting the workplace experience. In short, the landscape of professional employee communication and engagement has changed. Being present is no longer an option, but engagement is a must.

Loading cardboard at one of RiverRidge’s sites.

Employee first As well as continuing to meet and collaborate both virtually and in-person, one of the key communication principles that we are committing to in 2022 is that our people will be the first to hear about important company developments.

Ahead of releasing to media and to other stakeholders, content, including this article, will be shared with employees prior to its publication.

Some of the RiverRidge team who volunteered to help clean and tidy up the gardens at NI Children's Hospice in 2019.

We are also actively seeking input to the new employee strategy from employees themselves and will shortly issue a company-wide survey to elicit views on all aspects of company culture including career progression, employee wellbeing, recognition and connection with our communities. The output of this survey will help to inform our employee strategy for the future.

Our ESG Strategy will allow all our stakeholders, including our employees, to view our progress along this journey and ensure we remain accountable for our actions. A fundamental activity being adopted to address this involves the communication of the full ESG strategy to every single employee on a face-toface basis. This will not be a one-off event. Each quarter, progress reports will be published and each year, further face-to-face annual reports will again be delivered to every employee.

Competition for employees is immense.

The waste industry, at first glance, is not glamorous but it does play a vital role in

RiverRidge’s employees emptying bins.

our communities and can make a very

Without them, we will not be able to

meaningful contribution to a zero carbon

deliver, nor indeed, meet the challenging

economy.

climate change objectives that we have

While RiverRidge has an exciting future

set ourselves.

in terms of innovation and development for the waste sector in Northern Ireland, we need to recognise that our

T: +44 (0)28 95 313 313

employees are central to our vision and

E: info@riverridge.co.uk

purpose and that they have an important

W: www.riverridge.co.uk

voice.

issues agenda

Stormont leverage a gamble Liz Truss MP, UK Brexit negotiator and her European counterpart Maroš Šefcovic.

The DUP’s attempts to muscle its way into negotiations between the UK and the EU could come at a large cost domestically, writes David Whelan.

Soon after taking up post as the new leader of the DUP, Jeffrey Donaldson MP met with Prime Minister Boris Johnson to voice his concerns around the Northern Ireland Protocol. The pledge by Johnson that negotiations to alter the post-Brexit trading arrangements would be short, sharp, and concluded within three weeks was the latest in a long line of unfulfilled assurances by the UK Government geared at appeasing unionists.

The DUP has constantly advocated for the triggering of Article 16 but to date, both former and current UK Brexit negotiators have sought only to threaten its use, much to the frustration of the Brexit-supporting party who will have to explain the existence of an Irish Sea border on the doorsteps in the coming weeks and months.

With three months to go until the scheduled 5 May election, coupled with legislation passing through Westminster that would prevent the immediate calling of an election and enable the Assembly and ministerial portfolios to continue in liminal form, the DUP has opted to roll the dice.

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agenda issues

With a meeting of the joint working committee between the UK and the EU scheduled for 21 February, a date earmarked as a possible deadline for any new deal to be agreed, the DUP hopes that the collapse of the Executive will cause sufficient noise for the UK Government to prioritise unionist concerns, and also offer the Government leverage in its negotiations with the EU. However, in calling for the Protocol to be scrapped, and suggesting the party may not return to government until it is satisfied, the DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson is taking a risk.

The Northern Ireland Protocol enabled Northern Ireland to remain aligned with the EU single market for goods to enable free movement of trade across the island, however, as Great Britain is no longer in the EU, checks on Great Britain goods take place at ports in Northern Ireland to make sure they comply with EU laws.

The EU published a range of proposals to help reduce checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain but has constantly reiterated its unwillingness to

remove the Protocol, part of a deal already agreed by Britain and one which is enshrined in international law.

In late January, the EU chief negotiator Maroš Šefčovič gave a bleak assessment of negotiation progress so far to a private meeting of European parliament members.

Despite having met for talks with Liz Truss, Šefčovič expressed his surprise that the UK’s negotiator continued to demand changes which the EU had already ruled out.

For the DUP, influence and being seen to have influence by the electorate is key.

It is perhaps no coincidence then that the resignation of First Minister Paul Givan MLA came just hours after officials in Northern Ireland appeared to ignore an order by Givan’s party colleague and Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots MLA to stop post-Brexit checks on agriculture and food goods at Northern Ireland’s ports.

The High Court has since issued an interim order to suspend the Minister’s decision until a judicial review can be heard in full, however, by then, it was clear that officials had already ignored the Minister’s order.

issues agenda

Prior to the current round of negotiations, the EU Commission had already said that failures of the current system for checks on agri-food at Northern Ireland's sea ports were undermining the credibility of guarantees of the UK Government to implement EU law.

In a draft report detailing findings of its audit, the EU Commission said that the system of controls in place for animals and agri-food products entering Northern Ireland is “not fit for purpose” and did not comply with EU rules.

heavily influence the outcome of the UKEU negotiations. A deal that removes checks on goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland would give the party a solid base on which to fight the forthcoming election.

However, the absence of such a deal will leave them empty-handed and vulnerable to an electorate already weary of Stormont’s fragility.

The audit was based on examinations done in June 2021 and the EU assessed that inadequate resources were a determining factor in the failure to comply and raised concerns around infrastructure and the lack of a functional control system.

The removal of an Executive has many implications, most notably, on a proposed three-year budget. As Northern Ireland aims to recover from the pandemic, a three-year budget, prioritising healthcare, needed Executive approval by March. A single-year budget will not deliver the type of long-term investments needed to kickstart healthcare transformation and address the waiting list crisis.

The Commission says that the UK Government “has failed” to ensure sufficient human and structural resources have been made available to the responsible competent authorities in Northern Ireland.

Additional implications include the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions, which, up until now had been agreed by the Executive and the long-delayed official apology for survivors of institutional child abuse, which had been scheduled for March.

Recommendations included the introduction of proper facilities, ensuring access to a sufficient number of suitably qualified staff for authorities, better information sharing and better systems for checking pets and personal agri-food products.

Public opinion will also be influenced by when an election takes place. Calls for an early election, including by Sinn Féin, would put greater pressure on a busy legislative programme in the Assembly, with 28 bills currently at risk if adequate time cannot be found for scrutiny and passage.

Donaldson and the DUP hope that the crisis at Stormont will be enough to

agenda issues

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Protecting your rights after Brexit: One year on The UK Government has also committed to making sure that certain equality laws here will keep pace with any future changes to specific EU antidiscrimination laws. So, if the EU strengthens these laws, our equality laws must be similarly strengthened.

This is an important commitment, as there were concerns that equality and human rights may be reduced after the UK left the EU. It is also a recognition of the importance and centrality of rights and equality protections in the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement and of the fact that this agreement has underpinned the peace process here.

Geraldine McGahey, Chief Commissioner of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.

Geraldine McGahey, Chief Commissioner of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, highlights the importance of the UK Government’s commitment in Article 2 of the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol to protect our equality and human rights post-Brexit, and outlines the work that the Commission, together with the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, has undertaken over the last year to ensure this commitment is upheld.

What is the UK Government’s commitment in the Protocol?

The UK Government made an important commitment in Article 2 of the Protocol to ensure that many of our equality and human rights in Northern Ireland will continue to be protected after Brexit.

This means that some of our key equality rights that are underpinned by EU anti-discrimination laws, including those on the grounds of gender, including transgender, sexual orientation, disability, age, racial or ethnic origin and religion and belief, cannot be reduced due to Brexit.

Specifically, the Government committed to ensuring that protections regarding the rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity, set out in the relevant chapter of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement, are not reduced as a result of Brexit.

There are other EU laws which are also covered by this commitment, including those relating to: parental leave, the rights of victims and the rights of pregnant workers, as well as specific measures aimed at protecting the rights for disabled people.

Significantly, neither the Northern Ireland Assembly, nor the Northern Ireland Executive, can act in a way that is incompatible with the UK Government’s commitment. If they do, those actions can be challenged in our courts, by way of judicial review proceedings.

This commitment, therefore, has significant implications for the work of the Assembly, Executive Ministers and departments, including as they develop, consult on and introduce new legislation.

They must ensure that this legislation complies with the UK Government’s commitment under the Protocol.

What is the role of the Commissions?

We have been given new powers and duties, to enable us and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to oversee the implementation of its commitment. We have a responsibility to monitor, provide advice, report and ensure the UK Government’s commitment is upheld. We can use our powers together or separately.

The Commissions also work closely with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission on oversight of rights and equalities issues falling within the scope of the commitment that have an island of Ireland dimension.

Our powers include providing legal advice, assistance to individuals and, where appropriate, support for legal proceedings where we believe the UK Government’s commitment has been breached. We also have the power to bring legal challenges in our own name or intervene in legal cases.

What type of work have we taken forward?

A key focus of our work to date has been informing people of their rights after Brexit, through a range of means including public advertising.

We have also met with a wide range of stakeholders to hear about their concerns and to help us understand and assess the impact of Brexit on equality groups in Northern Ireland. We have raised their issues with relevant ministers and government officials and called for urgent action to address these concerns.

In addition, we have closely monitored draft legislation that has been progressing through the Assembly and Westminster to assess its compliance with the Government’s commitment. We have engaged with, and advised, relevant parliamentary committees on these issues.

We have also engaged with government officials to highlight the implications of the UK Government’s commitment on the work of government, including departments, and to encourage them to embed Article 2 considerations into policy and legislative proposals.

Issues we have raised include concerns from disabled people with assistance dogs about additional requirements and checks being introduced for travelling between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We urgently require formal agreement between the UK Government and the EU to ensure there are no adverse impacts on assistance dog owners here.

We are also working with equality groups, including those from the disability and women’s sectors, over the potential impact of the loss of the EU funding. The European Social Fund is due to close in March 2023, with no clear replacement announced as yet, and any shortfall is likely to impact many sectors.

To assess the potential impact, we have commissioned research on the impact of the loss of EU funding on equality groups and we will use this evidence to report and make future recommendations to government.

Alyson Kilpatrick, Chief Commissioner, Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and Geraldine McGahey, Chief Commissioner, Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.

“Together with the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, we will continue to closely monitor the impact of Brexit on everyone here and specifically any impacts on equality groups.”

We are also working with faith-based communities experiencing difficulties accessing specific foods. Post-Brexit, the supply of some kosher and halal foods from Great Britain has been severely affected. Together with our Jewish and Muslim communities, we are calling for this to be addressed urgently.

Both Commissions are also working with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission on equality and human rights issues that have an all-Ireland dimension, including research on the potential divergence of rights across Ireland as a result of Brexit.

We are working with people living in border communities, as well as their representative organisations, regarding their concerns about the impact of Brexit on their daily lives. This includes cross border travel and access to cross border services such as healthcare, education and work.

We have been looking at issues such as the rights of minority ethnic people and migrant workers, and concerns about increased racial profiling in terms of cross-border travel.

What happens next?

Together with the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, we will

continue to closely monitor the impact of Brexit on everyone here and specifically any impacts on equality groups. We will identify and highlight new issues and concerns that impact on people’s lives and use our powers, including our enforcement powers, strategically and robustly to hold the UK Government to account.

We have been tasked with a challenging and critical role and, in close partnership with the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, we will work to carry out that role and ensure that all of our equality and human rights are protected after Brexit.

Further information is available on the Commissions’ websites or by contacting: ECNI: T: 028 9050 0600 E: DMU@equalityni.org W: www.equalityni.org/brexit NIHRC: T: 028 9024 3987 E: info@nihrc.org W: www.nihrc.org/human-rights-afterbrexit

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Planning for a net zero future Following the publication of the Energy Strategy, SSE Ireland’s Chairman Mark Ennis discusses the policy priorities needed to meet ambitious 2030 and 2050 decarbonisation targets.

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Mark Ennis, Chairman of SSE Ireland, is one of the leading figures in Northern Ireland’s energy market. Throughout his career in the sector he has been a passionate advocate for the pursuit of greater renewable energy penetration to decarbonise electricity supply here. As a pioneer in green energy generation, Ennis has been a key driver behind SSE’s commitment to play its part in powering change in Northern Ireland and helping advocate for the transition to a net zero future.

Since 2008, the UK-listed integrated energy group SSE plc has invested over half a billion pounds in developing Northern Ireland’s sustainable energy infrastructure. As a result its energy supply brand SSE Airtricity is the largest provider of renewable energy to home and business customers in the all-island Single Electricity Market, while its renewable energy business SSE Renewables generates more green energy from 28 wind farms across the island than any other company.

As a keen advocate for climate action, Ennis welcomes the evident shift in awareness amongst the public and business community that has brought the pressing need for climate action to the fore, culminating in the declaration of a climate emergency by the Northern Ireland Assembly in February 2020.

However, two years after such a momentous event, he is disappointed Northern Ireland remains the only region of the UK without climate legislation and believes that Northern Ireland must now have a greater focus on decarbonisation, if it is to take advantage of the opportunities a greener transformation presents.

While a target for overall greenhouse gas emissions reduction remains to be set, a vision for net zero emissions from energy was outlined in the recently published and long-awaited 10-year Energy Strategy, a document which was subsequently followed up in January 2022 with an Action Plan.

While Ennis admits that the strategy took longer than first expected, he is complimentary of the extensive consultation process which departmental officials undertook, as well as the

engagement with a wide range of stakeholders which helped shape the Energy Strategy.

For its own part, SSE has publicly committed itself to putting its money where its mouth is to power the change needed to meet net zero. As the UK and Ireland’s clean energy champion, SSE last November unveiled its plans to invest £12.5 billion over the next five years, or £7 million a day, in a Net Zero Acceleration Programme to address climate change head on.

volatility in relation to its dependence on imported fossil fuels and, as Ennis states, with renewable energy currently proven to be the cheapest form of energy, Northern Ireland has an opportunity to catapult itself to the forefront of renewable generation and even potentially act as an exporter of renewables through hydrogen.

While onshore wind dominates Northern Ireland’s current renewable generation, reference in the Action Plan to kickstarting offshore and hydrogen technologies is welcomed by Ennis,

“As world-leading developers, operators and owners of offshore wind energy, we recognise that it takes effectively 10 years to deliver an offshore wind farm.”

This acceleration of SSE’s net zero action plan will see it deliver a fivefold increase in its renewable output and cut carbon intensity by 80 per cent by 2030.

Early this February, the FTSE-100 lowcarbon infrastructure company announced its four core 2030 business goals, already aligned to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), were being upweighted to increase the company’s climate ambitions and drive faster decarbonisation across the next decade.

What slice of that investment will reach Northern Ireland will depend largely on how policy in Northern Ireland is shaped to create the best environment for delivering renewable generation infrastructure.

The Energy Strategy delivered two major targets in the form of 70 per cent renewable consumption by 2030 and energy savings of 25 per cent from buildings and industry by 2030. Ennis is quick to point out that, additional to the environmental benefits of developing and deploying higher levels of renewable energy, the ambition also makes economic sense in terms of lowering the cost of energy for consumers.

Recent rises in energy prices have served to highlight Northern Ireland’s

however, he emphasises the need for action over words.

Additionally, he says that while work must start now on gearing up for offshore deployment and hydrogen technology development to ensure both play a role in decarbonising the energy sector, meeting the 70 by 30 target will rely highly on the further development of onshore wind and solar infrastructure.

“If we analyse what the 70 per cent renewables target means in practice, we see that it will require a doubling of our current renewable energy capacity on to the system by 2030, meaning another 1,300MW of renewables needed. The reality is that none of that will be from offshore wind because, as world-leading developers, operators and owners of offshore wind energy, we recognise that it takes effectively 10 years to deliver an offshore wind farm,” states Ennis.

“In Northern Ireland, we still have not got an offshore consent process, so at best, offshore wind will not play a role in the energy mix until post-2030. So, that effectively leaves us with needing 1,300MW which will need to be generated primarily from onshore wind and some solar. How are we going to achieve that? Really it requires the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) to look at the planning legislation.

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Secondly, he calls for greater transparency in decision-making, believing that any regionally significant and called-in planning decision made by the Department should have the clear economics of that decision spelled out and a full explanation of how the decision was reached. “I think there needs to be a demonstration on any planning decision on how it does, or does not, support the 2050 road to net zero and the aims of the Energy Strategy,” he explains.

Thirdly, the SSE Ireland Chair believes that it is of equal importance that the same principles must be followed by local development plans put in place by Northern Ireland’s 11 councils.

“The reality is that the Action Plan for 2030 will deliver nothing unless we get DfI involved and get planning policies and an overarching Planning Strategy aligned with our net zero targets.”

“The reality is that the Action Plan for 2030 will deliver nothing unless we get DfI involved and get planning policies and an overarching Planning Strategy aligned with our net zero targets.”

Planning On 27 January 2022, Infrastructure Minister Nichola Mallon MLA published a report on the review of the implementation of the Planning Act (NI) 2011 including a range of recommendations for changes to the Act. The report was published around the same time as a Northern Ireland Audit Office assessment that the current planning system was not working efficiently and failing to deliver for the economy, communities, or the environment.

Ennis outlines that SSE has an appetite to invest significantly in onshore

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renewables in Northern Ireland by 2030, however, he emphasises that the current planning system represents too much risk, when compared to competing markets in the UK, Europe and further afield.

Declaring that it “is absolutely vital” that planning risk is reduced if Northern Ireland is to reach its renewable energy targets, Ennis believes four major calls must be made in order for this to happen.

Firstly, following the review, a new planning system must have the road to net zero as a fundamental basis. “I think there should be a clear presumption in favour of renewable energy in any planning decision, including in relation to re-powering and storage co-locating to increase the capability of the system,” Ennis says.

Discussing how resistance to infrastructure development within some councils could hamper Northern Ireland’s renewable ambitions as a whole, Ennis explains: “Northern Ireland has a decision to make on whether it wants a small number of strategically placed large wind farms, or a large number of smaller ones. In making that decision, there needs to be an understanding that large efficient wind farms bring a much lower cost per MW and so are of greatest benefit to the consumer.”

Finally, Ennis calls for greater clarity in the over-arching ambition for planning, reducing confusion and therefore not necessitating judicial reviews, causing lengthy delays in the process.

Referencing the 2020 decision by Mallon to refuse planning permission for SSE Renewables’ proposed Doraville Wind Farm, which would have seen 33 wind turbines developed that would have generated 118.8MW through an investment of £150 million, Ennis says: “The decision was based on an outdated planning policy, and on what had already been achieved against the 2020 target. It gave no consideration to the considerable community benefit the project could bring and little weight to economic benefit, as well as no consideration to achieving net zero by 2050.

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“An outdated policy sends a bad signal to those people who want to invest in Northern Ireland’s onshore renewables. It is a mindset we have to change because we have to show that we are welcoming to development.

“If we can build some security around our energy system, taking away the volatility of gas and oil prices, then Northern Ireland can be an exemplar for sustainable energy. It will add not only to lowering consumer energy costs but will add to Northern Ireland’s attractiveness as an inward investment location.”

Grid As well as the planning system, Ennis states that another major challenge to Northern Ireland’s renewable targets is the grid. The SSE Chairman asserts that the west of Northern Ireland is paired with Scotland in rating as the best energy source for wind in Europe. However, as Ennis explains, with population density largely located in the east, the current system of transferring power is seeing around 17 per cent of renewable energy generation spilled off the system.

“An efficient planning system would enable grid infrastructure to be put in

place to support more efficient energy transfer. Additionally, as set out in the Energy Strategy, technology development, such as storage, allows smarter uses of energy. For example, when there is excess renewable energy this can be utilised to create hydrogen,” Ennis says.

“Interestingly, Siemens, one of the main suppliers of electrolysers used for the conversion of energy to hydrogen, predicted recently that the cost of converters will halve by 2030. Similar to what happened with solar technology, the cost base is going to come down and so Northern Ireland could be in a super position to utilise hydrogen for various sectors such as public transport and its long-distance transport fleet. Tied in with the use of renewable energy to run a transport network of electric vehicles, Northern Ireland really could be

transformed.”

He adds: “Another enabler of transformation is the necessary extension of the Utility Regulator’s scope to include the journey to net zero. That is currently not the case and I think it is important that the scope is enlarged to include the target of net zero by 2050, particularly as the Utility Regulator is the primary approver of grid infrastructure investment.”

Skills The Action Plan for 2022 has committed to carrying out a skills audit for energy decarbonisation to identify gaps and the skills needed from the education and training sectors in the short, medium, and long term. Ennis welcomes the commitment, highlighting the growing competition for skills in relation to renewables globally.

As part of SSE Renewables’ annual Community funding programme, which has provided over £3.4 million from its wind farms to 800 projects in Northern Ireland since 2008, the SSE Renewables Scholarship has provided over half a million pounds to students in higher education in Northern Ireland since 2014.

Over 250 scholarships have been awarded to young potential graduates, including with a focus on STEM subjects.

“That is a fundamental move to support the skills programme, which will be very important as we seek to deploy more renewable generation in Northern Ireland,” states Ennis.

Concluding, Ennis says that the 70 by 30 target will be “stretching” and emphasises the importance of crossdepartmental support for the net zero pathway. Critically, he believes that progress will not be achieved without significant changes to the planning system and the broadening of the scope of the regulator.

“These changes are fundamental to Northern Ireland’s ambitions to 2030. By 2030 I would like SSE to be able to invest significantly more in Northern Ireland on top of the £500 million we have invested to date. The investment potential exists if the right environment can be created.

“Beyond 2030, offshore wind has significant potential. Again, this will require action to be taken now to facilitate infrastructure development but once delivered, SSE has the capability, skills, and experience to play a critical role.

P R O FI LE :

Mark Ennis Mark Ennis has served over 35 years in leadership positions of UK, Irish and international companies. He currently serves on several boards including SSE Ireland (Non-Exec Chair), W&G Baird (Non-Exec Chair), and Wilson Bio-Chemicals (Director).

Mark was honoured with a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2016 for services to the economy and community in Northern Ireland.

In the private sector, he was a Director of Airtricity and SSE Renewables since 2002 and previously a Senior VP of Chesapeake Corp and CEO of Boxmore Int Plc. In the public sector, he was most recently Chair of Invest NI from 2010 to 2018.

Mark has an honours degree in economics from Queen’s University Belfast, and an MBA from the Open University.

He was honoured with Graduate of the Year by QUB in 2001. In 2019, he was awarded Northern Ireland Non-Executive Director of the Year.

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Energy action plan includes plans for RESS by 2030 (L-R:) Grainia Long, Housing Executive Chief Executive; Noyona Chundur, Chief Executive of the Consumer Council; Economy Minister Gordon Lyons; NIE Networks Managing Director Paul Stapleton; Pat Austin of National Energy Action; and John French, Chief Executive of the Utility Regulator.

A support scheme to encourage the generation of renewable electricity in Northern Ireland could be in place by 2023, according to the first annual action plan published under the Department for the Economy’s (DfE) new long-term energy strategy.

However, the Department has tempered expectations by the use of language which fails to fully commit to establishing a scheme by next year, instead saying it will “consult on a renewable electricity support scheme in 2022 for delivery in 2023”.

The commitment is one of 22 objectives set out in the first annual action plan published by the Department following on from publication of the long-awaited Energy Strategy in December 2021.

Northern Ireland’s success in reaching penetration levels of 47 per cent (40 per cent target) of electricity consumption coming from renewables is due largely to onshore wind generation.

Recognisably, a driving force behind the increase in renewable generation from onshore wind was the Northern Ireland Renewables Obligation (NIRO), the main support scheme for encouraging 22

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increased renewable electricity generation, which closed in 2017 to new generation.

Since then, there have been calls for a fresh support scheme tailored for Northern Ireland, however, a number of factors including existing high levels of curtailment and Northern Ireland’s handling of the Renewable Heat Incentive, have contributed to a delay.

What form the RESS scheme will take remains to be seen. Both Great Britain, through Contracts for Difference (CfD) for generation above 5MW, and the Republic of Ireland, through a Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS), have implemented incentives to encourage investment in low carbon generation and Northern Ireland will require a similar mechanism to attract the investment necessary to deliver on a 70 per cent renewable electricity target.

The Department for the Economy has stated that it is working with the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), to explore the possibility of extending the Contracts for Difference scheme to Northern Ireland, with the aim of tailoring the scheme to protect consumers from being exposed to wider costs across the UK. “We are currently working with BEIS to explore whether we can extend the Contracts for Difference scheme currently operating in Great Britain to Northern Ireland, with a view to inclusion for the next Allocation Round in 2023. If not, we will seek to put in place an alternative support mechanism for investors,” the Department states.

The scale of energy decarbonisation challenge faced in Northern Ireland can be viewed in the context that even when surpassing 2020 targets for renewable energy, in over 30 years since 1990,

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Source: DfE

Northern Ireland has only reduced energy-related emissions by 25 per cent.

Fresh targets within the strategy mean that energy-related emissions will need to be reduced by 56 per cent by 2030, less than eight years away.

Path to Net Zero Energy The two major targets set out in Northern Ireland’s new energy strategy are in relation to: energy efficiency, aiming to deliver energy savings of 25 per cent from buildings and industry by 2030; and renewables, meeting at least 70 per cent of electricity consumption from a diverse mix of renewable sources by 2030. An additional target outlined by the Department is an aim to double the size of Northern Ireland’s low carbon and renewable energy economy to a turnover of more than £2 billion by 2030.

The Department of the Economy puts the average annual baseline energy spending on the current energy system at an estimate of a substantial £8.7 billion.

However, it factors in advice from the Climate Change Commission that by

The Energy Strategy is centred around delivering on five key principles: 1.

Placing you at the heart of our energy future: We will make energy as simple as possible for everyone in society and develop policies that enable and protect consumers through the energy transition. Affordability and fairness will be key considerations in all our policy decisions.

2. Grow the green economy: We will create new jobs and grow a skills base for the low carbon economy through innovation, support and focusing on our competitive strengths.

3. Do more with less: We will set clear targets, standards and regulations that

drive improvements in energy efficiency, provide support to invest in improvements to buildings and help consumers make changes that reduce their energy use.

4. Replace fossil fuels with renewable energy: We will phase out fossil fuels by growing our indigenous renewable base, supported by sustainable renewable imports and use these to decarbonise power, heat and transport.

5. Create a flexible, resilient, and integrated energy system: We will create a

flexible, smart and digitised energy system that integrates renewables across heat, power and transport, creates value for consumers and enhances security of supply.

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action plan. For example, while most stakeholders are in agreement for a centralised information hub, empowering consumers to buy in and play an active role in the energy transition, rather than commit to the establishment of such a hub within a timescale, the plan says it will “produce a detailed plan with timescales for establishment of a one stop shop for energy information, advice and support scheme delivery”.

2050, 94 per cent of the total investment in clean energy will be recouped and points to a net annual cost of meeting net zero energy emissions between 2021 to 2050 of £62 million, when operational savings are included.

However, while the strategy addresses the areas in which investment will be required to drive technology rollout and energy decarbonisation, there is a notable absence of a strategic investment plan across the various sectors of energy, heat, and transport. Published slightly later than expected, the Energy Strategy’s associated action plan, rather than scoping out long-term broad ambitions and investments, took the form of an annual outlook, with its successor planned for 2023. Such an approach means that gauging the scale and financial commitments to some of the Strategy’s long-term ambitions is difficult.

2022 Action Plan As expected, the plan’s 22 actions are contained within the five principles outlined in the Energy Strategy. For many, the absence of ring-fenced resources to tackle some of the most challenging areas of energy decarbonisation will be seen as a missed opportunity to emphasise the Executive’s commitment to investors and industry. Another critique which could be levelled is in relation to commitment centred around the restrained language used within the

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Some welcome commitments that do exist in the action plan include the establishment of a cross-departmental steering group on fuel poverty reduction, a call for evidence on protection for consumers during energy decarbonisation and deliver £10 million of funding through a new Green Innovation Challenge Fund, to support green technology innovation.

The Department says that plans to carry out an energy skills audit for energy decarbonisation but provides no detail on how it will seek to address the obvious gaps and skills that will be identified.

Finally in relation to the green economy, the Department says that it will develop a business case to deliver a Hydrogen Centre of Excellence to be located at the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre (AMIC).

Some firm commitments within the action plan for 2022 include: •

the delivery of an area-based energy efficiency pilot scheme;

•

a new energy efficiency support scheme for Northern Ireland businesses;

•

the establishment of minimum energy efficiency standards in the domestic private rented sector;

•

delivery of up to £5 million of support for the decarbonisation of heat in homes, communities, businesses and delivery of low carbon heat networks;

•

establishment of a crossdepartmental working group on biomethane production; and

•

publish an EV infrastructure action plan.

Replacing fossil fuels Alongside the commitment to consult on a renewable electricity support scheme this year, for delivery in 2023, the action plan also states that the Department for Infrastructure will review legislation to ensure that permitted development for heat pumps aligns with modern standards and requirements and to assess any changes for rolling out other low carbon heat technologies.

The action plan also commits to develop an action plan to deliver 1GW of offshore wind from 2030. Northern Ireland currently has no operational offshore wind and previous attempts to develop have all been hindered. The Crown Estate owns the UK seabed, and any development would require an agreement with the Crown Estate for leasing, the implementation of regulatory approvals and the development of a competition process.

“Our focus will be facilitating precommercial test and demonstration sites in the 2020s which will put us on a clear pathway to commercialisation by the early 2030s or sooner, if possible,” the Energy Strategy states.

Additional actions outlined in the plans range from a geothermal project and studying the future role of biomethane, to low carbon heat technologies for homes and businesses.

Discussing the publication of the action plan, Economy Minister Gordon Lyons MLA welcomed an energy-efficiency-first approach “which will help consumers reduce the energy they use and therefore minimise their energy bills”.

“The action plan maps out the best route to ensuring people will live and work in more energy efficient buildings, whilst helping some of the most vulnerable in society to live in warmer homes, reduce ill-health and ultimately save lives. We understand people need information, advice and financial support to make some of these changes, particularly with affordability in mind, and we will ensure that the appropriate help is available.”

Decarbonisation in Northern Ireland Getty Images

the potential impacts of energy regulation (minimum energy efficiency standards) for different segments of the population based on property tenure, deprivation or risk of fuel poverty; and •

Energy Saving Trust welcomes the recent publication of the Energy Strategy for Northern Ireland The Path to Net Zero Energy and associated Action Plan for 2022.

This 22-point Plan has, as its core, the objective of placing people at the heart of our energy future. As an organisation we are dedicated to promoting energy efficiency, low carbon transport and sustainable energy. We aim to address the climate emergency and deliver the wider benefits of clean energy on the road to net zero.

The action plan proposes a detailed roadmap for the establishment of a onestop-shop for energy information, advice, and which will support scheme delivery. In addition, proposals include the establishment of a crossdepartmental steering group, to develop and deliver actions to reduce fuel poverty whilst issuing a call for evidence on protection of consumers during the transition. Action 7 will also see the launch of a domestic energy efficiency scheme which will inform the roll-out of a longer-term programme.

It is important to learn from best practice elsewhere. Energy Saving Trust manage a similar one-stop-shop service called Home Energy Scotland (HES) on behalf of the Scottish Government, so we have first-hand experience of how

effective these types of services can be for people. We deliver HES through a network of regional advice centres covering all of Scotland, which offer local knowledge and expert advice on issues from saving energy, installing renewable energy and greener travel including electric vehicles and ebikes.

Providing effective tailored advice is best supported by use of excellent data, meaning advice can be made bespoke to the circumstances of each household.

Energy Saving Trust would suggest that a future one-stop-shop model would benefit from being able to use a wealth of data from technology pilots, research, modelling, data, and statistics. A key data area would be the development of a housing stock database. Given the crucial role buildings play in energy consumption this database would align directly with this aim and has the potential to deliver a range of benefits across other priority areas including: •

Costs: Helping quantify the potential for specific energy efficiency measures and low carbon heating systems;

•

Regulation: Offering a way to assess

Governance: Providing a resource that government departments can use to develop a coordinated approach to the design and delivery of energy retrofit programmes, the allocation of funding, and decarbonisation of the housing stock.

Where access to EPC1 data is made available bespoke interactive reports enable access to a wide variety of users.

Energy Saving Trust has extensive experience working with energy data, modelling building attributes and delivering housing stock databases for local, regional, and national governments across the UK. With the current energy crisis resulting in rising bills for all householders, the transition towards net zero must go hand in hand with affordable costs. Increasing the efficiency of homes will ensure all consumers have access to the health, financial and environmental benefits of warm and efficiently heated homes.

The Energy Strategy has set out an ambitious vision of how Northern Ireland can decarbonise, we are ready to work with the Executive to help make the changes needed.

Angela Gracey-Roger Programme Manager Energy Saving Trust angela.gracey-roger@est.org.uk

1. https://find-energy-certificate.digital.communities.gov.uk/. Records for Energy Performance Certificates and Display Energy Certificates are lodged on this site.

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Climate: Net zero by 2050 However, Green Party leader Bailey was forced to apologise after her absence from the Assembly Chamber, when debate on the Minister’s Bill began, meant that she missed the opportunity to bring forward her amendment to reduce the targets time frame by five years, aiming for net zero by 2045.

A total of 80 amendments were considered for the Bill as it opened for debate and Bailey has stated her intention to raise her 2045 amendment again at a later stage.

In response, the Minister expressed his deep disappointment at the 100 per cent reduction target, stating that it would have “profound and irreversible” consequences on Northern Ireland’s agri-food sector and the economy.

Outlining his belief that his Bill’s proposals put Northern Ireland on “a balanced pathway” to meet commitments to the UK’s wider net zero targets, he added: “No one benefits from impossible targets.

I still believe we must apply science and evidence in full.”

The Assembly has backed a net zero greenhouse gas emissions target for 2050 but the outcome is not the favoured position of either of the two proposers of binding climate legislation for Northern Ireland.

In early February 2022, a majority of MLAs supported an amendment to Environment Minister Edwin Poots MLA’s Climate Change (No.2) Bill that would see the Minister’s proposed 82 per cent reduction target raised to 100 per cent by 2050.

The Minister’s Bill, which is based on a recommended “equitable contribution" of an 82 per cent reduction by 2050 by the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC).

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The Bill was introduced later than the Climate Change (No.1) Bill, a Private Member’s Bill laid by Northern Ireland’s Green Party leader Clare Bailey MLA, but there is recognition that Executive legislation will take priority with little time left on the mandate.

Those in favour of the more ambitious Climate Change (No.1) Bill had hoped to amend the Minister’s legislation in the Assembly, effectively bringing the two pieces of legislation together.

Poots’ assessment lines up with that of the CCC. In June 2021, giving evidence to the AERA committee, the body’s Chairman explained that given Northern Ireland’s economic reliance on agriculture, the 82 per cent target was the highest he could demand in present circumstances.

Bailey said the amendment “has significantly increased the ambition of the climate change bill, and is an important step towards ensuring we have strong and robust climate legislation”.

The Minister has vowed to find a way of “undoing the damage”.

Following the recent resignation of the First Minister, achieving climate legislation for Northern Ireland, the only region of the UK without it, faces a race against time and there are concerns that the level of disagreement that still exists around Northern Ireland’s environmental targets could make the Bill’s passage difficult.

Powering a green economy should mean we are well positioned to make this happen.

However, all this can only work if we have a well resourced planning system.

The performance of our planning system is not reflective of the high planning fees our members are paying and timescales are prohibitive. Wind farms are spending more than twice as long in planning here than in Great Britain. This is a considerable disincentive to investors who are operating across these islands and globally.

Furthermore, the Department for Infrastructure needs to get a grip of planning policy with local councils moving in the opposite direction to strategic policy.

Head of RenewableNI, Steven Agnew, discusses the opportunities for renewable energy following the publication of Northern Ireland’s path to net zero.

RenewableNI (RNI) is a not-for-profit representing nearly 50 businesses across the renewable electricity sector.

We work together with our members and stakeholders to create a better future, powered by clean electricity.

We promote responsible development, support good community engagement and the delivery of low-cost electricity generation from sources such as wind, solar, tidal and battery storage, using our greatest natural resources.

As a collaboration between Wind Energy Ireland (WEI) and RenewableUK (RUK), we also work closely with both trade bodies on issues impacting the renewable electricity industry across the UK and Ireland.

RenewableNI welcomes the publication of Northern Ireland Energy Strategy and its target of 70 per cent renewable electricity by 2030. The Action Plan is essential in giving our industry confidence that ambitious rhetoric will be backed up by delivery.

Key for us in the 2022 Action Plan is the commitment to a renewable electricity support scheme in 2023, which RNI called for during the consultation period.

This will unlock significant investment in the Northern Ireland economy. In our Powering A Green Economy report we demonstrated the onshore wind sector alone could contribute over £3 billion by 2030. I was able to meet Economy Minister Gordon Lyons MLA in January 2022 to discuss the report.

Another major development, in the Strategy, is the commitment to 1GW of offshore wind from 2030. Onshore wind and solar, already in use in Northern Ireland will easily get us to the to 70 per cent renewable electricity, but investment in new technology is required to reach the 80 per cent RNI members want to achieve.

RenewableNI is commissioning an offshore wind study to outline how Northern Ireland can maximise the economic benefits of this emerging industry. In Northern Ireland past investment in infrastructure and skills

There are major changes in store for the renewable electricity sector and RenewableNI will ensure our members voices are heard at all levels of government.

RenewableNI has launched a new renewable electricity webinar series aimed at engaging, educating and stimulating debate in the renewable electricity industry. Each month, a free webinar will cover a renewable electricity theme that is especially relevant in achieving the goals of the Energy Strategy.

We began in February with an Energy Strategy special and in March will have a session on solar power. You can watch the previous webinar and find out more at www.RenewableNI.com/webinars.

RenewableNI T: +44 (0) 28 9044 6240 E: Steven.Agnew@RenewableNI.com Judith.Rance@RenewableNI.com W: www.RenewableNI.com Twitter @RenewableNI LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/RenewableNI

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Project Stratum bid evaluation ‘not sophisticated enough’ The scoring system used by the Department for the Economy in the tendering of Northern Ireland’s largest publicly funded investment in broadband infrastructure to date, was ‘not sophisticated enough’ to effectively evaluate a potential £24 million cost in not reaching around 2,500 homes, a Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) report has found.

Project Stratum, a £165 million government investment, identified a target intervention area of around 79,000 premises of low broadband speed which were not planned to be addressed by the investment plans of commercial operators.

Of the two bidders for the tender, BT and Fibrus Networks, only BT outlined an intention to meet 100 per cent of the Department’s intervention area. However, it was Fibrus Networks, who could commit to meeting almost 97 per cent of the intervention area, who would go on to successfully win the tender.

The Northern Ireland Audit Office, in a report published in December 2021, believes that the award of the tender to a bidder which would miss some 2,500 premises, which could be reached by its competitor, was the result of a scoring mechanism for awarding marks that was “not sophisticated enough to provide sufficient consequences for solutions which did not provide 100 per cent coverage”.

The criticism of system sophistication by the NIAO relates specifically to the criteria for coverage, which makes up just 30 marks of the total 100-mark score used by a panel to evaluate the bids.

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In the coverage criteria, with a weight of 30 marks, BT scored 30/30 for their proposal of reaching 100 per cent of the Department’s target intervention area. In failing to reach 2,500 properties, Fibrus Networks would cover almost 97 per cent of the target intervention area and the Department’s scoring system crudely calculated 97 per cent of the 30 marks available and awarded Fibrus Networks 29/30.

The scale of the apparent oversimplification is evident when recognising that the Department has since estimated that the shortfall in coverage by Fibrus would cost a further £24 million to address, almost 15 per cent of the Department’s total investment in the scheme.

The scoring methodology was defended by the Department as “completely in line with what was set out in the ITT documentation and the requirements set by BDUK and the 2016 State Aid Decision”.

Northern Ireland’s Comptroller and Auditor General, Kieran Donnelly, expressed his surprise that the procurement scoring methodology allowed the solution proposed by Fibrus to score so highly in coverage given that it did not propose to cover the full intervention area and the substantial cost of making up the shortfall.

“While I accept that the scoring method was undertaken in line with the tender documentation issued to bidders, in my opinion it did not make sufficient reduction in the scoring to account for the impact of delivering less than 100 per cent coverage,” he said.

“While I accept that the scoring method was undertaken in line with the tender documentation issued to bidders, in my opinion it did not make sufficient reduction in the scoring to account for the impact of delivering less than 100 per cent coverage.”

However, Donnelly did go on to recognise that the Department “has done a lot of things well in the procurement, learning lessons from past procurement processes”.

The report also raised questions around whether the level of public subsidy afforded to the project was too high. Highlighting submitted plans to the Department by the unsuccessful bidder BT, shortly after the Department had indicated it intended to award the Project Stratum contract to Fibrus, of planned further investment that would reach 16,000 premises in the intervention area and a further announcement in April 2021 to expand 1Gbps to some rural villages, including some that already featured in the intervention area, Donnelly said that plans by BT to invest in the Project Stratum target intervention area “raises questions” about whether some of the premises included within the project were already commercially viable, and if the overall level of public subsidy afforded to the project was required.

In his report conclusion, Donnelly states: “As the project has only recently commenced, we consider that it is too early to conclude definitively on value for money. However, some of the issues we have identified mean that it will be difficult for the Department to prove that value for money has been maximised.”

Following the publication of the report in January 2021, the Economy Minister Gordon Lyons MLA announced that Project Stratum was to be extended to an additional 8,500 premises at a cost of around £32 million.

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‘Appalling’ murder rate of women in Northern Ireland Northern Ireland has the joint highest rate in Europe of women killed as a result of domestic violence but remains the only part of the UK which does not have a law criminalising the use of coercive control on a partner.

The murder of 23-year-old Ashling Murphy, attacked and killed while out for a run close to her home in Tullamore, brought a fresh focus to the blatant truth of the all-too-common prevalence of violence against women and girls in Ireland.

The young teacher’s death prompted vigils across the island and a reaction from civic and political leaders north and south, with the Taoiseach Micheál Martin stating that the Irish Government will be producing a national strategy for “zero tolerance” for violence against women.

Ms Murphy’s death came just weeks after the murder of mother-of-four Caoimhe Morgan at her home in north Belfast, one of 12 women killed

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Women MURDERED

in Northern Ireland since pandemic began “Latest PSNI figures show that it received reports of almost 2,000 domestic abuse incidents between 14 December 2021 and 1 January 2022, a 12 per cent increase on the same period the year before.”

in Northern Ireland since the beginning of the pandemic.

The most recent statistics show that Northern Ireland faces an endemic in relation to female murders, with more women per capita murdered in Northern Ireland as a result of domestic violence than any other part of western Europe. In Europe, the murder rate of women subjected to domestic violence is joint highest in Northern Ireland and Romania.

Additionally, instances of domestic violence, mostly related to violence committed against women, are rising significantly in Northern Ireland. Latest PSNI figures show that it received reports of almost 2,000 domestic abuse incidents between 14 December 2021 and 1 January 2022, a 12 per cent increase on the same period the year before.

The rise is consistent with annual figures, which show that in the 12 months from October 1, 2019, to September 30, 2020, there were 32,015 domestic abuse incidents recorded by the PSNI, meaning domestic abuse incidents now account for almost 20 per cent of all police-recorded crime.

Then First Minister Paul Givan MLA and

deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill MLA, responding to a written question by Foyle MLA Sinéad McLaughlin on how the statistics will inform OFMDFM’s work on its strategy addressing violence against women and girls, said that alongside the seven-year Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse Strategy published by the departments of Health and Justice in 2019, work has started on a Strategy to Tackle Violence Against Women and Girls, focused on early intervention to tackle “the root causes of this scourge and responsive services that will ensure women and girls are equally safe here”.

Justice Minister Naomi Long MLA said that number of people both suffering from, and killed as a result of, domestic abuse “is of genuine concern”. Long said that as part of the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act (Northern Ireland) 2021, a new domestic abuse offence will be introduced next year that will capture patterns of non-physical abusive behaviour, including controlling and coercive behaviour, by a partner, ex-partner, or close family member. It will also include behaviour that is physically violent, threatening or intimidating.

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Setting direction for Northern Ireland’s consumer champion What is the role of the Consumer Council?

The Consumer Council is Northern Ireland’s consumer body and is responsible for protecting and safeguarding the rights and interests of its 1.9 million people. We have multiple statutory functions in the areas of consumer affairs, energy, post, transport, water and sewerage, and food accessibility. Alongside this, we have the designation to raise a super-complaint to the relevant regulator, here or in the UK, if there is concern that a market in the UK is, or appears to be, significantly harming the interests of consumers.

Sheila McClelland, Chair of the Consumer Council of Northern Ireland.

Amidst a changing landscape where consumers in Northern Ireland are facing increasing cost of living, the after effects of the pandemic, and the impacts of EU Exit, consumer protection is vital.

Sheila McClelland, Chair of the Consumer Council of Northern Ireland reflects on her tenure, at a time when championing consumer rights has never been more important.

The day to day work of the Consumer Council is varied. Through consultations, education, outreach, research and campaigns on important consumer issues, the organisation ensures that the needs of the Northern Ireland consumer is placed at the heart of every decision made. We continuously monitor where pressures are being felt, what challenges exist, and what prevention and solutions can be sought.

Our free consumer helpline and websites have become vital sources of information and guidance for citizens across Northern Ireland, and supported by our outreach and community engagement work; the organisation strives to be available for people in a way that suits them.

The Consumer Council is an organisation which focuses on the many, not the few, and while doing so we pay particular care and attention to those who are disabled, chronically sick, of pensionable age, on low incomes, or live in rural areas. I personally see the necessity in representing the most vulnerable consumers and have championed a refocus in the organisation so that our services are accessible to those who need them most.

What is the Consumer Council’s biggest achievements in the past five years?

Consumer rights has always been a critical focus within Northern Ireland and in my time as chairperson of the organisation, we have experienced EU Exit, Covid-19, the ever-fluctuating cost of living and many legislation changes.

Working within a fluid landscape, the Consumer Council, through its consultation, research and outreach, remains abreast of emerging issues within Northern Ireland and responds.

For example, in 2017, we began investigating Private Parking Charge Notices (PCNs) in response to growing consumer detriment in this area. Since then, we have helped more than 6,400 consumers and have successfully appealed PCNs totalling over £500,000.

In 2018, we further expanded our remit, increasing our footprint in the arena of financial exclusion by working with HM Treasury, and looking to the future, following the launch of Northern Ireland’s Energy Strategy, we hope to play a pivotal role in supporting consumers on their path to net zero energy.

How was the last 12 months for the Consumer Council?

Over 2020 and 2021, as consumers navigated EU Exit and Covid-19, flanked by the rise in digitalisation of services, the need for the Consumer Council’s front line services increased. During this time, the organisation managed over 12,500 enquiries and complaints, a 64 per cent increase compared to 2018-19.

I am immensely proud of the Consumer Council team for their adaptation and dedication to the customer during the past two years, where they successfully returned over £1.5 million to the people of Northern Ireland through redress.

Covid-19 pushed the organisation to think creatively and find new ways of maintaining our service to consumers. It led the Consumer Council to diversify its offering further, now providing a hybrid approach to education and empowerment. The remote working world has also helped to streamline other aspects of our work; we expanded

“Working within a fluid landscape, the Consumer Council, through its consultation, research and outreach, remains abreast of emerging issues within Northern Ireland and responds.” our connections through many regional, national, and EU-based fora, to demonstrate the lived experience of consumers in Northern Ireland through evidence gathered by our extensive research programme.

The Consumer Council’s success is evident; it achieved a 99.8 per cent customer satisfaction score in 2021, and in the same year became the first organisation in Northern Ireland to receive a British Standard 18477 accreditation for inclusive service provision; an accolade which we have retained in 2022.

What does the future look like for the organisation?

Looking at 2022 and beyond, the horizon contains further uncertainty for consumers. The rising cost of living, the risks and opportunities resulting from digitalisation, the growing move towards decarbonisation including the need for a just and fair energy transition, reducing financial inclusion and increasing consumer detriment all contribute to this uncertainty.

Based on the insights obtained from our research and outreach programmes, extensive ongoing engagement with stakeholders from government, academia, the advice sector, wider public sector and business community, we endeavour to get the clearest

possible picture of the consumer position in Northern Ireland, which culminates in our annual Forward Work Programme. This opens for public consultation in February, and is crucial in ensuring that our work is relevant to the issues that matter most for consumers in Northern Ireland.

Through our Forward Work Programme, we strive to reach our objectives of protecting consumers, building their confidence, informing policy and educating consumers in making informed decisions, delivered through the lens of consumer protection principles that set out minimum standards for access, choice, safety, information, fairness, representation, redress and education.

The consultation on the Consumer Council’s Forward Work Programme opens on Monday 21 February 2022 and closes at 5pm on Friday 18 March 2022. Details on responding or attending the consultation briefings can be found at: www.consumercouncil.org.uk/forwar dworkprogramme

Consumers can contact the Consumer Council: T: 0800 121 6022 E: contact@consumercouncil.org.uk W: www.consumercouncil.org.uk

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Brexit loss could dwarf climate cost and Covid impact Brexit, rather than Covid-19, is the primary headwind facing the UK economy, according to Economics Editor of the Financial Times, Chris Giles.

“The UK economy is in a much better place than had been expected even a year ago,” explains Giles.

5.4 per cent, its highest rate in 30 years, meaning a squeeze on household incomes and a deepening of the cost-of-living crisis.

The FT’s Economics Editor was speaking at the 26th annual Northern Ireland Economic Conference in December 2021 and highlighted that a loss of 3 per cent of the economy in the second wave of Covid, compared to a 25 per cent loss in April 2020, shows that the UK economy has learnt to mitigate the pandemic, and lockdowns in particular.

Interestingly, the UK as a whole shares a similar picture as in Northern Ireland, where there are now more pay-rolled employees than prepandemic, meaning a tight labour market and again reflecting a much better position than expected. The current UK unemployment rate of around 4 per cent is significantly lower than the 10-15 per cent rate predicted at the start of the pandemic.

Latest data shows that the UK economy was only 0.6 per cent below pre-pandemic levels in September 2021, a significant difference than the over 4 per cent drop predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in November 2020 and the over 3 per cent drop predicted in March 2021.

Giles explains that a swifter recovery than expected is in large part due to the vaccination programme and the ability to open up the economy faster than originally expected.

However, he urges caution in the high uncertainty of current figures, stating that the ONS is currently trying to reconcile the disparity between other economic measurement methods which outline a 3 per cent fall in incomes from prepandemic level and an over one per cent drop in output, over the quarter.

It is for this reason that he also urges caution when comparing international economies.

However, current best available statistics show that the UK economy is performing similar to its counterparts, including Canada, Italy and Germany, but less well than France and the US. A notable consequence of improved economic circumstances beyond expectation is inflation and in December 2020, UK inflation jumped to

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“This pandemic has not been an employment story at all,” states Giles.

However, looking under the headline figures, Giles points to an “extremely unusual spread” between the performance of different sectors.

The Economics Editor says that some sectors falling by 75 per cent while others rise by 20-30 per cent over a period of 18 months is unique.

These different impacts on productivity have led to various data spikes but, as a whole, the UK is close to its pre-pandemic productivity trend. A major reason for this is the level of government borrowing to insure businesses and households against the pandemic, the largest level of public borrowing in any time since the world wars.

Brexit While Giles admits that it is still early days when assessing the long-term effect of both Covid-19 and Brexit, he highlights the widening of the gap between the eurozone and US economies, which existed at the point of the referendum.

“What we can say so far is that Brexit does appear to be having a detrimental impact on the UK economy,” states Giles. “Something like 2-3 per cent would be a reasonable estimate of the

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A V-shaped recovery from an unusal recession Monthly level of GDP - index: 2019=100

0.6% below the pre-pandemic level 100

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90 Learning to cope 85

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effect on the UK economy of a Brexit hit, compared to where we might otherwise have expected to be, had the referendum gone in the other direction.”

will be required if the UK is to reach its ambition of net zero emissions over the next 30 years. The Climate Change Commission estimates that the UK will require about £50 billion a year of investment given that upfront investment in green energy offers a return, the CCC offers an estimated net cost of around 0.5 per cent of national income (£11-12 billion) per year.

Giles highlights that the impact of Brexit is particularly evident in trade figures, where UK exports have lagged other countries. Similarly, while exports, particularly of goods, have done extremely well around the world this year, UK exports have “not joined the party”. “Our share of world exports has pretty much fallen along the line with estimates as predicted by the OBR in 2016 after the referendum,” he says.

“This is a reasonable burden, but it is worth noting that the 0.5 per cent is significantly less than the 3-4 per cent missed as a result of Brexit,” says Giles.

Prospects

Giles says that at the moment there is no reason to doubt the long-term estimate of a 4 per cent hit from Brexit for the UK economy, stressing that this does not mean a 4 per cent reduction but that the UK will forgo 4 per cent of economic activity it might otherwise have had.

Looking to the future, Giles believes that scope for rapid growth of the economy still exists, particularly in relation to consumption growth, given that levels of household savings remain very high. He acknowledges that a return to pre-global financial crisis is out of the question but adds: “We might get on a better trend than the pre-pandemic path and that is a reasonable hope for the UK looking forward.”

Net zero The 4 per cent is extremely significant when considering the huge amount of investment which

The global financial crisis economic hit dwarfs Brexit and Covid-19 GDP index: 2019=100 Actual data

Pre-global financial crisis trend

Pre-Covid trend 120 110 100 90 80 70

© FT 1997

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Driving Northern Ireland’s EV charging network The exciting new project will more than double the existing number of rapid chargers here and will also see the introduction of high power (200kW) charging for the first time in Northern Ireland through the delivery of five high power hubs in key locations. These can charge multiple vehicles simultaneously and can provide EV drivers with 100km of range in as little as six minutes.

Electric Vehicle (EV) infrastructure will play an important role in acting as a catalyst for encouraging the electrification of transport by supporting EV drivers throughout Northern Ireland.

Following a significant investment and commitment by ESB to replace and upgrade the existing public charging infrastructure, access and the experience of the network for current and future EV drivers is set to be completely transformed over the coming years.

expand and enhance the EV charging

In November 2021, ESB announced that it had secured £3.27 million from the Levelling Up Fund (LUF), a £4.8 billion government fund to support infrastructure projects across the UK, to

existing fast (22kW) and rapid (50kW)

network across Northern Ireland.

Fastest and most advanced charging Coupled with its own investment, this new funding enables ESB to replace all EV chargers across Northern Ireland, updating the infrastructure with the fastest, most reliable and advanced technology available.

John Byrne (pictured), head of ESB ecars, says this project demonstrates ESB’s deep commitment to enabling the electrification of transport in Northern Ireland at such a critical time in our transition to a low-carbon future. “This investment will completely revamp the EV charging network in Northern Ireland, modernising it, making it faster and more reliable for our customers and will support the growing numbers of EVs on our roads. With electrification a key climate target for governments around the world, including here in Northern Ireland, investment at this time is crucial to build a charging network that will better meet the needs of existing EV drivers and attract more drivers to choose EVs.” ESB has operated the largest EV charging network on the island of Ireland, consisting of more than 1,350 charging points, for more than 10 years.

In recent years, ESB has also deployed extensive public EV charging networks in London, Coventry and Birmingham.

The charging infrastructure and associated technology has advanced significantly since the company installed its first EV chargers over a decade ago.

In Northern Ireland, work has recently concluded on a project to improve the network with ESB upgrading more than 30 charge points at key locations over the last six months, bringing their availability to over 96 per cent for customers. These recently upgraded charge points are located throughout Northern Ireland in areas including Bangor, Belfast, Larne, Lisburn, Derry,

Armagh, Enniskillen, Omagh, Downpatrick, Ballymena, Portrush and Newry.

As Byrne notes, it is the company’s aim to achieve this level of availability across the entire network. “It is our ambition that the charging network in Northern Ireland will reach and maintain reliability levels above 98 per cent as the Levelling-Up project progresses over the next 24 months.”

Collaboration This new investment, in turn, will help accelerate the uptake of EVs in Northern Ireland, where almost 5,000 drivers are currently using ESB’s network of 175 public charge points.

“We are currently assessing sites suitable for the new charging stations, with locations dependent on several factors including current charge point usage, customer feedback, traffic volumes, accessibility, amenities and grid capacity at the sites. As always, we will seek to work with all local stakeholders and authorities to ensure the sites are accessible to all,” explains Byrne, who says collaboration with government and local authorities is critical to achieving climate targets and encouraging the electrification of transport.

“We are grateful to all the MLAs and local councils who supported our submission for the Levelling Up Fund and look forward to delivering the new EV charging network that will bring so many positive benefits to current and future EV drivers, communities and the environment.”

Infrastructure Minister Nichola Mallon MLA, whose department is at the forefront of developing and implementing policies which will support the decarbonisation transport in Northern Ireland, recognised the significance of this investment, stating: “This will provide confidence to existing and new drivers of electric vehicles here through the enhancement of our charging infrastructure. A modern and efficient EV charging infrastructure is essential at this time as we address the climate emergency and make the transition to cleaner and greener modes of transport.”

“With electrification a key climate target for governments around the world, including here in Northern Ireland, investment at this time is crucial to build a charging network that will better meet the needs of existing EV drivers and attract more drivers to choose EVs.” Future-proofing Maintaining the network and providing associated support to EV drivers including a 24/7 call centre, IT systems and the integrated ecar connect app is critical to the long-term success and improvement of the service for all users.

The app, which allows drivers to find a charger, see if the charger is in use, map out their journey, start and stop a charge, and sign up and manage their account, will see new features added in the coming months to make it easier for drivers to charge and go.

“The network has been free to use for more than 10 years. To ensure we can continue to invest and future-proof the network, a pricing model is necessary to ensure everyone gets the best experience and service possible,” says Byrne.

“We continue to recommend that EV owners do most of their charging at home if possible and use our network for top-ups or long journeys. As

demonstrated in the other areas we operate, our pricing models are still significantly cheaper than conventional fuels, even during these times of high energy costs.

“As we look to the future, our focus will be on developing commercial partnerships to improve the network, further expansion of the network, utilising the very best of new technologies and identifying ways to make it easier for drivers to charge on the go.

“With the importance and benefits of transitioning to a low-carbon future widely recognised, it is action like this, that supports the electrification of transport, that is a critical component in reducing emissions and meeting climate targets,” adds Byrne.

For more information visit www.esb.ie/ecars/NI

Delivering innovation and green growth: The Housing Executive’s plans to tackle climate change

Hitting net zero: Minister for Communities Deirdre Hargey MLA (centre) joins Housing Executive Chief Executive Grainia Long (right) and Gerry McAvoy from M and M Construction, inspecting properties in the Cliftondene area of north Belfast currently being modernised to improve their energy efficiency. The scheme is funded with €2.3 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), through its Investment for Growth and Jobs Programme for Northern Ireland, with a further €26 million invested by the Housing Executive. Almost 2,000 homes will be upgraded.

With a budget of £1.2 billion annually, the Housing Executive is a major economic force in Northern Ireland.

As the strategic housing authority for Northern Ireland, working in partnership with the Department for Communities, the organisation is responsible for tackling homelessness, determining and addressing housing need, administering Housing Benefit, overseeing housing support services through the Supporting People programme, providing private sector grants and overseeing the social housing new build programme, which will deliver 1,900 social homes this year, developed by housing associations.

The organisation’s wide range of functions and services mean that it has an investment impact not only in housing but also across the construction, health,

voluntary and community sectors. As the Home Energy Conservation Authority it will also play a significant role in the delivery of the newly launched Energy Strategy Path to Net Zero Energy Action Plan.

As a landlord of 85,000 homes, through its annual maintenance programme, the Housing Executive has a direct role in generating local economic outcomes, sustaining jobs and supply chains. This year will see £220 million invested through maintenance programmes with plans for up to £260 million in 2022/23.

However, with housing accounting for 14 per cent of greenhouse gases (GHGs),

the Housing Executive is committed to ensuring that investment in its homes drives green growth, through a commitment to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. At the core of the programmes is a range of innovative technologies to address the impact of climate change and improve sustainability. Taking a ‘fabric first’ approach to decarbonisation of homes, and delivering at scale in this decade, presents a once in a generation opportunity to improve housing standards, reduce energy costs of households and create jobs.

The Energy Efficiency in Social Housing project is a multi-million-pound investment programme to improve the energy performance of almost 2,000 of its homes. This has been made possible by funding of €23 million secured from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through its Investment for Growth and Jobs Programme for Northern Ireland 2014-2020.

A further €22 million of funding is being invested by the Housing Executive.

This six-year €45 million programme is expected to be completed by September 2023. Several schemes have already been completed or are currently underway. The schemes include improving thermal efficiency in aluminium bungalows and ‘no fines’ dwellings through the provision of new external wall cladding, new double glazing, improved ventilation and loft insulation.

The Rural-Led Energy Transition (RULET) Pilot is a joint initiative between the Housing Executive and Ulster University, within SPIRE 2 which is an EU funded project aimed at reducing or eliminating the risk of low-income households being left behind in the energy transition. The focus is the domestic electrical heating systems, when combined with energy storage and can this system be delivered and operated at scale. The RULET project commenced on site in winter 2021 and monitoring will continue over the next two heating seasons.

Small Business Research Initiative The Housing Executive recently launched a Research and Development competition to quickly develop ‘Smart’ systems that to help reduce the carbon emissions from heating homes by using more local clean renewable energy and enable our tenants to keep their homes warm and dry, while saving on energy costs. The Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition is funded by the Department for the Economy and project-managed by the Housing Executive and the Strategic Investment Board. In Phase 1 of SBRI, four companies are receiving up to £30,000 each to test new ideas in preparation for a Phase II and more funding after March, which will involve further testing in homes. Some of the benefits of the smart systems will be enabling tenants to monitor temperatures to pre-heat homes and provide hot water using renewable power; reduce the risk of damp and mould; and introduce new meters that make better use of lower cost electricity tariffs. The Housing Executive will use this innovative programme to advise its heating systems within its own homes and in the wider housing sector.

Sustainable homes: Tenants in social housing in these houses in Belfast will benefit from retrofitting through more comfortable, manageable homes, with lower bills.

Lisnafin Park Refurbishment The Housing Executive is planning to refurbish and modernise a derelict block of six flats in Strabane to bring it back into use, and to help meet the needs of the older applicants on the waiting list in the area. The design of the renovation and associated works benefits from greater thermal properties, increased insulation and the installation of renewable energy heating by solar and geothermal technologies.

At the same time the Housing Executive will be using the opportunity to trial assisted living and explore how tenants could benefit from the latest innovative technologies to control their home. The assistive technology will mean that the residents will be able to control communal and flat doors, remote access, the heating thermostat and internal lighting.

New Build Pilot: Modern Methods of Construction The decision by the Minister for Communities to launch a major revitalisation programme, to reform the Housing Executive so that it can borrow to invest in its homes and add to new supply represents a major opportunity, and is planned for delivery in 2025.

However, between now and then, opportunities are being explored to innovate, for example, through a pilot

Modern Methods of Construction pilot with the Department for Communities, which will enable the Housing Executive to build a small number of homes and explore ways to apply the best new standards in building technology. The first scheme will provide six semidetached dwellings and will incorporate Modern Methods of Construction, ultralow energy building techniques and mechanical ventilation and heat recovery system with integral heat pump.

The Housing Executive is looking to explore if a building can produce net zero greenhouse gas emissions in use, known as ‘zero carbon in use’.

Embodied energy can also be reduced by using low-carbon building materials and construction methods. The standards explored in this pilot far exceed current building regulations. The hope is that building to high energy standards now, will futureproof new builds, to avoid the need to retrofit to achieve net zero by 2050.

Housing Executive T: 03448 920 900 E: information@nihe.gov.uk W: www.nihe.gov.uk

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Ireland tops Europe and Britain in high-value FDI attraction The Northern Ireland Protocol has become an advantage in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), a new report by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has found, with high-value FDI now accounting for over 70 per cent of all new greenfield FDI projects on the island of Ireland.

In its report, Enhancing the attractiveness of the island of Ireland to high-value foreign direct investment, the ESRI found that “Northern Ireland’s continued access to the EU single market for goods secured through the Protocol is a key comparative advantage for attracting high-value FDI relative to the other regions in the UK”.

The findings of the report back up this assertion, with the FDI in high-value sectors in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland showing greater shares of all new greenfield FDI projects than Great Britain or the remaining 26 EU state outside of the Republic. The highvalue sectors included in the ESRI’s analysis include: aerospace; biotechnology; pharmaceuticals; medical

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devices; semiconductors; business machines and equipment; electronic components; consumer electronics; communications; software and IT services; financial services; business servicers; and space and defence.

Greenfield FDI projects are defined as “new operations established by foreign companies at a new site”. These highvalue projects account for 76 per cent of all new greenfield FDI project in the Republic of Ireland and 70 per cent in Northern Ireland, compared to 67 per cent in Britain and 51 per cent in the EU26. 70 per cent and 76 per cent of new greenfield FDI in the Republic and North respectively are accounted for by these high-value projects, compared to 39 per cent in Britain and 24 per cent in the EU26.

High-value FDI on both sides of the border in Ireland is dominated by services, which accounts for 86 per cent of all high-value FDI in the Republic and 91 per cent in Northern Ireland. Services account for 87 per cent and 80 per cent of the high-value FDI in Britain and the EU26 respectively.

Northern Ireland high-value FDI market is dominated by software and IT services, with these projects accounting for 53 per cent of new high-value greenfield FDI projects from 2003-2020; only two other sectors – business services (19.2 per cent) and communications (10.5 per cent) – account for more than 10 per cent of the market. Software and IT services is the dominant sector in all jurisdictions considered, although not to the extent of

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Northern Ireland. It accounts for 36.3 per cent, 42.4 per cent, and 32.1 per cent in the Republic of Ireland, Britain, and the EU26 respectively.

Consistent with the report’s assertion that Northern Ireland’s access to the EU’s market is giving it a comparative advantage to the rest of the UK in attracting high-value FDI are the report’s findings on the origin of high-value FDI investors from 2003-2020 in Ireland, Britain and Europe. While all markets received the majority of their high-value FDI from non-EU investors, Britain recorded a proportion of 74.4 per cent of investors from outside the EU, with Northern Ireland being next closest of the four markets with a rate of 64.8 per cent, more comparable to that of the Republic, 64.2 per cent. FDI into the EU26 was an almost perfect split, with 50.1 per cent of high-value FDI coming from outside the EU. The research “indicate[s] that the attractiveness of a given location in the EU and UK is positively associated with EU market potential, domestic market growth, low labour costs, agglomeration economies in knowledge-intensive sectors, availability of skills, R&D expenditure in the public sector (government and higher education), government funding of business expenditure on R&D, broadband access, low corporate taxation, less restrictive regulations with respect to FDI and less complex business regulations”.

New high-value greenfield FDI by investor origin, 2003-2020 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Republic of Ireland

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Non-EU investors

Sectoral composition of new high-value greenfield FDI, 2003-2020 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

With these determining factors in mind, the report examines a range of possible scenarios for enhancing the attractiveness of the island of Ireland with regard to FDI. The ESRI’s research “finds that the largest gains in terms of the number of high-value FDI projects that would be attracted to both [the Republic of] Ireland and Northern Ireland would be in the case of higher R&D expenditure in the public sector”, and in the case of Northern Ireland, that attractiveness would also be increased by “a situation of increased educational attainment of the working-age population”.

Another suggestion within is the development of “complementarities between the two jurisdictions”, particularly in regard to EU market potential, workplace skills and investment in R&D in the public sector. To

Republic of Ireland

Northern Ireland Services

Great Britain

EU26

Ma nufacturing

this extent, the report notes, already existing initiatives in Ireland such as the North-South Research Programme and the proposed all-island centres of research excellence are “likely to contribute to enhancing the attractiveness of both jurisdictions to high-value FDI”.

corresponding increase of 7.5 per cent

The report also estimates that plans for the Republic to move to a corporate tax rate of 15 per cent in line with global reform of corporate tax rates will result in the Republic suffering a decrease of 4.4 per cent per annum in high-value FDI, with Northern Ireland, where the rate is 19 per cent, experiencing a

public sector; increased government

per annum.

Policy choices that the ESRI suggest in order to compensate for the Republic’s decreased attractiveness upon the increase of the corporate tax rate include: increased R&D spend in the funding of business R&D; and the incentivisation of higher proportions of the working-age population in participation in education and training and in the attainment of upper secondary and third-level education.

agenda issues

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The future is physics In delivering a step change to its economy, Northern Ireland must change how it thinks about physics and provide full recognition of its place and role in the education system, skills development, job creation, productivity and research and development.

The Institute of Physics (IOP) is the professional body and learned society for physics in the UK and Ireland. It seeks to raise public awareness and understanding of physics, inspire people to develop their knowledge, understanding and enjoyment of physics and support the development of a diverse and inclusive physics community. As a charity, it has a mission to ensure that physics delivers on its exceptional potential to benefit society.

As a society we face an unprecedented array of challenges. Globally, we need to address a changing climate and a growing population, to decarbonise economies, improve healthcare and ensure water, food and energy supplies.

Domestically, we need to develop the next generation of industries to create jobs and improve productivity to safeguard citizens’ futures.

Physics has a vital role to play in tackling these issues and helping make the UK and Ireland fit for a new industrial era of science, technology and engineering, an era the IOP wants to see the UK and Ireland transformed into science superpowers.

So where does Northern Ireland stand on the cusp of this new era?

There is much opportunity but for it to be fully grasped Northern Ireland’s physics-based businesses need supported in skills and research and development (R&D).

The IOP’s Workforce Skills Survey for the UK and Ireland found a common picture. With physics skills underpinning productive industries in both, strengthening provision of physics skills is central to ambitions to improve economic growth, prosperity and living standards at national and local levels.

Beyond a new approach to physics in our education system the actions needed now are: •

ensuring availability of a variety of physics education and training pathways, as well as complementary transferable and digital skills development, all informed by close engagement between educators, employers, and researchers and innovators;

•

incentivising employers to invest in employees’ upskilling and reskilling; and

•

ensuring interventions aimed at strengthening provision of physics skills move beyond the level of ‘STEM skills’, given the distinct labour market demand for physics knowledge.

Despite preconceptions, the demand for physics spans all skills levels. High-skill-level roles are seeing the fastest growth, with the number of jobs for physical scientists, for example, growing by 40 per cent between 2010 and 2020, more than half (53 per cent) of physics-demanding jobs do not require a degree.

their productivity growth of 21.3 per cent was almost five times the Northern Ireland performance of 4.5 per cent. With 92 per cent of the 5,285 physics-based companies being microsized (less than 10 employees) the opportunities for more growth, better jobs and higher productivity are there to be taken.

Already there is significant unmet demand for physics skills, with a substantial number of physics-demanding roles at any one time (nearly 9,000 high-duration vacancies in mid-2021, having quickly recovered to pre-pandemic levels) seeming to persist in being hard to fill.

R&D, and its commercialisation, is the next piece to becoming science superpowers but both the UK (1.8 per cent) and Ireland (1.4 per cent) fall well below the OECD average of spending 2.4 per cent of GDP and behind key competitors such as Germany who spend 3 per cent or more. In 2021, the IOP commissioned the report Paradigm Shift analysing the R&D work of UK and Irish PBIs. It highlighted the need for more, longer-term investment sustained throughout the R&D chain with government incentives vital to achieve this.

There is strong, sustained growth in demand for physics skills, particularly outside of the scientific sector, with a significant proportion of hard-to-fill vacancies being for digital, and business and finance roles, reflecting their importance, but likely to exacerbate existing skills shortages in the coming years.

While Physics Based Industries (PBIs) come under many different names it includes advanced manufacturing, sciences and technology services, medical equipment servicing, energy sector and telecoms. Whatever the enterprises are called PBIs are a major and key contributor to Northern Ireland and have the potential to do much more.

The IOP’s research into the impact of PBIs, shows in Northern Ireland they account for nearly 50,000 full-time employees. They contribute £3.5 billion to Northern Ireland’s Gross Value Added (GVA) the same contribution as the retail sector and represents 7.3 per cent of Northern Ireland’s GDP. The annual turnover is worth £10 billion making it larger than the construction sector. With productivity a major challenge for the Northern Ireland and broader UK economy, the physics sector is a trailblazer with labour productivity of £71,966 per worker. As a sector it provides high value jobs with average employee compensation of £34,791.

In the past decade, while Northern Ireland PBIs achieved the highest GVA growth (47 per cent) of all UK regions, 21 per cent employment growth (13 per cent UK average) and in Northern Ireland

Key performance indicators included the scale of investment, track record of securing government resources and relationships between industry and research institutions. The Northern Ireland PBIs performed well in industry/research relationships and securing government resources (both at UK and Northern Ireland levels) but amongst lower on scale of investment than elsewhere in the UK. The challenge is how to make this ‘small but perfectly formed’ research community can be upscaled.

The survey showed Northern Ireland PBIs involved in R&D planned to increase their commitment and saw it as central to their future development.

The Department for Economy’s new 10x vision for the next decade makes clear the need for: “…a step change in how we think about our economy”.

Part of that step change must be how Northern Ireland thinks about physics and provides full recognition of its place and role in the education system, skills development, job creation, productivity and research and development.

For further information visit us at iop.org

issues agenda

Humanitarian charity provide “surge capacity” amid winter and Covid pressures A humanitarian charity has said that it provided surge capacity to at least 13 emergency departments and community hospitals in Northern Ireland due to winter pressures and Covid-19.

The British Red Cross, a volunteer-led humanitarian organisation that helps people in crisis, is part of a worldwide movement, originally created to bring assistance to those wounded on the battlefield.

It now operates in an international and national capacity “to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found”.

In Northern Ireland, the Red Cross delivers non-clinical support to the health service all year round, but say they are delivering “extra support” during a busy winter period.

“Our teams provide services all year round as well as providing surge capacity at times of high demand such as annual winter pressures and, of course, during the Covid pandemic where we have worked with partners to support vaccine clinics and provide additional assistance to the ambulance service and hospital colleagues,” a spokesperson says.

In mid-January 2022, the Red Cross was within seven hospitals in Northern Ireland, supporting the emergency departments, and six smaller community hospitals.

Emergency departments in Northern Ireland have come under extreme pressure in recent months, with many warning of long waits for non-life-threatening injuries. The pandemic has compounded pressures on the health service which have been straining to deal with winter demand for many years.

At the end December 2021, the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust was forced to issue a statement on the “extreme pressure” the Ulster Hospital was under, citing 135 patients and 55 awaiting admission, the Trust warned that those with non-life-threatening injuries would have “to wait a very long time”.

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agenda issues

In January, an emergency department consultant in Derry’s Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry said that staff shortages meant it was “almost impossible” to provide safe services and described it as the “worst situation” he had seen in his 30-year career.

At the end of August 2021, health trusts appealed to people to stay away from hospitals except in cases of medical emergency.

Additionally, the humanitarian charity said that as part of their Covid support service, it had been collecting and delivering medications for clinically extremely vulnerable people, who have been advised not to leave home, adding: “We also provide other non-clinical support such as our community connector services which help people overcome loneliness and build social connections, an issue which has been exacerbated by the pandemic.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said that the Department fully supports steps the HSC Trusts have taken to increase capacity and deliver much needed care to patients.

“Our hospitals have been under persistent and severe pressure for many months. The system as a whole has been operating above 100 per cent capacity since the summer, with hundreds of patients waiting daily for a hospital bed.

“These pressures are most acutely seen in our emergency departments. More recently, high staff absence rates due to the prevalence of the Omicron variant has further impacted on our HSC Trusts’ capacity to deliver care.

“The Department fully supports any steps that our HSC Trusts have taken to increase capacity to deliver much needed care to patients.”

Justice report

Digital

Events

Print

justice report

Reform, recovery and resource Justice Minister Naomi Long MLA discusses her department’s legislative progress, the road to recovery and the remainder of the mandate.

Not wanting to rest on her laurels, Justice Minister Naomi Long MLA is aware of the significant volume of work in front of her department, the justice committee and the Northern Ireland Assembly before the end of the current mandate, if she is to see through her ambitious programme of proposed legislation.

Long’s department has been recognised as one of the most proactive and ardent in developing and delivering legislation in the short two years since the Assembly and Executive returned from a three-year absence.

The Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Bill has now passed to an Act, with the Criminal Justice (Committal Reform) Bill and Damages

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(Return on Investment) Bill, which are awaiting royal assent, soon to follow. The Minister also intends to have the Protection from Stalking Bill and the Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Bill, both of which are progressing through the Assembly, finalised before 28 March.

“I was really ambitious in terms of legislation because after a three-year break in the Assembly sitting, I felt we were behind in a number of areas, particularly those which affected vulnerable victims and witnesses,” explains Long.

The Minister believes that the Assembly’s absence had led the public to question its effectiveness and with this, she saw an opportunity to highlight the power of a

and then bring forward legislation in the next mandate.

The fact that the Minister’s ambitions, outlined at the outset, remain on track is a noticeable success when considering the emergence and disruptive nature of the pandemic.

Finally, Long’s plans to publish a Miscellaneous Provisions Bill in the current mandate were hampered by political disagreements between some ministers over the Bill’s broader content and the potential for clauses to be amended in the floor of the Assembly. Although expressing her disappointment that the proposed Bill was repeatedly blocked, Long opted for a “pragmatic approach” in securing the agreement for around 70 per cent of the Bill’s content in the form of the narrower Justice (Sex Offences and Trafficking Victims) Bill. However, the Minister has restated her intention to continue to develop a small number of planned amendments that fit within the public protection objectives of the Bill, with

Long is quick to point out that ongoing work goes beyond the core pieces of legislation and indeed beyond the current mandate.

“We have been doing a lot of policy development, including for bills for the next mandate, so that whoever is the Justice Minister after May’s election has a really strong programme of work going into the next mandate,” explains Long.

To this end, Long says that a review of

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functioning Assembly by providing legislation that improves people’s quality of life.

“I have been very clear with Executive colleagues that in its current form, that this [budget] is not something I could support.” sentencing carried out by the Department is informing early-stage development of a potential new Sentencing Bill. Additionally, while a response to the independent hate crime legislation review, the final report of which was published in December 2020, did not make it on to the Department’s legislative programme for the current mandate, Long explains that her department is soon to launch a first stage consultation with a view to having a consolidated Hate Crime Bill in the next mandate.

Similarly, the Department are currently consulting on Charlotte’s Law following a review of current law in relation to disclosure of information on the locations of victims’ remains by those convicted of their killing. Inspired by a campaign led by the family of Charlotte Murray, the review examined the need for similar legislation to that of Helen’s Law introduced in England and Wales. The Minister suggests that ambitions for Northern Ireland are to go beyond the legislation in place in England and Wales, meaning a broader look at opportunities to apply pressure to individuals who know the whereabouts of victims’ remains at each stage of the justice process. Long explains that the aim will be to put in place the administrative elements of any agreed outcome

the aim of these amendments forming a short Bill at the beginning of the next mandate.

Minister Speaking prior to the First Minster’s resignation, Long said she believes that the next incoming Justice Minister has a real opportunity for reform and to make real and meaningful changes to people’s lives, so long as they possess an ambition to drive that change. Interestingly, the Alliance Party leader has not ruled herself out of potentially retaking the post following May’s election.

“I have loved the two years I have had in justice.

It has not been an easy two years, especially when you layer the political challenges and Covid-19 on top of an already difficult mandate but I have enjoyed working in a department focused on delivery and have found it very rewarding,” she says.

Positioning herself as someone who does not resile from difficult roles, Long says that the election, the objectives of any new Executive and the shape of a new Programme for Government will determine her future outlook but adds: “Irrespective of whether I am minister, I am 4

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justice report Justice Minister Naomi Long is pictured with Simon Hutchinson, chairman of NI Search and Rescue (NISAR) and volunteers.

genuinely glad of the experience I have had within justice and I will remain passionate about what justice can do in terms or improving lives of people in the community.”

Sector recovery Turning towards the operations of the justice sector and in particular, recovery from the pandemic, Long has heaped praise on the innovation and co-operation shown to mitigate the impact of the virus. Pointing to the increased use of technology in court proceedings as an example, including emergency powers enabling things like remote access to courts for defendants, victims and witnesses, telephone statements by the PSNI and the exchange of digital evidence between the PPS, PSNI and the courts, Long outlines to a desire to continue with progress and build on the momentum to ensure long-term benefits for the justice system.

“Covid has been a challenge and we do have a backlog to get through, but the key is trying to make changes that will have a lasting impact so that we will continue to have momentum to speed up the justice system, which was our main objective from the outset,” she states.

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The Minister is emphatic that progress on speeding up the justice system will require adequate funding, something she does not believe is available in the recently published three-year draft Budget by the Department of Finance.

The Department of Finance’s draft Budget, which is currently out for consultation, allocated the Department of Justice £3.37 billion Resource DEL and £353.4 million of capital, amounts which Long describes as not “manageable” or “adequate”.

“I have been very clear with Executive colleagues that in its current form, that this is not something I could support. This is not about protecting my own backyard because the impact will likely not hit until after the current mandate, but it is about the impact this would have on vulnerable groups and victims and the implications for us not being able to deliver against key statutory responsibilities. It is also about acknowledging the increased downstream costs to the justice system, the health system and the public sector of inadequate resources.”

The Minister believes that the current budget represents further cuts beyond the 9 per cent

justice report

Justice Minister Naomi Long MLA is pictured with Tracey McCloskey; Regional Courts Business Manager, Northern Ireland Courts.

reduction in the Department’s allocation since devolution began and says that the consequences will be an impact on public confidence in policing and justice. The allocation, she says, is in stark contrast to the £2 billion allocated to the Ministry of Justice by the Treasury in the UK Chancellor’s recent budget.

Expressing her frustration that increased

able to facilitate the Executive’s commitment to increase police numbers from 7,000 to 7,500.

In 2021, the Minister secured additional funding for an extra 100 officers, with the aim to continually build towards the desired number.

However, there are now fears that the current allocation could see officer numbers drop below even the initial 7,000 figure.

“Covid has been a challenge and we do have a backlog to get through, but the key is trying to make changes that will have a lasting impact so that we will continue to have momentum to speed up the justice system, which was our main objective from the outset.” spending for Justice in the UK’s budget has not translated to Northern Ireland, she says: “I agree that we should prioritise health and wellbeing outcomes in this budget, but we also need to acknowledge that not all policy and activity that contributes to good physical and mental health is delivered by the Department of Health.”

Pointing to the Department of Justice’s funding of some third sector organisations, which in other jurisdiction, would often be funded through the health budget, Long adds: “Unless we tackle these things at source, we will not be able to reduce the burden on health, which is part of the job of making the health service more sustainable.”

The Minister is also unhappy at the proposed budget allocation for the PSNI of £148 million.

While the Department has fulfilled many of if the objectives set out in the New Decade, New Agreement deal of January 2020, it has not been

“The £14.8 million allocated for police staffing would not sustain 7,100 officers and, if you then apply cuts of 2 per cent to the justice budget, you could not not find further cuts because the PSNI equates to nearly 70 per cent of the justice budget.”

Long says that the application of the 2 per cent cut would set back opportunities for recovery. By way of example, she says that Crown court recovery, predicted to take around one year, could be extended to 2027 without sustained funding.

“We believe there are solutions out there that can be found, and we are continuing to engage as constructively as possible with the Department of Finance in seeking to avoid a justice system which is completely broken and in which people have no confidence. Hopefully we will see a better outcome at the end of the budget process.”

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NIACRO: Five policy asks at 50 justice report

Service and the roll out of the Witness Service into the Criminal Courts in Northern Ireland.

Before taking up the role of Director of Operations with NIACRO in May 2020, I was Director of Care with Northern Ireland Chest Heart and Stroke. I served as Chairperson of the Law Centre NI from 2002 to 2008, and currently sit on its board.

NIACRO five asks at 50 Pivotal to the work of NIACRO is listening to our services users and consulting with our stakeholders across all areas of our work. Over the last year we reviewed our policy asks which will set the agenda for the coming years.

1. We want effective resourcing of early intervention programmes and services

CEO of the Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NIACRO) , Fiona Greene.

Marking its 50th year, new CEO of NIACRO, Fiona Greene, discusses the organisation’s five policy asks for the future.

NIACRO is a well-known and highly trusted third sector organisation, working to reduce crime and its impact on people and communities in Northern Ireland.

Our mission has kept us firmly located within criminal justice but has also given us the opportunity to work within early intervention, as well as supporting people to desist from crime. We have 27 service programmes across Northern Ireland, and last year we supported almost 7,000 people; our staff worked tirelessly to deliver, despite the restrictions.

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At the heart of NIACRO are our values, which drive a commitment to people and communities on the margins, and a determination to make our society one where everyone experiences fairness, hope and opportunity; that is why I am here.

My background I studied Law at Queen’s University Belfast, and initially worked in welfare rights including Gingerbread NI. I then joined Victim Support NI, developing their Criminal Injuries Compensation

Early intervention works on the principle of intervening at an early age and/or stage to help children/adults to develop the skills they need to live happy, healthy, and successful lives, and work to reduce the negative impacts of disadvantage.

On the principles of justice reinvestment, we in NIACRO want to see an Executive-led, inter-departmental commitment to the resourcing of a comprehensive early intervention programme over future years as well as resourcing to tackle educational underachievement.

2. We want to see the minimum age of criminal responsibility raised Northern Ireland’s minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) is set at 10-years-old and, shockingly, is one of the lowest in Europe. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends that the minimum age of criminal responsibility should be 16 years. Raising MACR would: •

remove significant numbers of children entering the criminal justice system;

•

support the expansion of evidencebased early intervention services and programmes;

•

ensure children and young people are supported and not punishedthat behaviour is addressed; and

•

demonstrate a commitment to trauma informed practice.

3. We want delays in the criminal justice system addressed

NIACRO believes the time has come to introduce legislation to implement custodial time limits. In parallel with this, specific reform projects should be initiated to reduce unnecessary adjournments and delays in processing cases.

4. We want a reduction in the use of remand, supported by enhanced bail alternatives The number and percentage of people in prison is rising. In 2020/21 nearly half of women prisoners were on remand, while men on remand made up over a third. Being remanded into custody before trial can have many negative consequences for the individual, their household, and employers. It has consequences for finances, employment, housing, and family relationships. It is also challenging for the Prison Service, to offer suitable meaningful activity for people on remand.

In addition, the tendency to use prison as a ‘place of safety’ is of particular concern, further traumatising, criminalising, and stigmatising people.

Without better accommodation and bail support options for men and women, NIACRO is concerned that magistrates will have no option other than continue the current practice of remanding people into custody before trial.

5. Reform the Rehabilitation of Offenders (NI) Order 1978 Helping people with convictions to contribute to and feel included in society is key to reducing reoffending.

Employment is just one way to achieve this and a considerable proportion of NIACRO’s work involves supporting people to gain qualifications and prepare for employment.

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When criminal justice does not perform effectively it can have a significant adverse impact on the lives of those involved: victims, defendants, witnesses, and their families. It also wastes significant amounts of public monies and impacts upon the confidence of the public in the system’s effectiveness.

Fiona Greene and Olwen Lyner, outgoing CEO, with recent award for Organisation of the Year from Howard League for Penal Reform.

“Pivotal to the work of NIACRO is listening to our services users and consulting with our stakeholders across all areas of our work.”

The Rehabilitation of Offenders (NI) Order 1978 was introduced to give people a chance to ‘make a fresh start’ allowing for certain convictions to become ‘spent’ after a given period; and not needing to be declared when applying for employment, further and higher education, insurance, travel visas etc. The NI Order has never had a substantial review. Instead, amendments over the years have resulted in an increasing number of job sectors and roles being subject to disclosure of criminal records.

The current Minister for Justice has just published her intention to reform the legislation, but as more time will be required to enact new legislation or amendments, we will continue to ask for this reform.

As our outgoing CEO Olwen Lyner, a name synonymous with NIACRO, takes her well-deserved retirement, I would like to thank her for everything she has done, and for delivering such exemplary leadership; as well as entrusting her lifetime’s work to us, an organisation steeped in integrity, respected and unafraid of working where we are needed.

T: 028 9032 0157 W: www.niacro.co.uk Twitter: @niacro

Looking to the future It is an incredible honour to lead the NIACRO team, and I look forward to further collaboration with colleagues in the third sector, and with our funders and partners including the Department of Justice, Probation Board for NI and NI Prison Service.

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Digital justice: An opportunity Causeway Permanent Secretary of the Department of Justice, Peter May, discusses the ongoing digitalisation of justice, the impact of Covid-19 and the opportunities for advancement under the Digital Justice Strategy 2020–2025.

May begins by emphasising the unique nature of the operating system within justice and pinpointing the operating environment as the greatest challenge of transformation within the sector.

The highly complex system involves a range of different organisations, many of which are independent in terms of their decision-making. In IT terms, this means a range of operating systems and as May outlines, progress requires a collective will.

“To be truly effective and for the system to be effective, all organisations have to work in close collaboration as the actions taken by one partner impacts on another. Users of the system,

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including victims, witnesses and those accused, experience justice as one continuum and not a series of separate experiences, so we need a system that recognises the independence but also the inter-dependence of all partners if it is to work.”

The challenges of agencies’ inter-dependence in relation to digital, is aided by a mature datasharing hub in the form of Causeway. The Causeway system at the heart of the criminal justice has evolved from its original case management format in the noughties to one which enables enhanced management information capabilities and sharing between five major criminal justice agencies.

The Justice Permanent Secretary outlines multiple benefits attained from the Causeway system including greater accuracy, cost saving and faster justice but explains that a fundamental benefit has been a better end-to-end

Setting the context for the Strategy’s ambitions, May highlights the existing effort to digitise. He points to the launch of the new Probate Portal and the new digital Legal Aid Management System (LAMS) recently as exemplars.

Additionally, May explains that Covid-19 has accelerated massively the use of digital, including video technology. Offering an example, the Permanent Secretary explains that a pre-Covid average of 100 remote connections for courts is being dwarfed by current monthly averages of around 600,000. At the same time over 60,000 remote digital visits have taken place across Northern Ireland’s three prisons.

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May believes that the system, which handles over 12 million messages annually, is the only system of its kind in Europe. Outlining its two major design principles, May says that system ensures that information is captured once at the point it enters the justice system, enabling it to be shared and reused electronically. The second design principle is the onus on agencies to not only retain and manage their own business systems but critically, to follow defined business processes and to meet common data, communication, and security standards.

The Strategy was developed with three key principles of citizen engagement, collaboration, and modernisation. Alongside the principles, May

“To be truly effective and for the system to be effective, all organisations have to work in close collaboration as the actions taken by one partner impacts on another.” understanding of the criminal justice system, enabling partner organisations to better understand the implications of their actions on each other.

It is for this reason that the system formed a central pillar of the Digital Justice Strategy 20202025 approved by the Criminal Justice Board in May 2020. “Developed collaboratively with criminal justice partners, the strategy did not seek to replace the digital justice strategies of individual agencies but instead build on them to ensure a co-ordinated approach to digital developments and to maximise opportunities to deliver a more effective justice system,” May explains.

outlines the key themes included as: •

digital communication and skills: “How do we increase public confidence in the justice system by communicating more effectively with those that come into contact with it”;

•

a more effective justice system: “One of our most enduring challenges is delivering justice in a faster, more effective way while retaining fairness and we want to use advances in technology to help with this”; and

•

innovation: “To look for the new approaches that would make the biggest impact for the future”.

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Causeway benefits

“The challenge we are tackling is respecting the independence of all of the justice organisations but also ensuring we work together to produce something that is more significant than the sum of its parts.”

Turning to what this means in practice, May outlines some of the digital programmes currently being developed under these key themes: Digital communications and skills: My Justice Journey is the provision of tailored information in one place for all who come in to contact with the justice system, being developed with the needs of victims and witnesses at the core. Additionally, the theme looks at capability and skills, recognising that any transformation is fundamentally about people and the existing need to invest in training and development for all of those using the system. Project-related digital skills will be a workstream within each of the digital justice projects.

A more effective justice system: Sharing digital evidence electronically, between justice agencies and ultimately with the defence including for body worn video and CCTV, will contribute to a faster system with information security benefits.

Innovation: The PPS and the PSNI are leading on examining how technological advances could be used to improve disclosure of information in

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criminal cases and have recently published a Disclosure Improvement Plan. Additionally, in relation to data analytics, the Strategy aims to improve analysis of the vast array of data held by the Causeway system, offering a better understanding of the nature of crimes being reported and using this to drive further efficiencies and effectiveness in the justice system.

Concluding, May reiterates that the main challenge is our operating environment and its complexity. “The challenge we are tackling is respecting the independence of all of the justice organisations but also ensuring we work together to produce something that is more significant than the sum of its parts. And fundamentally, to improve how that works for those who come into contact with the justice system.

“We are seeking to build on the progress we have made in relation to the Causeway system by taking the benefits and adapting from Covid in a way that allows us to progress on the Strategy’s key principles.”

The Probation Board for Northern Ireland: Working with communities to change lives

The aim of the Probation Board for Northern Ireland (PBNI) is to change lives for safer communities.

PBNI is distinct from many other criminal justice organisations because we are involved at all stages of the criminal justice process. We work in courts providing pre-sentence reports to assist judges to make decisions. We work with communities supervising sentences that must be served in the community. We work in prisons, preparing prisoners for release subject to licences. We also work directly with victims of crime through the Victim Information Scheme.

All probation officers are social work qualified staff, professionally trained in the assessment and management of risk and are registered with the Northern Ireland Social Care Council.

This provides us with the right skills to effectively tackle the underlying causes of offending behaviour.

of the Covid-19 pandemic. A total of 76 per cent of people under probation supervision in Northern Ireland have an alcohol or drug-related problem. There is a well-established link between drugs, alcohol and crime and one of the most significant factors that influences whether someone will reoffend is their use of drugs and alcohol. The assessments, interventions, and programmes that we provide aims to tackle all of these issues. Much of that work we carry out is in partnership with community and voluntary groups.

Indeed, the heart of PBNI’s work lies in the community.

We have links to a large and wide variety of groups and organisations and encouraging people who have offended to participate in these groups is among

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the most effective ways of rehabilitating them into the community. We also have a community-based board which provides a level of independence, accountability, oversight and strategic thinking which is to the benefit of probation practice and delivery and enables us to have the confidence of local communities.

As we look ahead to the next business year, we will begin our consultation on a new Corporate Plan for 2023–27. We will work closely with the Department of Justice to ensure our strategic priorities align to departmental priorities. We have a key role to play in tackling domestic abuse, sexual and violent crime. We are committed to our statutory partnerships in this area of work and to ensuring people who pose a risk to the community are being effectively managed by probation’s professional staff who are trained in the assessment and management of risk. We will also continue to work with partners diverting and supporting young people who are at risk of becoming involved in criminality and paramilitary activity.

We have much to do over the coming year and our consultation will inform our planning. Central to this will be working in partnership and within our local communities.

Together we can help reduce reoffending, reduce the number of victims and change lives for safer communities.

Contact: T: (028) 9052 2522 E: info@probation-ni.gov.uk W: www.pbni.org.uk Twitter: @PBNINews

Those causes include addictions, poor mental health, lack of family and peer support and lack of education, training and employment. Unsurprisingly, many of these issues have become more prevalent throughout the last two years 55

justice report

Justice Bill narrowed In June 2021, a decision was taken to narrow the scope of a proposed Justice Bill in order to secure Executive agreement and progress important public protection provisions. agendaNi outlines the contents of the re-drafted Justice (Sex Offences and Trafficking Victims) Bill and proposed amendments.

Introduced to the Assembly on 5 July 2021, the Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Bill was significantly shorter than originally intended by Justice Minister Naomi Long MLA, with elements of originally intended Bill dropped to secure its introduction.

The new Bill comprises only Parts 1 (Sexual Offences), 2 (Trafficking and Exploitation) and 5 (Prevention Orders) of the original Bill, a change Minister Naomi Long told the Assembly “was necessary to secure Executive agreement to its introduction and thus progress at least some of the important public protection provisions of the previous Bill in this mandate”.

However, the Department has indicated its intention to bring forward a number of amendments as the Bill progresses, for which the

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Minister has secured Executive agreement.

The Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Bill has two key principles: to enhance public safety by implementing certain elements of the report of the Gillen review covering serious sexual offence cases and a review of the law on child sexual exploitation and sexual offences against children; and to improve services for victims of trafficking and exploitation.

An outline of the Bill’s contents is included in Figure 1.

A significant consequence of the narrowing of the previously proposed Bill is that important legislation, including that required to comply with court rulings, assist court recovery and speed up justice, and reduce the legal aid bill, will not proceed in the current mandate.

a) a legislative fix to reinstate four amendments incorrectly removed into Schedule 2 of the Magistrates Courts Order 1981 to allow for the summary prosecution of these indictable offences under Article 45 of that Order; b) abolition of the rough sex defence; c) an extension to existing revenge porn provisions to include a threat of publication; and

d) provisions to widen the scope and strengthen the current law on abuse of trust.

Furthermore, the Minister told the Assembly: “I expect the elements of my original Bill that I had to drop to secure this Bill’s introduction will feature in a new Miscellaneous Provisions Bill early in the next mandate if non-legislative solutions cannot be identified in the interim.”

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However, the Minister has outlined her intention to the Assembly to include a number of amendments to the Bill during its passage, namely:

The Consideration Stage is to be scheduled.

Minister Long has previously outlined her intention to introduce the proposed amendments at consideration stage.

Figure 1

The Justice (Sex Offences and Trafficking Victims) Bill includes: •

Provisions arising from the Gillen review that are being progressed, which include; o exclusion of public from all serious sexual offence hearings; o anonymity for defendants pre-charge; o anonymity of complainants to continue after death; and o an increase in the penalty for breach of anonymity;

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Provisions arising from the outcome of a review of the law on child sexual exploitation and sexual offences against children to; o replace legislative references to ‘child prostitution’ and ‘child pornography’; o include live streamed images in the definition of exploitation for sexual purposes; and o create a new offence of adults masquerading as children online.

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Provisions to create a new offence of up skirting and down blousing;

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Adjustments to include the offence of abduction of children in care to Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) arrangements;

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Adjustments to dis-apply time limits for complaints under Violent Offences Prevention Order (VOPO) arrangements; and

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Amendments to modern slavery provisions in the Northern Ireland Human Trafficking Act to extend support to victims of slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour; and to remove the statutory requirement to produce an annual Modern Slavery Strategy.

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Police Ombudsman seeks powers reform The Department of Justice is consulting on the possibility of a dedicated Police Ombudsman Act, following a request to reform and broaden the Ombudsman’s powers.

The request comes after the publication of a fiveyear review report by the Ombudsman. The review formed part of a stocktake ordered by Justice Minister Naomi Long MLA upon taking up her post in 2020 to look at the arrangements for policing oversight and accountability in Northern Ireland.

The review also looked at the interfaces between the various oversight bodies and set out proposals on how the arrangements could be further strengthened. Alongside the stocktake, the Minister also received recommendations from the Police Ombudsman on proposed changes to the powers of her office.

In December 2021, the Department launched a consultation on a stocktake of policing oversight and accountability, along with recommendations made by the Police Ombudsman in her Five-Year Review.

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The Ombudsman is required to review the workings of the legislation relating to their powers every five years and provide a report to the Department. Three such reviews have taken place to date, but no recommendations have been acted on due to a lack of political consensus, meaning existing legislation dates from 1998, without substantive change.

Northern Ireland now sits unique to England and Scotland, where reforms to complaints arrangements have been introduced, including the establishment of a new Independent Office for Police Complaints.

A number of reforms to the complaints regimes in England and Wales, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, which have already taken place, include: legislating for the ongoing practice of keeping complainant and other interested parties informed; changes to the definition of

Summary of key recommendations of reform requested by the Police Ombudsman: That the initial term of the Police Ombudsman should be reduced to a term of five years, and that the Police Ombudsman should be eligible for reappointment for a further term of up to five years;

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In the public interest, any civilian staff operating directly in conjunction with police officers in the course of their policing functions should be brought within the remit of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland for the purposes of complaints against those personnel;

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That the Police (NI) Act 1998 be amended to enable the Police Ombudsman to conduct mediation in appropriate circumstances, and that there be no requirement to investigate first;

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That the Police Ombudsman should be specifically empowered by statute to compel the attendance for interview of both witness and suspect officers;

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That the Police Ombudsman be given a power to compel retired or former police officers to submit to witness interview, and provide all relevant documentation to him, which is within their possession, custody, power, or control, when he is conducting investigations involving grave or exceptional matters; and

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That Regulation 26 of the RUC (Conduct) Regulations 2000 and the RUC (Conduct) (Senior Officers) Regulations 2000 be amended to provide a right to the Police Ombudsman to attend all hearings which take place following a Police Ombudsman investigation.

‘complaint’; powers of specified bodies to make ‘super-complaints’ where policing is significantly harming public interest; investigation of whistleblowing claims outside of an ongoing investigation from current or former officers about serving officers; and disciplinary arrangement for former members of police forces.

Among the request for reform of Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson’s powers, which includes a total of 26 recommendations, most likely to receive attention is a desire to compel retired officers to co-operate with her office.

Former RUC and PSNI officers are currently not obliged to take part in ombudsman investigations, a significant challenge when considering the volume of work undertaken by the Ombudsman in relation to historical complaints.

A potential stumbling block in this regard, and a concern raised in the past, around the power to compel witnesses to cooperate, is that this power is not available to the PSNI. It has also been suggested that the impact may be disproportionate on retired officers, who may not have access to the same support as serving officers under investigation by the Ombudsman.

Another potentially controversial recommendation, which the Department has

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suggested “may not be capable of attracting sufficient consensus” at this time to enable legislative change include the holding of disciplinary proceedings in public where it is in the public interest, with those in opposition suggesting increased risks to an officer’s personal safety.

A further major reform request from the Ombudsman is for a wider role for her office in relation to disciplining officers found to be in the wrong. Currently, the Police Ombudsman can make recommendations to the PSNI, however the Ombudsman is not involved in the disciplinary process and the PSNI are not compelled to accept recommendations. This is in contrast to England and Wales, where the Independent Office for Police Complaints (IOPC) has more extensive powers, particularly in relation to disciplinary issues.

The Ombudsman recommends that: “Regulation 26 of the RUC (Conduct) Regulations 2000 and the RUC (Conduct) (Senior Officers) Regulations 2000 be amended to provide a right to the Police Ombudsman to attend all hearings which take place following a Police Ombudsman investigation.”

The consultation of the policing oversight stocktake and the Police Ombudsman’s FiveYear Review will run to 1 March 2022.

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Online abuse and trolling In May 2021, the UK Government published the draft Online Safety Bill in a bid to establish a new regulatory framework to tackle harmful content online provisions. When passed, the Bill will apply to Northern Ireland.

Speaking in a recent interview with agendaNi, Justice Minister Naomi Long MLA outlined her belief that the use of social media had become a “law of diminishing returns” for public representatives, given the levels of online abuse and trolling that are now prevalent across most platforms.

Long, on whose behalf the PSNI is currently pursuing a number of individuals in relation to online abuse, is conscious that the current levels of online abuse and trolling could act as a deterrent to young people, particularly women entering politics or public life.

However, while Long praised the work of the PSNI and their technical team in tracing abusive accounts and attempting to end some of the most egregious examples of online abuse, government in Northern Ireland has little power in creating laws to directly tackle the changing face of online abuse and trolling.

Following devolution, telecommunications was retained as a reserved policy area, meaning any decision on online offences and the regulation of the internet is a matter for the UK Government.

For context, Northern Ireland’s current legal framework follows the general principle that an act which is illegal offline is also illegal online. Various pieces of legislation, including the Malicious Communications (NI) Order 1988 and the Protection from Harassment (Northern Ireland) Order 1997, can be applied to some forms online abuse and trolling to prosecute criminal activity. In essence, the Northern Ireland 60

‘Regulated content’ would be considered harmful: •

if it is designated in secondary legislation as “primary priority content” that is harmful to children or “priority content” that is harmful to children or adults;

•

if a service provider has “reasonable grounds to believe that the nature of the content is such that there is a material risk of the content having, or indirectly having, a significant adverse physical or psychological impact” on a child or adult of “ordinary sensibilities”; and

•

if a service provider has “reasonable grounds to believe that there is

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a material risk” of the dissemination of the content “having a significant adverse physical or psychological impact” on a child or adult of “ordinary sensibilities”.

Executive can keep aspects of the criminal law under review to ensure appropriate action is taken to strengthen it where necessary.

In comparison, while telecommunications is also a reserved matter in Scotland, there are a number of existing offences which can address online abuse and trolling if the behaviour amounts to criminal activity, such as in relation to stalking as part of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 and the improper use of a public electronic communications network, as part of the Communications Act 2003. In April 2021, the Scottish Government enacted a Hate Crime Bill following a 2018 independent review of hate crime legislation. The Bill did consider but did not include a public petition on abusive and threatening communication.

In the Republic of Ireland, the Government approved the integration of the Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill, 2019, into the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill and the introduction of three further Heads of Bill in May 2021. The Bill introduces online safety codes to instruct how designated online service providers should address harmful online content, establishes an Online Safety Commissioner as a regulator and defines harmful online content. Provision is also made in the Bill for the addition of further categories of harmful online content in the future.

UK In the UK, the introduction of the Internet Safety Green Paper in 2017 and the Online Harms White Paper in 2019 were precursors to the publication of the draft Online Harms Bill in May 2021, following several years of examination by the UK Government as to how the internet can become a safer place for users, through the application of rules and online behaviour.

The Law Commission’s work in recent years has examined the criminal law provisions that apply to individuals and not the liability of platforms.

On 12 May 2021, the Government published the Online Safety Bill, all provisions of which will apply across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The draft Bill would impose duties of care on providers of online content-sharing platforms and search services. Ofcom would enforce compliance and its powers would include being able to fine companies up to £18 million or 10 per cent of annual global turnover, whichever is higher, and have the power to block access to sites.

Part 2 of the draft Bill sets out the duties of care that would apply to providers of user-to-user and search services. All regulated services would have to take action to tackle ‘illegal content’ and ‘content that is harmful to children’. Category 1 regulated services would also have to address “content that is harmful to adults”.

Interestingly, the framework would not put any new limits on online anonymity.

However, under the duty of care, companies would be expected to address anonymous online abuse that is illegal through ‘effective systems and processes’.

The UK Government has said it is working closely with devolved administrations on a number of areas where there us possible interaction with devolved competencies and has stressed that their legislation is not seeking to change the law in relation to offences in devolved regions but seeking to “clarify the responsibility of businesses to tackle this activity on their services”.

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Northern Ireland Procurement Conference 2022 Thursday 24th March 2022 • Europa Hotel, Belfast

A new era for public procurement In July 2021, Finance Minister Conor Murphy MLA announced a substantial change in public procurement policy that puts an emphasis on social value. From June 2022, social value must account for at least 10 per cent of the total award criteria for government tenders. Alongside the current Covid-19 pandemic and the impact of Brexit, this change in policy presents a new challenge to the procurement landscape which practitioners must ensure they keep up to date with and its implication for their organisation.

This conference will examine what effective public procurement means for organisations in Northern Ireland via a high-level panel of local and visiting speakers.

Speakers include: Sharon Smyth Chief Executive Construction and Procurement Delivery (CPD)

Frances Meehan Assistant Director Pupil Services & Procurement Education Authority

Discussion topics for 2022 include:

Linda O’Hare Interim Assistant Director Business Services Organisation

Karen Rodgers Community Business Partner Team Manager Farrans Construction

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Creating social value in procurement

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Procurement across the health sector

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Green procurement: Becoming more

Lindsay Maguire Head of Engagement, Procurement Reform Cabinet Office

Noleen Bohill Head of Commercial and Procurement Belfast City Council

Ed Green, Programme Director, Procurement Reform, Cabinet Office

Emma McEvoy Lecturer in Law Maynooth University and Board Member Irish Social Enterprise Network

Hugh Carr Head of Strategic Procurement Scotland Excel

to showcase services and expertise to a key audience

By phone (028) 9261 9933

The changing legal framework for public procurement

resource-efficient 4

Transforming public procurement in the UK

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The impact of Covid-19

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Supply chain resilience and innovation

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Effective local government procurement

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Procurement as a strategic and innovative function

Sponsorship opportunities available – an excellent platform

To register...

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Digital procurement transformation

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Procurement across the education sector

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Procurement to construct critical infrastructure

Full programme available online Online

Email

www.niprocurement.agendani.com

registration@agendani.com

Digital government report

Digital

Events

Print

digital government report

The future of digital public services Director of Digital Shared Services, Iggy O’Doherty, discusses the immediate priorities within the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) of data, capability and infrastructure to support digital transformation in government.

Setting the context of a range of challenges and opportunities thrown up by the Covid-19 pandemic in the past two years in relation to the digital transformation of government, O’Doherty points to an ongoing focus on building capability within the NICS. “Improving the digital literacy of staff across government departments, including those of senior leaders, is central to the effective running of our business areas,” he explains, outlining work to professionalise the public sector’s approach to a host of disciplines such as procurement, contract management and security, in order to develop the digital skills required to lead and run modern government departments.

Turning to digital transformation, O’Doherty points to the recent launch of the digital transformation hub for all NICS staff, as a means to help promote better awareness of the services provided, highlight the changes enabled and offer staff a feedback channel for the transformation team. It is seen as a platform for viewing the success of digital transformation work across the public sector.

With the majority of NICS staff now working remotely, the public sector’s dependence on digital technology has never been greater and as a result, O’Doherty states: “There is a growing need to enhance the digital skills of public sector colleagues and improve our own digital capability so that we can deliver better and more efficient public services.”

The success underpins the goals of the NICS’s Digital Transformation Strategy and O’Doherty explains that the portal is used by all government departments to share learning experiences and lessons of excellence.

Recently, O’Doherty oversaw research which considered how NICS staff were using technology and commissioned a survey to ascertain how competent staff felt they were in using technology.

However, the Director of Digital Shared Services is aware of the need to continuously drive forward digital inclusion, recognising that while the pandemic caused a surge in digital interaction with public services, it also exacerbated the digital divide for those who remain offline. To this end, he says that his Digital Inclusion Unit were relentless with their efforts throughout Covid and continue to work closely with external stakeholders, such as Business in the Community, Supporting Communities and LibrariesNI to minimise the gap.

“Our research focused on digital skills to establish if we had the required learning and development to support our staff and we supplemented this with a digital skills assessment.” says O’Doherty.

Follow up surveys have been conducted and the Director of Digital Shared Services points out that interventions informed by the research have led to an approximate 43 per cent improvement in digital skills.

Additionally, the findings prompted a deep-dive analysis and the creation of an array of eLearning utilities to help develop staff further. At the end of 2021, O’Doherty and his team launched the eLearning package across all NICS departments.

Stressing that work will continue on building digital capability in the NICS, O’Doherty adds: “As head of profession for ICT in the NICS, I am going to tackle capability and talent pipeline issues head on. We have many new digital recruitment opportunities and are actively defining career paths to build future capacity.”

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Digital transformation

Technology and digital adoption O’Doherty explains that increased demand for digital public services has compelled the Digital Shared Services’ design team to adopt new technologies.

Aiming to capitalise on the public’s positive experience shift in dealing with digital public services, O’Doherty explains that personalised ‘tell us once’ services will be underpinned by digital identity assurance, something his team are working on closely with partners to plan for the next generation of secure accredited assurance services.

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“This will be a streamlined successor to some existing solutions and will over time replace other digital identity services used across government,” he states.

Enhancing digital security The need for digital security assurance has never been more essential given the changes to the threat landscape. The National Cyber Security Centre recently warned that ransomware is the prevalent threat to government digital services.

Setting out the ongoing work, he says: “We are using public cloud services to build new solutions, often harnessing the services available from current ICT solutions. Our aim is to deploy multicloud services and a major shift in emphasis has been the strategic move to host a number of solutions in gov.uk Platform As A Service – a rapidly scalable infrastructure service designed for 24/7 public sector use.”

He adds: “We have recently deployed some innovative software tools to complement digital development.

Rigorously testing whilst automating security validation within our software development life cycle at all stages has driven excellent results. This digital maturity is now a central feature of our discipline.”

O’Doherty stresses the importance of including the challenge function and external scrutiny as the team develop solutions in an agile way and at pace.

“This initiative will ensure that our team continues to produce high quality, secure solutions, but much faster than before,” he says.

Explaining the influence of the relatively new NICS Enterprise Architecture Principles, a blueprint to be used as a decisional framework when considering process, system and technology directions across all departments, O’Doherty says: “We aim to avoid duplicating effort and incurring unnecessary costs by collaborating

across government, sharing and reusing technology, data and services.

“We will adapt and reuse existing information and technology assets where possible before we procure. We are not in the business of developing solutions to rival proven products already available in the marketplace, our Enterprise Digital Design Team publish their code and use open-source software to improve transparency, flexibility and accountability.”

The Director of Digital Shared Services explains that the team also use open standards to ensure that solutions work with other technology stacks and can be easily upgraded and expanded.

Setting out that all future applications should be cloud native in design and cloud vendor agnostic he says that they continue to work closely with the UK Government Digital Service to define and implement data standards, meet user needs, and improve interoperability and data sharing.

Digital response to Covid-19 O’Doherty is adamant that the transformation agenda should continue to meet the growing expectations of the public. Outlining plans to build on the uptake of over half-a-million nidirect accounts, he discusses plans to deliver a more personalised and responsive user experience, with a planned ‘tell us once’ service.

O’Doherty says that the implementation of a Security and Information Event Management (SIEM) system and Security Operations Centre (SOC) managed service will improve resilience significantly and points to SIEM and SOC as “our single biggest strategic investment in enhancing digital security in government”.

Strategic direction Turning to the strategic direction of the future, O’Doherty sees digital as being front and centre of future priorities to deliver better public services. He plans to move ahead in 2022 with a new Digital Strategy in the NICS. Acknowledging a number of planned strategies currently being developed by Cabinet Office, the Director of Digital Shared Services says that his team are actively engaged with UK Government partners to ensure that the needs of the Northern Ireland public are reflected in the shaping of future services.

Concluding, O’Doherty says: “Collaboration has been key to digital transformation in public services, we could not have done it on our own. We now need to build on our achievements by developing more partnership working across the public sector, retaining the alliances that we have established but also developing better networks with our private sector colleagues.

“I am really proud of what we have delivered across the public sector during this extraordinary time, and we will continue to do our bit to make the lives of those living here even better.”

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digital government report

Digital transformation for resilience and better health and social care Chief Digital Information Officer (CDIO) in the Department of Health, Dan West, outlines six opportunities to create more sustainable and resilient health and care services through digital.

West explains that the pandemic has dominated much of the landscape of health and care service delivery over the past two years, with the nature of Covid-19 driving a significant demand for digital services. However, alongside the many challenges that have been put to digital delivery of services, opportunities have also emerged to build a better and more resilient health and care system through transformation.

In setting out his identified six areas of opportunity, West says that it is important to first acknowledge the context of the nature of the challenge being faced in health and social care in Northern Ireland, adding weight to the importance of digital opportunity.

Northern Ireland’s demographics is changing rapidly and by 2030, the number of people aged over 65 is expected to be double what it was in the year 2000. This is significant when considering that citizens over the age of 65

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currently account for more than 40 per cent of all health and social care spending, despite only making up 14 per cent of the population share.

Added to this is the fact that current health trends estimate that by the age of 70, 80 per cent of the current population will have one or more chronic conditions. By the age of 80, 60 per cent of the population will have three comorbidities or chronic conditions. Whilst overall people are living longer in Northern Ireland, a significant deprivation gap exists in relation to life expectancy. The life expectancy for males in Northern Ireland’s most deprived areas is on average some seven-and-a-half years less that their counterparts in the least deprived areas.

Finally, changing demographics is having a significant impact on demand. For example, between 2009 and 2014, demand for access to GP surgeries increased by over 20 per cent.

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“The Prime Minister’s announcement on working from home in 2020 flipped a switch that made an existing demand for transformation necessary overnight.”

Northern Ireland’s average of seven consultations per patient per year is one of the highest of any OECD countries. For context, in the Republic of Ireland the average is three per year. That the health and social care system is not coping well with increased demand can be observed in large increases in outpatient, inpatient and day case waiting lists.

West believes there are six things the Department can and is doing to build a more sustainable and resilient service through digital.

Firstly, he highlights in the need to break the current linear relationship between the demand for services and the capacity to deliver those services. Pointing to the rapid uptake of digital services such as the StopCOVIDNI proximity app and use of digital vaccination appointment booking as evidence that citizens in Northern Ireland want to be more empowered and to become active partners in their healthcare

journey, digitally, he says that digital tools have the potential to increase self-service, ultimately improving citizen experiences and conveniences.

He believes that providing patients and carers with greater visibility and control over their treatment and care pathways through digital can break the current linear relationship between demand and capacity. With Northern Ireland behind the curve in this regard, when compared to the rest of the UK, West says that this approach sets out a focus for digital health transformation in the coming years.

Secondly, West identifies a need to shift towards a more standardised and evidence-based care model across Northern Ireland’s health and care provider organisations, putting safety and quality at the heart of all new processes and systems.

West says that work is already underway in this regard and points to examples of major programmes such as the Digital Identity Service,4

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“Health and social care is a sector built on innovation, but the reality is that despite all of that amazing innovation which happens across health and social care every day, not much of it has an impact at scale on the bottom line of economic sustainability of health and care.” the new electronic patient record system announced in 2020, and the Northern Ireland picture archive and communications system + solution (NIPACS+), a single system with the facility to store, distribute, view, and diagnose images by all organisations involved in the delivery of care.

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training and skills development;

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data platform infrastructure development and delivery;

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analytics and insight Centre of Excellence; and

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legal and information governance.

Thirdly, West says that health and social care service must get better at joining up services and information across the sector and protecting the information as it is used. The CDIO points to ontology, integration, cybersecurity, and information governance as areas in need of greater consideration if opportunities for better service delivery through digital are to be taken up.

Finally, West says that better legal and information governance can enable opportunities for better work within the innovation eco-system within and outside health and social care to create real impact at scale, from advancements in research and emerging technologies. “Health and social care is a sector built on innovation, but the reality is that despite all of that amazing innovation which happens across health and social care every day, not much of it has an impact at scale on the bottom line of economic sustainability of health and care,” says the CDIO. “Northern Ireland has the highest age adjusted per capita cost in the UK and among the worst waiting lists for elective and day case services in Europe, so how do we develop a new innovation strategy that has that bigger impact and alignment between innovation and the big challenges we face as a service?”

The fourth opportunity for digital West identifies is the support of staff to do their work more easily, efficiently, and collaboratively in multidisciplinary multi-organisation teams. “As a technologist, we have known that this journey, to create mobile, flexible tools to enable our staff to maximise their efficiency, is one we have needed to take for a long time,” he says. “The Prime Minister’s announcement on working from home in 2020 flipped a switch that made an existing demand for transformation necessary overnight.

The programmes we are delivering in health and social care are many and varied but the Digital Workplace Programme (DWP), the Equip programme and HSC digital are some examples of how we are developing the services through digital.”

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Concluding West says that the development of a new innovation strategy is underway, with four key components: 1. a new digital innovation pathway that assesses technology readiness levels to determine which technologies and initiatives are ready to scale;

West’s fifth point relates to the better use of data, specifically, to understand the population and their needs and ultimately, to improve how information is connected and used to create insights and develop services. The CDIO points to the creation of a new health and social care strategy, likely to point to the need for a new social care information institute, with the aim of delivering:

2. a digital innovation infrastructure to facilitate, scale up and spread of those successful innovations;

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4. governing innovation.

education and evangelism;

3. an innovation support hub to support and optimise the use of digital and data to support innovation and a new governance structure that helps to align innovation to executive level initiatives and stakeholders; and

digital government report

Addressing the digital divide While there is no doubt that the pandemic accelerated the uptake and enhancement of digital public services, it also compounded the existing digital divide in Northern Ireland.

High praise has been levelled at the ability of services to adapt to the realities of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, in expanding their digital services to citizens, consumers and businesses. However, it must also be recognised that as public and corporate services were forced to adapt to offer new services almost overnight, so to did individuals to access these services.

Evidence suggests that those being disenfranchised by the widening digital gap often include older people, rural dwellers and those living in poverty.

For many, the impromptu acceleration of digital services was a welcome development, with demand for access to public services online already outstripping availability, however, for others (the disengaged), the move represented a broadening of the existing digital divide.

It is for this reason that the Department for the Economy has outlined plans to develop a specific Northern Ireland Digital Skills Action Plan within its overarching 10x Economy Strategy.

The term disengaged can often be incorrectly interpreted as a matter of choice, for example, to characterise someone who chooses not to have a digital footprint. However, the reality is that the term disengaged often reflects people experiencing one or more of three main elements of digital exclusion: connectivity; digital skills; and affordability.

The significance of a digital disadvantage can be viewed in the context of an estimate that 90 per cent of new jobs now require digital skills, with 72 per cent of employers requiring basic digital skills as a mandatory requirement.

In Northern Ireland, 32 per cent of the working age population (16-65) have limited or no basic digital skills. That is higher than the UK average of 26 per cent. Similarly, Northern Ireland’s rate of over 14 per cent of the population as non-internet users is the highest in the UK. Addressing the digital divide becomes more complex when considering that many areas experience the digital divide differently, for example, in relation to connectivity and broadband speed access.

The World Economic Forum recently highlighted the widening digital gap as a result of the pandemic, stating: “Covid19 has accelerated the Fourth Industrial Revolution, expanding the digitalisation of human interaction, e-commerce, online education and remote work.

These shifts will transform society long after the pandemic and promise huge benefits, but they also risk exacerbating and creating inequalities…”

Existing large-scale projects currently in place in Northern Ireland such as Project Stratum and the Shared Rural Network (SRN) are mainly focused on addressing the infrastructural challenges in the form of broadband and mobile coverage.

Any forthcoming Budget will determine the levels of resource available to continue to tackle the digital divide in this regard, however, as evidenced, the digital gap in Northern Ireland extends further than infrastructure. The Budget represents an opportunity to align and properly resource an over arching plan that also addresses the issues of digital skills and technology affordability for those most in need.

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digital government report

Furlough: Rapidly designing and building a successful digital service

Anita Holmes, Programme Manager of HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC) Covid-19 Response Programme, discusses the rapid rollout of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and the learnings to improve future digital service delivery.

On 18 March 2020, HMRC officials met with UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak MP to confirm the policy response to the national Covid-19 lockdown that would be announced by the Prime Minister five days later. From that first meeting, it took just 33 days for the CJRS to go live, 56 days for the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) and 69 days for the Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme.

The speed of delivery, in unprecedented circumstances, has been hailed as one of the fastest and furthest reaching successes of digital public services to date.

Holmes is proud of HMRC’s Covid-19 Response Programme and

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acknowledges that lessons learned from delivery have presented many opportunities to build better digital public services for the future. However, she is also quick to point out that the pace at which HMRC’s Covid response teams worked is not realistically sustainable in the long term.

“Normally projects like these would take us months to design and then we would move to delivery, and then testing. In addition, the schemes needed to be wholly digital, because we couldn’t have people claim face-toface during the pandemic. We stood up a Covid helpline, which was up and running within five days, so that we could reassure people what was

happening, explain what support they would be getting and for digitally excluded customers, make their claims manually.”

A quick summary of the scale and reach of the schemes delivered is set out in figure 1.

Holmes says that in addition, HMRC delivered over 85 Covid-related easements, from deferring VAT payments to helping new parents get Child Benefit payments they were entitled to when they couldn’t register births.

The Programme Manager explains that in designing the schemes, the Covid Response Programmes were guided by

a principle of customers at the heart of all design and delivery, with three main pillars of: 1. Centricity: Policy intent centred on the customer’s needs, translating into easy-to-use digital services with simple features to provide customer value and ease that are scalable to meet demand.

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2. Segmentation: Identifying customer segments and their needs, including those not suited to full digital service i.e., harder to reach people such as vulnerable customers, the digitally excluded etc.

3. Behaviour: Understand customer behaviour through user research, tailoring policy, design, and service delivery to that insight.

Figure 1.

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

Self-Employment Income Support Scheme

£68.9bn claimed 11.7m jobs protected 1.3m employers supported

£28.1bn claimed 10.4m grants awarded 2.9m individuals supported

Describing a “ruthlessly simple” delivery approach, Holmes outlines the importance of collaboration at pace, which involved an extensive network of partners ranging from HM Treasury through to IT suppliers, communications partners, legal teams, and human resources. This approach was bolstered by an early-stage approach principle of re-use rather than rebuild wherever possible.

“If we were to meet the timescales, collaboration was paramount as it had to be a one-team effort. Critically, we had to be very clear about roles, responsibilities, and accountability.

Often in transformation programmes, people want clarity on what they are accountable for and what they need to deliver but actually, we all worked together, and we worked simultaneously and in parallel. That trained us in working in a very different way and showed us how we could do things differently. It meant adopting an agile approach.”

Building back better Holmes explains that HMRC is seeking to use recent learnings to develop the culture in HMRC’s programme delivery

to ensure greater flexibility.

Discussing changes that will assist in better future delivery, Holmes points to already integrated use of seven new digital systems, which has increased the appetite for embracing technology and also new ways of working.

Culturally, she sees an obvious difference of approach to delivering new programmes and this is being bolstered by an acknowledgment that customer needs will be met best when flexibility is encouraged. Additionally, she points to a shift in enabling people to work from home due to necessity, to a point of choice where HMRC are now supporting their people to work from a mix of locations – home and office – delivering training at a faster pace to ensure that they are equipped to meet demand wherever they work.

Looking to the future, Holmes believes that the pandemic response has offered insights into the key needs of digital development at speed: “We realised very early on the importance of really clear design principles, ways of working and design ownership. We also saw the value of having experienced people in place to help foster the cultural shift.

Eat Out to Help Out £840m paid out 49k business supported 160m meals enjoyed

“Enabling people, who were in turn enabled by an existing good base IT infrastructure, allowed us to recognise the benefits of this collective effort and knowledge, and make best use of available and trustworthy data too.

“A customer-centric design and an agile approach to building services and IT facilitated faster and more successful delivery.”

However, Holmes is also quick to acknowledge that such an approach may contain drawbacks: “We are very aware that an agile approach to building services faster may mean that we take design decisions that could potentially constrain future change. As a result, we are continuously assessing our programmes to understand any impacts in the aftermath of furlough.

“Another potential constraint is that following fast and agile service delivery, the ‘clean up period’ may delay a return to business as usual. While the furlough scheme has closed, we are looking at a six-month transition back to business as usual, alongside an eye on contingencies, ensuring that we can be responsive to any future Covid-19 challenges.”

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Speakers: Edel Creery, NIE Networks; Paul Stanfield, firmus energy; Thomas Byrne, Department for the Economy; John French, Utility Regulator; and Roger Henderson, NIE Networks.

Northern Ireland Energy Forum The annual Northern Ireland Energy Forum recently took place as a hybrid event in November 2021. Supported by NIE Networks and firmus energy, delegates in attendance heard from a number of expert speakers including Thomas Byrne, Department for the Economy; John French, Utility Regulator; Malcolm Keay, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies; Alastair Young, Scottish Futures Trust; and Inna Vorushylo, Ulster University.

The Forum covered some of the major issues shaping the energy landscape. Topics included; energy governance, impact of electrification on the economy, hydrogen energy, decarbonising Northern Ireland’s housing stock and potential for geothermal energy in Northern Ireland.

Thank you to our conference sponsors NIE Networks and firmus energy, to all speakers and delegates who joined us, both in the Europa Hotel and virtually, and made the conference a success.

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Mark Jessop, Harland & Wolff with Iain Hoy, Phoenix Natural Gas Limited.

The 2021 Northern Ireland Energy Forum crowd.

Speaker: Laura McGadie, Energy Saving Trust.

Joe Reynolds and Peter Russell, Department for the Economy.

Joseph Ireland, Queen’s University Belfast with Marie Cowan, Geological Survey of Northern Ireland.

Liam Gault, Utility Regulator with Stephanie Ogunrin, Ulster University.

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Date for your diary!

11 May

Housing Conference 2022 Wednesday 11th May 2022 La Mon Hotel, Belfast

Digital

Events

Print

agendaNi is organising its annual Northern Ireland Housing Conference, which has become well established as the major annual event for all those with an interest or role in housing in Northern Ireland. As with previous years, it will have a genuine, in depth understanding of the key issues via a high-level panel of local and visiting speakers. The conference is an important date in the diary of housing professionals across the region. As we begin 2022 and start to emerge from the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the shortage of affordable and quality housing is continuing to have a major impact on many people’s lives. With the collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive in early February and another political crisis looming, there is a danger that any of the progress made will be disrupted and plans set out in the draft Housing Supply Strategy much more difficult to deliver.

A high level panel of expert speakers will examine key issues including: 4 Future housing policy outlook in Northern Ireland 4 The future outlook for the housing market

4 Housing and the drive to net zero 4 The legacy of Covid-19: Supporting those in housing stress

4 Creating greater agility through technology

4 Effective tenant participation

4 ESG reporting in the social housing sector

4 The challenge of allocating social housing

4 The post-Covid workplace

4 Managing competing pressures in the provision of social housing

To reserve a space: Online www.nihousing.agendaNi.com

By Telephone +44 (0)28 9261 9933

By email registration@agendaNi.com

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Electronic and remote voting With many legislatures now returning to a relative normality, considerations are being given as to whether electronic and remote voting, scaled up during the pandemic, should remain as a permanent feature. David Whelan looks at whether the Northern Ireland Assembly is behind the curve in its use of digital technology.

The pandemic forced legislatures across the world to adapt new ways of working to allow for the continuation of parliamentary business, including the introduction of electronic voting and remote voting. In Northern Ireland however, in response to the pandemic, the Assembly introduced temporary provisions in Standing Orders to allow proxy voting until January 2021.

Unlike neighbouring legislatures, the

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Northern Ireland Assembly did not have an electronic voting system in place to allow for expansion of the system to facilitate digital remote voting.

Standing Orders 112 and 115 allow for proxy voting in the chamber and committees respectively (along with other measures for committees including voting by video link or telephone) and the Procedures Committee is considering instances in which proxy voting could be

retained on a more permanent basis and how this might be reflected in Standing Orders.

Northern Ireland appears to be behind the curve when considering actions taken by neighbouring legislatures.

A research paper for the Committee on Procedures by the Northern Ireland Assembly’s research and information service recently took stock of the use of electronic voting in other legislatures and the effect of Covid-19 on business-asusual.

In Scotland, an electronic system of voting in Parliament has been in place since the Parliament opened in 2004. In 2011, the system had to be replaced at a cost of £270,000 due to the supplier no longer being able to maintain the system.

At the outset of the pandemic, the Parliament legislated for a change that allowed other voting systems to be used in the Chamber. The remote voting system was first used in the week commencing 11 August 2020 and Scotland’s Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee has now recommended a permanent change.

The Welsh Parliament is also an electronic debating chamber, with members’ individual computers having access to information relevant to plenary proceeding and dull access to the rest of their ICT system. In July 2020, secure

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app was developed to allow members to continue to vote electronically while not in the chamber.

In contrast, there was no provision for electronic voting in the House of Commons chamber until the Covid-19 pandemic. Alterations to allow for the continuation of parliamentary business, including remote voting (the first remote voting division was held in May 2020) were stressed to be temporary. The voting system used the existing MemberHub, which MPs use for tabling parliamentary questions or early day motions.

On 20 May 2020, the order on remote voting lapsed and was not renewed. The HoC’s Procedures committee stated that significant additional resource and expenditure would be required if the House were required to develop a system to provide sufficient authentication assurance on a permanent basis.

Unlike the House of Commons, the Lords has kept its electronic voting system as an interim measure until the feasibility of a pass reader system can be explored.

PeerHub, a new online hub was developed, and remote voting was introduced on 15 June 2020. However, members are only eligible to participate in a vote if they are doing so from a place of work on the Parliamentary Estate.

Electronic voting was introduced by Dáil Eireann in 2002. Most division votes are taken electronically but some exemptions exist, including motions of no confidence in the Government. Remote electronic voting was not available during the pandemic as the Irish Constitution refers to “members present and voting”. In response to Covid-19, Dáil Éireann moved to the Dublin Convention Centre to accommodate social distancing and on those occasions when it sat in Leinster House, proportionate representation from each political party was used.

However, a Private Member’s Bill, currently progressing through the Dáil, would amend the Constitution to allow remote voting.

Consideration

maintaining an electronic voting system, including necessary changes to the

The report to the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Procedures Committee summarised: “The research has identified that the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Parliament and Dáil Éireann have permanent, in-house electronic voting, with members voting at assigned seats.

The experience of these legislatures shows that this method of voting is not without controversy and technical issues, but generally it has appeared to work well and is accepted by members.

“The need for a reduction in the number of members present in chambers necessitated a rethink on voting procedures, with the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Parliament moving to remote electronic voting. The House of Commons and House of Lords, neither of which had a history of electronic voting, utilised apps to ensure that members could vote remotely.”

Issues identified for consideration, following a review of practices in other legislatures, for a Northern Ireland context include the cost of installing and

current Assembly chamber; the creation of procedural safeguards in the case of technology failure; and whether any items would be excluded from electronic voting.

Additional consideration would also have to be given to safeguarding requirements against corruption or abuse and whether an electronic system would enable remote voting.

A spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Assembly said: “The Speaker of the Assembly has raised with both the Committee on Procedures and the Business Committee that the introduction of electronic voting has the potential to improve the management of business in the Assembly Chamber and merits detailed consideration… The Committee on Procedures and the Assembly Commission are continuing to liaise to explore issues in relation to their respective responsibilities if electronic voting was to be introduced.”

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Citizenship recommendations response overdue The UK Government has failed to respond to a report by MPs which called for better and easier processes for people on the island of Ireland to both renounce and attain British citizenship.

The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee published its report on Citizenship and Passport Processes in Northern Ireland in July 2021 and response to the report by the UK Government was five months overdue.

The UK Government has undertaken, where possible, to reply to reports by House of Commons select committees within two months of publication, however, the Government missed the 7 September target and had still not responded at the end of January 2022.

The report followed a short inquiry in 2021 which looked at the costs and process required for Irish citizens to naturalise as British; and the rights relating to identity and citizenship under Article 1(vi) of the Good Friday Agreement.

It recommended that the Government amend its citizenship renunciation process for people in Northern Ireland, recognising that some people wish to “align their choice of an Irish-only identity with their citizenship”.

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The MPs called on the Government to simplify the process for the renunciation of British citizenship for people who wish to assert their Irishonly identity, recognising that people born in Northern Ireland wanting to do so, first have to declare their British citizenship, before they can renounce it.

The Good Friday Agreement enshrines the right of the people of Northern Ireland to identify and be accepted as Irish or British or both. However, discrepancies in how the Home Office applies this to policy have been questioned including a high-profile case taken by Emma DeSouza, where she challenged the Government’s position that she was a British citizen through automatic conferral as she always identified as Irish-only and held a passport accordingly.

The NIAC report also called for the removal of an “unfair” element of the UK naturalisation policy for Irish citizens, which requires the payment of a fee of £1,330 to become a British citizen.

Currently, naturalisation to become a British citizen is a lengthy process which costs £1,330 and also requires applicants to take a ‘Life in the UK’ test and attend a mandatory citizenship test. The issue was raised by former speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly William Hay, who having been born in the Republic of Ireland spent the majority of his life in Northern Ireland and applied for British citizenship.

The report also recommends the Government drop the requirement for Irish citizens to sit the test, and to make attendance at the ceremony optional.

Calling for a “more considered and bespoke” understanding of the unique relationship between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland needed in the Home Office, the report concludes that the Home Office’s “onesize-fits-all approach” fails to recognise the historic ties and issues between the two countries but added that the issue is one that must be addressed jointly with the Irish Government.

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TRADE UNION DESK Where’s the EU substitute funding?

It used to be said that the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. In Brexit Britain, the benefit of freedom seems to be freedom from local vigilance, as much as from EU bean counters, writes the ICTU’s John O’Farrell.

Six years ago, this column asked Theresa Villiers MP, the last-but-four Secretary of States this: ‘Could she promise that the Great Britain taxpayer will compensate Northern Ireland for all the cash we will lose from the Brexit she championed?’ That was: CAP for the farmers (€714 million, from 2014-2020); ESF for skills (€205 million); ERDF for infrastructure (€308 million), Interreg for links to Scotland and other EU regions (€€283 million) and Peace IV (€270 million) for repairing the human and social damage of the Troubles.

Additionally, the devolved administrations exercised a high degree of control over the funds, within broad parameters set by the Partnership Agreement and the EU Common Provisions Regulation, which required minimum amounts of spend on certain specific areas, such as innovation.

This allowed the devolved administrations to align ERDF and ESF expenditure from the EU with other devolved priorities and spending.

little input from Executive ministers, let alone local representatives of farmers, business, community sector, district councils, or unions.

It is also a fact that there will be less money to follow. Invest NI has had a few difficulties lately, and the source of some are the ‘informal indications’ that the yearly £100 million it got from EU Structural Funds will be whittled down to

In April 2022, we may get our answer. The UK Government is scheduled to deliver details of the UK's Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). However, as the Northern Ireland Finance Minister Conor Murphy MLA recently observed: “Neither Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland had been given any say in its design, policy direction or delivery.”

To declare an interest, I represented trade unions on a board of social partners overseeing ESF and ERDF funding. We met quarterly (and more often in specialised sub-groups) and were given access to all the supporting documentation we could manage. We could ask direct questions of EU and Northern Ireland officials and expect answers. We did so and got answers.

In the old days of the Brussels yoke, the EU doled out structural funds using a formula that accounts for per capita GDP relative to the EU average, as well as local levels of employment, education, and population density.

It used to be said that the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. In Brexit Britain, the benefit of freedom seems to be freedom from local vigilance, as much as from EU bean counters. The UKSPF seems to be plotted from Whitehall, with

£11 million from the UKSPF. One would laugh except for the central role assigned to Invest NI for attracting investment and developing our ‘prosperity’.

Many of the broader problems with the UKSPF are outlined in an excellent report from the Institute for Government, who add one concern unspoken by the Executive: “…the need to allocate funding in a way that attracts support and has a sense of legitimacy across the community divide. Care should be taken, for instance, over the branding of UKSPF projects in Northern Ireland…”

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Ciara Ferguson MLA

Political Platform

Community development worker Ciara Ferguson is one of two new Sinn Féin MLAs co-opted for Foyle, following the replacement of Martina Anderson and Karen Mullan.

Outline your background/career to date I grew up in Strabane, the fourth of six children in the family and I went to the Convent Grammar studying English, history and politics at A-Level.

In 1994, I graduated from Ulster University at Magee with a first class BSc in housing and a week later I got married to Eamon. The following year, I had my first son Eamon, my daughter Erin came along in 1996 and our youngest son Patrick in 1998.

All my adult life was spent studying, volunteering and working in Derry. In the early 1990s whilst studying at Magee, I worked as a trainee housing assistant for the Housing Executive. After graduating, I secured a part-time research post at the Housing Research Centre at Magee before

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securing a Vice Chancellor research scholarship in 1996.

From 2000, I began work in community development at the Greater Shantallow Area Partnership, a community support agency/charity in the outer north area of Derry. From 2007, I became Manager of the charity and in 2011, I also began working as a part-time survey interviewer for NISRA. I went on to continue my studies and graduated from North West Regional College in 2005 with a Diploma in Management and graduating from the Business School at Jordanstown in 2016.

Over the years, within the city, I have served on the board of several fantastic local charities, including as Chairperson of the Outer North Neighbourhood Renewal Partnership from 2010 and sat on citywide strategic partnerships.

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“Having spent most of my adult life working to improve people’s lives and deliver on major projects in the community, I feel that I can make a difference as representative and give ordinary people a voice in the Assembly.”

I am passionate about people and for over 20 years have worked with residents, community and voluntary workers and others to help sustain existing and develop new frontline services and deliver much needed community services to meet people’s needs.

What inspired you to get into politics?

Having spent most of my adult life working to improve people’s lives and deliver on major projects in the community, I feel that I can make a difference as representative and give ordinary people a voice in the Assembly.

Derry has so much potential, and I will work to help unlock it and deliver on our priorities whether it’s more social and affordable homes, better mental health services, jobs or the expansion of Magee University.

I am also passionate about Irish unity and securing Derry and the wider north west’s place in the heart of a new and united Ireland.

Who do you admire in politics or public life/political role models?

I admire politicians who are their true selves, who put other people at the centre of their working lives and who treat everyone equally.

Growing up, my political role model was my dad whom we lost in 2002. He loved life, worked hard, always helped people whatever way he could and always seemed to know instinctively when someone may have needed a listening ear or some support.

What drew you to the Sinn Féin?

Sinn Féin are the only party across this island that truly reflects my core values and determination to

help bring about social justice, equality and Irish unity. I have always been passionate about delivering a better, fairer Ireland that puts workers and families first and builds a better future for all. I believe Sinn Féin are the only party that can achieve that.

Over the years, I have been involved in the conversation on our constitutional future both here in the city, and in Europe. In 2019, I travelled on a Sinn Féin delegation to the European Parliament in Brussels for the launch of an important document on planning for Irish unity and the role of the EU.

What are your key priorities for your constituency/what are the key issues facing your constituency?

We have a positive vision and a plan for Derry to ensure we reach our full potential. A plan to create jobs, opportunities and a fair deal for ordinary workers and families.

Our priority is ensuring that the commitments to delivering a first-class mental health service, the expansion of Magee University, building more social and affordable housing and more jobs for Derry are delivered on.

What are your interests outside work?

I have always been an avid reader and loved spending time researching my family history and travelling round Ireland with family to explore our history.

I also love spending time with my two beautiful granddaughters, Éabha and Ria. They have really changed our lives and I love having them around the house. They keep us busy.

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Gender-based violence: We need to understand what is going wrong, why and how to put it right Chair of the Executive Office Committee, Sinéad McLaughlin MLA says that we need men to take the lead in creating cultural change.

The murder of Ashling Murphy is such a terrible, tragic event for her, her family, and her community in Offaly. It resonates for women across the island of Ireland. Women are angry and upset, but we are also traumatised by it.

Ashling did everything right, she was getting exercise in a public place and in broad daylight. But even talking about doing ‘everything right’ is itself wrong. Women have the right to walk safely home at night, yet a new opinion poll shows that less than half of women in the North of Ireland feel safe on our streets.

But we know women are at most risk where we should be safest: in our own homes and within our families. Women have the right to live with their partner without being hit, kicked or murdered.

Yet, too often that is what happens to women.

More women are murdered in Northern Ireland as a result of domestic violence than anywhere else in western Europe. Quite why is unclear, but perhaps it is connected to our history of the Troubles, the glorification and justification of past violence, an unacceptable macho culture and the continuation of paramilitaries.

These factors illustrate why the work by the Executive Office in producing a strategy tackling violence against women and girls is so very, very important. We need to understand what is going wrong, why and how to put it right.

The problem, of course, is not with women. Women are the victims, we deal with the symptoms of a society that has at its

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heart something deeply wrong. We must ask, why do some men hate women so much? So much hatred, that is, to kill women?

While violent pornography and violent online sexist games may have a role, they are not an explanation. We need to consider more generally the demeaning of women, whether it is online, in the street, or wherever it occurs. And we need men to take the lead in creating cultural change.

As chair of the Assembly’s Committee for the Executive Office, I look to officials to produce ideas, to copy best practice from other jurisdictions, some of which are years ahead of us in tackling this evil within our society. I want officials to put into practice their proposals quickly, without waiting for reports to be written and approved. We are in the midst of an emergency.

The office of the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has distributed on social media a powerful message to boys and men, explaining how words and actions matter. They matter to girls and women in giving them a better sense of freedom and opportunity. We need men and boys to become more aware of what they are saying and doing, and what impact their words and actions have on women and girls.

We owe it to Ashling Murphy, and all the other women who have been murdered, to learn from the past, to provide a better future for women.

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