agendaNi issue 104

...informing Northern Ireland’s decision-makers

Producing for the economy NI Screen’s Rotha Johnston Health Minister Robin Swann on service recovery and reform

Interim HOCS Jenny Pyper discusses transformation of the Civil Service

New Fiscal Council Chair Robert Chote on the role of the watchdog Issue issue104 8 Aug/Sep June 2021 11

Health • Housing ChildrenReports: and youngHealth people •• ICT Tourism Carbon Tax •• Special

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Contents

06

24

04

Matters arising

06

Issues

10

29

22

53

30

71

88

92 82

06

The changed faces of unionism

10

Cover story: NI Screen’s Rotha Johnston on recovery and growth

14

Interim HOCS Jenny Pyper discusses her priorities

22

Ulster University’s Deirdre Heenan on cross-border health

24

Fine Gael TD Neale Richmond shares his vision for a new Ireland

Housing report 30

Minister Deirdre Hargey MLA on transformation plans

40

Addressing homelessness post-pandemic

44

Construction skills availability

50

Y-Foundation’s Saija Turunen on Housing First in Finland

Health report 54

Health Minister Robin Swann on service recovery

58

Vaccine hesitancy

60

Waiting list crises

64

Rebuilding health and social care services

Children and young people report 72

Closing the educational attainment gap

76

Remote learning: Learning loss

Tourism report 84

86

98

Tourism’s recovery and growth

Public Affairs 88

Historical Advisory Panel Chair Paul Bew on a contested centenary

90

UCD’s Kieran Allen on the failure of partition

92

QUB’s Marie Coleman discusses home rule for unionism

95

Economist Robert Chote on Northern Ireland’s Fiscal Council

98

Political Platform: Mike Nesbitt MLA

22.09.21 Europa Hotel, Belfast

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More than half the world’s population (3.96 billion people) now use social media, with a massive jump in social media

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How to register...

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agendaNi Issue 104 June 2021

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

Crises to recovery…

The success of Northern Ireland’s vaccine rollout and the subsequent lifting of restrictions has shifted the focus from that of crisis to one of recovery.

While the reopening of most sectors of the economy has been cause for optimism, the seismic challenges facing the region cannot be overstated.

Northern Ireland’s health crisis has been compounded by the incomprehensible waiting lists. The number of patients waiting for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment has risen by almost 10 per cent in one year. The majority of the 335,042 people waiting have done so for more than one year.

At the same time, action to address the next global crisis, that of climate change, has been slow, to the point where Northern Ireland will soon have two competing climate change bills attempting to progress through the Assembly.

Consider also the requirement to transform the housing sector and the legacy impacts of the upheaval within education and you form a sense of just some of the challenges facing the Northern Ireland Executive.

Hopes for a coherent Executive approach appear challenging, not least because within a year, political parties will face the polls for the Assembly election. The looming election is a factor in the leadership upheaval within political unionism, one consequence of which is likely to be an even greater polarisation over implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol. There is much to do in relation to recovery and little evidence of conducive political capacity to do so.

This issue of agendaNi tackles some of those outstanding challenges facing Executive ministers in the coming year including an in-depth look at planned housing sector reform, the challenges facing the health sector and ambitions for recovery in tourism. In addition, we talk to new Interim HOCS Jenny Pyper about NICS reform, Fine Gael TD Neale Richmond on his outlook for a new Ireland and an in-depth examination of Northern Ireland’s contested centenary.

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 Carragher olivia.carragher@agendani.com Advertising Colin Hampsey colin.hampsey@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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The FSC’s Chain of Custody certification provides a way in which the material can be tracked from the certified initial source through the manufacturing process to the end user.

matters arising

Housing supply strategy to target all tenures A shortage of social housing in Northern Ireland is long-established and the Minister has outlined plans to address this, not least by equipping the Housing Executive with the power to borrow, which would enable it to begin building homes again.

However, the Minister says that supply of housing across all tenures needs to increase to meet the demands of a changing population and has called for input into a co-designed strategy.

“Access to a safe and secure home is a basic human right. This strategy will ensure that housing supply is about more than bricks and mortar. It will The Housing Minister, Deirdre Hargey MLA, has launched a call for evidence for a future strategy targeted to increase housing supply across all tenures in Northern Ireland.

The Minister has ambitions to introduce widespread transformation of the housing sector and has outlined plans to publicly consult on a draft housing supply strategy later this year.

make sure homes are safe, good quality and affordable,” she says.

The consultation period for the call for evidence is open until 16 July 2021.

Civil Service Head responsibilities to be split A new Permanent Secretary post is to be created to oversee the Executive Office, after a decision was taken to split the role of the Head of Northern Ireland Civil Service (HOCS).

departments operate, and also lead on

A review of the HOCS role was carried out after the First and deputy First Minister failed to agree an appointment in September 2020, a decision which led to the interim appointment of former Utility Regulator Jenny Pyper.

Officer role.

areas such as NICS reform and Executive Office Policy.

In effect, the HOCS role will be split into a Chief Executive and Chief Operating

Sue Gray, who had seemed the most likely candidate to fill the post, recently left her role as Permanent Secretary of the Department of Finance to return to the UK’s Cabinet Office as second

Sue Gray, Former Permanent Secretary of the Department of Finance.

4

agenda matters

The restructuring means that the Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) will oversee corporate, strategic, and Executive priorities, while a new Permanent Secretary for the Executive Office will take on the accounting officer role, similar to how other

Permanent Secretary, overseeing work on the union and the constitution.

Gray believed she was “too much of a challenger” when asked why she felt she did not get the post in Northern Ireland.

matters arising

Millions to be invested in diesel school buses

The Department of Education has spent £13 million on 116 new fossil-fuelled school buses.

The investment comes at a time when concerns have been raised about the lack of progress in Northern Ireland’s ambitions to decarbonise the transport sector.

The Northern Ireland Assembly has not yet established its own climate ambitions for 2050 but feeds into overall UK targets to be net-zero carbon by 2050. A Private Member’s Bill is being progressed through the Assembly that would see an overall target set, meanwhile the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs is also drafting its intended climate legislation.

Transport is Northern Ireland’s second largest greenhouse gas-emitting sector after agriculture, accounting for around 23 per cent of emissions (88 per cent of which is road transport) and emissions have risen by over 30 per cent since 1990.

In May, Education Minister Peter Weir MLA launched the £13 million fleet of new school buses and announced plans to invest a further £18 million in the coming year.

Listed amongst the fleet’s features are “improved fuel efficiency and reduced emissions”.

In 2020, the Education Authority, which has a bus fleet of over 800 buses, embarked on a five-year fleet

investment strategy, with the aim of replacing 50 per cent of its vehicles.

However, despite Northern Ireland’s climate ambitions, almost all of this investment is set to be targeted at fossil-fuelled vehicles, with plans to “trial two alternative fuelled vehicles” in 2025, the last year of the investment programme.

“The 116 new vehicles, recently launched, all have Euro VI engines.

These deliver up to 30 per cent better fuel economy and emit 25 per cent less CO2 compared to a similar petrol engine. They reduce emissions, with less than 80mg/km of NOx, which is a 55 per cent decrease on previous Euro standards. The new vehicles also include a stop-start function, which further reduce fuel use and emissions,” a department spokesperson said.

The announcement comes at a time when questions have been raised around whether Northern Ireland is doing enough to incentivise the take up of alternative fuel vehicles. In late May, evidence given to Stormont’s Infrastructure Committee suggested that up to 60 per cent of electric vehicle owners in Northern Ireland had considered reverting to petrol or diesel vehicles, mainly due to Northern Ireland’s current charging network.

Brexit boost to cross-border trade Statistics on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland are produced annually and so do not yet reflect the Brexit impact but a sense of the impact can be seen from an assessment of trade between Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, given that both Northern Ireland and the Republic remain in the EU’s single market for goods and have Levels of cross-border trade in Ireland

Statistics Office (CSO). The increase in

similar processes for products arriving

have been significantly enhanced as a

trade appears to be continuing to rise. In

from Great Britain.

result of Brexit, statistics have shown.

March 2021, exports from Northern

Exports from Northern Ireland to the

Ireland to the Republic rose by 62 per

(€2 billion) decrease in the value of Great

Republic have increased by 44 per cent

cent from €176 million to €285 million

Britain goods exports to the Republic of

in the first quarter of 2021, according to

and exports the other way rose by 22 per

Ireland for the first quarter of 2021, when

figures from the Republic’s Central

cent to €682 million.

compared to the same period last year.

The CSO have recorded a 48 per cent

agenda matters

5

issues agenda

The changed faces of unionism New DUP leader Edwin Poots MLA with new deputy leader Paula Bradley MLA.

With a year to go until Northern Ireland’s Assembly election and in a year marking 100 years since the partition of Ireland, political unionism has undergone a significant upheaval in its top ranks.

Having successfully navigated a series of

Foster’s decision to abstain rather than

potential political pitfalls, not least the

vote against a motion in the Assembly,

RHI scandal, a three-year absence of

calling for a ban on gay conversion

Stormont and the outbreak of a global

therapy, appears to be the straw that

pandemic, the swiftness of the demise of

broke the camel’s back, but it is no secret

Arlene Foster as leader of the DUP

that an undercurrent of disquiet around

caught many people off guard.

the party’s handling of Brexit had been

In April, Foster was forced to announce

6

simmering for some months, if not longer.

her intention to vacate the leadership

Frustrations that the party, while in a

post following a coup-like move by the

position of power in Westminster, failed

party’s elected members, with 27 MLAs

to prevent an Irish Sea border were

and half its MPs reportedly signing

compounded by the implementation of

letters to support an unprecedented

the Northern Ireland Protocol in January

leadership challenge.

2021.

agenda issues

As a direct consequence of Brexit, the backdrop to Northern Ireland’s centenary celebrations is a swell of people now interpreting the partition of the island as a failure and an increase in discussion and support for a new constitutional future for the island.

Ultimately, it appears that many DUP MLAs were uncomfortable with their hand as they prepare to face their voters ahead of next year’s Assembly election.

However, if replacing Foster as leader was seen as a way of steadying the ship ahead of next year, then little

issues agenda

consideration was given to the ramifications of a leadership contest.

Despite attempts to portray the contest as an amicable affair, it is clear the party is divided.

Understandably, there are those within the party that are unhappy with how Foster was removed. Additionally, the two-vote gap between new leader Edwin Poots MLA and contender Jeffrey Donaldson MP, leaves little room for comfort for the new leader and ensures that the threat of contest will never be far from his door.

This was highlighted by the recent meeting to ratify Poots’ leadership.

Although, eventually successful, the narrow majority to reject a secret ballot of 56 to 47 was a sign of the levels of division amongst party members. In a night that contained party resignations and the walk out of senior DUP members before Poots’ speech, internal party division spilled out into the public arena, a most unusual occurrence for the party.

Poots Externally, Poots has been slow to

implement change. His decision to delay announcing his own ministerial team has been forced by Foster’s announcement that any change to the current party Executive line up would see her resign before the expected date at the end of June. Foster’s resignation would bring to an end the current term of her joint office holder, Sinn Féin’s deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill.

Both parties would then have seven days to agree new office holders or force a snap election. It’s highly likely that Sinn Féin would use the seven-day period to seek assurances to implement pledges already agreed to under previous agreements, including an Irish Language Act. It now appears that the new leader would like to engage in these negotiations away from the media spotlight and without the time pressure of potentially forcing an election.

Interestingly, Poots has also not yet moved to change internal party structures and personnel. The RHI scandal unveiled to many the internal workings of a party largely being led by a

small number of unelected party officers.

In his leadership manifesto, Poots pledged to undertake an independent review of the party’s staffing model, adding that “power and decisionmaking” needed to be in the hands of the elected representatives.

Poots faces an uphill task to corral party support in the coming year. His deep roots within the party and experience of key ministerial portfolios across several Executives leaves him well-equipped to understanding the nuances of the top role. He has advantages, not least his outspoken opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol to lean on. However, he also faces challenges to rally the support of more liberal unionists, a noticeable number of whom shifted towards the Alliance Party in the 2019 Westminster elections.

Key to this will be his party’s ability, as part of a collective Executive, to deliver on ambitions for recovery in Northern Ireland. A health crisis, a need for economic reform and action on climate change are just some of the issues facing the party when they go to the doors of the electorate.

agenda issues

4 7

issues agenda

The changed faces of unionism New UUP leader Doug Beattie shares a joke with Health Minister Robin Swann MLA, who holds the UUP’s only Executive portfolio.

The UUP Timing was probably the most surprising element of Steve Aiken’s decision to step down as party leader of the UUP. Aiken made the announcement just days after it emerged that Foster would be resigning and left many to question whether the leadership upheaval was in reaction to a wider crisis within unionism.

Unlike Foster, Aiken appeared to walk before he was pushed but undoubtedly the upcoming election was a major factor in his decision. And, like the DUP, Brexit is a major source of contention amidst the party’s grassroots.

Announcing his resignation, Aiken said: “Despite our successes, it has become clear to me that if we are to achieve the breakthrough in the forthcoming assembly elections, we will need to drive further ahead... to achieve our goals, we now need new leadership.”

Aiken’s decision means that the UUP will now have three former leaders within its MLA ranks, a clear indication that previous attempts to rebuild the party’s support have largely failed.

New leader Doug Beattie appears to have given the party a boost in the form of preelection polling but whether this will hold up when the real polling day comes, remains to be seen.

The ‘Beattie bounce’, as some have

8

agenda issues

described it, is likely to benefit from the split in the DUP. However, there is also a recognition that he must move quickly to capitalise on that division. The new leader will undoubtedly seek to attract the DUP’s disgruntled voters but could also potentially offer an olive branch to the DUP’s elected and non-elected party members to join, and in some cases rejoin, his party.

The attractiveness of that switch for former DUP supporters will depend on the UUP’s direction of travel. With both unionist leaders voicing their opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol, questions have already been asked about whether both parties could target the Alliance Party’s latest vote surge through greater co-operation. Interestingly, Beattie has not ruled out electoral pacts as a future policy for his party.

Beattie’s greatest challenge will be distinguishing himself from the approach taken by Aiken, something which may be difficult when considering Beattie’s prominent position as one of Aiken’s senior team.

Beattie has declined to put himself forward for the leadership role on two previous occasions and was unopposed for the top seat this time. His predecessors were largely unsuccessful in attempts to reverse the party’s electoral decline and there are concerns among the grassroots of the party that

Beattie will not spearhead the radical reform needed to reverse the UUP’s fortunes.

Like Poots, Beattie is also opposed to the Northern Ireland Protocol and has called for it to be scrapped. However, the EU appears to be giving little ground on the need for full implementation and both leaders face the prospect of going to the electorate without satisfactory success on what many see as their greatest challenge.

Brexit, however, is far from the only challenge. Health, housing, and climate crises need to be addressed by the cross-party Executive, within which the UUP has one minister. Polls suggest Robin Swann’s popularity is the strongest of any current minister, because of his central role in the pandemic, but failure to make significant progress over the next year could have ramifications for all parties.

Unlike Poots, Beattie has little scope to mark his introduction in terms of a shakeup of ministerial portfolios, with Swann undoubtedly set to be kept in place until the election. Beattie has reshuffled his party’s spokespersons, but he will be aware that a fresh strategy will be needed for the next mandate, with the larger parties likely to feel pressure to opt for the health portfolio as one of their earliest picks.

End users at the wheel as NIE Networks paves the road to net zero After a tumultuous year, positivity has emerged in Northern Ireland in the form of economic recovery and a clearer roadmap towards net zero carbon, writes Paul Stapleton, Managing Director of NIE Networks.

As lockdown eases and businesses return to a semblance of normality, latest indicators confirm economic activity is ramping up while the focus of governments around the world is honing in on the importance of ensuring we act now to protect the environment for this and future generations.

Networks will support new technologies such as hydrogen electrolysis and battery storage, as well as the development and operation of new services and markets. And, as a result of the proposed changes to how we operate, NIE Networks’ role will change to a Distribution Systems Operator.

the cost is shared with the wider

The European Union Strategy Paper published in July 2020 entitled ‘Powering a Climate-Neutral Economy’ is one such example of the latter, setting out a vision for increased energy efficiency and a concerted shift to electrification or other cleaner fuels.

There is a substantial vision set out in the report, one which will obviously require investment but one which should not be a cost burden to consumers.

Public funding won’t be required to roll out the vision, rather funding can come from industry – including NIE Networks.

Our modelling shows that the additional investment needed in the network can be delivered without substantially increasing prices for customers, because the growth in demand from increased use of electricity (replacing fossil fuels) will pay for the additional investment.

can compete on a level playing field.

As such, the transition to net zero energy should be seen as an economic opportunity for Northern Ireland, not a burden. As a society, we spend about £2 billion each year on imported fossil fuels.

The opportunity we have now is to replace that with indigenous renewable energy that will drive economic activity, create jobs and grow value here in Northern Ireland. We could do quite a lot with £2 billion each year in this economy and that is a big opportunity for Northern Ireland businesses.

will be able to play a central role in the

At NIE Networks, we have shaped our own strategy, ‘Networks for Net Zero’, which sets out our views on the options and pathways for decarbonisation in Northern Ireland.

Crucially, it is centred around the customer and shows how achieving net zero is possible while still supplying end users with competitive energy and helping the economy recover.

The report highlights how electrification can play a significant role in an integrated decarbonised energy system and how the electricity network will support the transition to net zero carbon by securing more energy from renewable energy sources. In essence, how we can replace society’s dependency on imported fossil fuels in power generation, transport and heating.

We are seeking customer feedback on the various themes laid out in the report including how we can facilitate increased renewables on the network and how we can enable uptake of low carbon technologies such as electric vehicles, solar photovoltaics and electric heat pumps.

The report also outlines how NIE

However, there is a need for a change in policy to support this.

Many of our existing policies are out of step with our neighbouring regions. For example, if a customer wants to connect to the electricity network in Northern Ireland they pay the full cost of the connection works while in Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland a portion of

customer base.

This situation deters inward investment in Northern Ireland and we would advocate for an urgent review of and consultation on the connection policy and charging arrangements so that we

Similarly, policy choices to support a green recovery must be carried out in a way which protects the most vulnerable in society. To do so, there is an urgent need to advance initiatives for greater engagement with and involvement of communities and customers. Simple, impartial advice mechanisms for information sharing and support for community energy projects are all needed.

If we can do that, NIE Networks’ strategy journey towards net zero. In doing so help the economy build back better and most importantly, provide customers access to a competitively priced, clean and sustainable energy source.

NIE Networks T: 03457 643 643 W: www.nienetworks.co.uk Twitter: @NIElectricity

cover story

Producing for the economy With five major productions currently shooting in Northern Ireland, representing a high watermark for the screen sector, Northern Ireland Screen Chair, Rotha Johnston, says that the industry has a large role to play in the region’s economic recovery from the pandemic.

The continued success of screen production in Northern Ireland, even when faced with a pandemic, is testament to the resilience and ambition of the sector and all those within it, explains Johnston.

The outgoing Chair of Northern Ireland Screen exhibits her pride in the growth of the sector which she has witnessed over her eight-year tenure. Johnston points to evidence that the groundwork has been laid to enable Northern Ireland to continue to “punch above its weight” in attracting productions in the years to come.

Northern Ireland Screen is the lead agency for the film, television and digital content industry in the region. It has a role to support the development and

10

cover story

production of screen content in Northern Ireland, both incoming and indigenous.

relation to its Irish language and UlsterScots funds.

“We are committed to maximising the economic, cultural and educational value of the screen industries for the benefit of Northern Ireland. This goal is pursued through our mission to accelerate the development of a dynamic and sustainable screen industry and culture in Northern Ireland,” explains Johnston.

Like many organisations, screen production and the wider network of those involved in the industry were hit with an initial shockwave when the pandemic broke. With the industry coming to a standstill, almost immediately overnight, Northern Ireland Screen moved to secure support for those affected.

The organisation is funded by the Department for the Economy (DfE) and the Department for Communities (DfC), and is delegated by the Arts Council of NI (ACNI) to administer Lottery funding for film in Northern Ireland. It also receives some funding from the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in

However, as Johnston explains, given the variation of those involved across the industry, it quickly became apparent that seeking approvals and the introduction of Covid-safe regulations to restart production would be the best way forward for all.

cover story

“I am delighted to say that working in collaboration with the departments, we have been able to continue with production in Northern Ireland to the extent that we now have five productions currently shooting,” says Johnston.

The Chair estimates that some 1,500 people are currently working on productions in Northern Ireland, including the likes of Netflix’s first major production in Belfast, The School for Good and Evil, Paramount’s film adaption of Dungeons and Dragons, the Normal People follow-up Conversations with Friends from Element Pictures and BBC’s daytime crime drama Hope Street.

Johnston says that the success is not just one for the industry but for the wider economy. “We estimate that, between February to July 2021, we have in excess of £70 million going into the economy as a result of those five productions. Notwithstanding the significant issues in relation to Covid, this means that hotel rooms are being filled, taxis are being used and hopefully soon, hospitality will benefit again.

“It is also important to recognise the reach that the industry has for job creation ranging from actors and agents through to painters, plumbers and electricians.”

Johnston is quick to point out that recent successes have not happened by chance and instead they have been the result of a long-term focus and collaborative effort over many years.

April 2021 marked 10 years since the first airing of Game of Thrones, the show often credited with transforming Northern Ireland’s screen industry and the Chair says that the attraction of the HBO production and other large-scale productions has been a result of much collaboration.

“Successive Executives and ministers have supported the screen sector and we are now seeing the benefits of longterm strategic investment. The direct economic impact is important as is the perception of Northern Ireland as a vibrant creative hub further afield. That strategic, long-term focus has allowed us to punch well above our weight.”

Highlighting the wider economic impact

Line of Duty star Martin Compston during recent filming in Belfast.

“I don’t think we would have anticipated 10 or 20 years ago that we would have five major productions operating at the same time here, but it’s a result of many years of skills development and growth of film crews and it is important that we show that.” such productions can have, Johnston points out that in 2019, Tourism NI estimated that one-in-six visitors to Northern Ireland did so, at least partially, because of the connection to Game of Thrones.

The Chair explains that the legacy left by productions, like Game of Thrones form a large part of Northern Ireland Screen’s evidence base when trying to attract new productions to the region, highlighting the levels of skills and experience that exists in Northern Ireland.

Showcasing the innovation that exists in the organisation, Johnston outlines how Northern Ireland Screen recognised an opportunity during the pandemic, with many people locked down in their homes. The organisation has over 40,000 followers across its Twitter and Facebook social media platforms and quickly produced an awareness campaign with the hashtag MadeInNI. Johnston explains that the aim of the campaign was to increase awareness of

the vast amount, and variety, of content that Northern Ireland Screen supports.

The campaign centred on the use of a back catalogue of Northern Ireland Screen supported projects across film, TV drama, children’s content, and games, which are all available on mainstream platforms.

Of the 71 projects in total highlighted by #MadeInNI, including 30 films, 18 TV dramas, 16 children’s projects and seven games, the organisation recorded over half a million impressions and over 13,000 engagements.

Alongside the campaign was an increased promotion of content from Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive, first launched in 2000, which has seen an 80 per cent rise in visitors to its website since 2019.

“MadeInNI is a really important tool as we seek to project the image of Northern Ireland as a vibrant and creative economy, to a reach well beyond these islands. When you look to FDI mobile

coverissues story agenda

4 11

cover story

Broadcast Fund and the Irish Language Broadcast Fund, which have both integrated into the rest of the screen industry to the point where we are now seeing producers, editors and writers from those funds operating across sectors.”

Evidence that Northern Ireland Screen continues to look to the long-term future of the industry can be seen through its investment in skills and education, explains Johnston.

“Northern Ireland could have the best incentives and the best production facilities but if we don’t have the right skills for the screen economy then we will not be attractive and we will not be able to grow,” she says. productions, that image is critical, and it is imperative that decision-makers know they are coming to a location where good things are happening and they are happening at scale.

“I don’t think we would have anticipated 10 or 20 years ago that we would have five major productions operating at the same time here, but it’s a result of many years of skills development and growth of film crews and it is important that we show that.”

Recovery: Inclusive growth Johnston pays credit to not only public sector investment but also public-private partnerships which have helped expand Northern Ireland’s screen industry. The Chair points to the building and expansion of film studios, such as the £45 million planned expansion of Belfast Harbour’s film studios and the further expansion of Loop Studios, as examples of how the industry continues to grow its attractiveness.

Ambitions for even greater growth will form a key part of Northern Ireland Screen’s new four-year strategy, currently being developed by the organisation’s board and soon to be delivered to the Department for the Economy.

“I think the strategy will show that our ambitions have not diminished and that we see an opportunity for real positive growth and an increased contribution to the economy going forward,” the Chair states.

12

cover story

The opportunity that Northern Ireland Screen’s ambitions offer for inclusive growth, Johnston argues, are evident in the continued growth of the industry outside of Belfast, including in the north west.

The recent announcement that Hypixel Studios, the videogame developer behind the upcoming and much-anticipated title Hytale, is to establish its headquarters in Derry as part of its acquisition by US firm Riot Games, has been broadly welcomed.

The city is also set to host a third series of the hit TV show Derry Girls later this year. Northern Ireland’s first animated feature length film The Puffin Rock Movie, is currently in production at Derry-based media firm Dog Ears, it is a co-production with Kilkenny-based Oscar nominees Cartoon Saloon, and the China Nebula Group (CNB). Derry’s Alleycats TV has become a preferred supplier to network BBC winning two commissions from BBC Three in recent weeks.

“Inclusive growth is really important, not just in our strategy but in the overall economic ambitions for growth,” explains Johnston. “For this to happen we recognise the requirement to consistently support new talent across Northern Ireland. For example, our New Talent Focus scheme has been incredibly successful and has given many of our writers, directors, and producers opportunities to get their first credit on a feature film.

“Equally we manage the Ulster-Scots

“Skills development is an inherent part of our strategy. Through our funding from the Department for Communities we support three Creative Learning Centres in Derry, Belfast, and Armagh in delivering skills development programmes for teachers and young people in digital literacy and in understanding and deploying creative technologies and new approaches to learning in the classroom as a support across the curriculum.

“A key objective for the centres has been to provide learning programmes for the most disadvantaged young people and those experiencing social exclusion. Over 80 per cent of centre activity takes place in schools with high numbers of disadvantaged pupils.”

Another opportunity described by the Chair and offered by Northern Ireland Screen is that of ScreenWorks, a scheme developed to help young people aged from 14 to 19 learn more about careers in the screen industries, through hands-on work experience opportunities.

Northern Ireland Screen has been instrumental in promoting and developing moving image arts as a qualification in schools, but the Chair acknowledges that further opportunity exists to expand Northern Ireland Screen’s collaboration to other areas, local councils, and further education colleges, adding: “It is important to note that part of our remit is to ensure that we are engaging with those beyond the formal education system, again ensuring inclusive growth.”

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Interestingly, the Chair points out that screen production has now evolved into a broader range of services than the movies and TV dramas people traditionally associate with the title.

Northern Ireland Screen’s academies work across five screen sectors, including animation, visual effects (VFX) and games.

“As we look to continue the development of the screen industry here in Northern Ireland it is important that we do that with the whole ecology for the sector. Recent years have seen the convergence of different screen technologies and we have moved away from the traditional setting of people sitting down at a certain time, to the operation of multiple screens in a household consuming different products from animation to games, film, and documentaries.

Derry Girls is set to film its third series in the city in 2021.

“In each of those areas we need bespoke approaches to how we can support that talent pipeline entering and within the industry.

“We want to ensure that Northern Ireland has a burgeoning screen economy and to carve out some of that incredible growth globally for the region.”

In July 2021, Johnston will hand over to a new Chair, currently being sought by the Department for the Economy, after what she describes as eight “privileged” years.

Asked to describe the highlights of her tenure, the Chair says that she has enjoyed witnessing the “incredible creativity in Northern Ireland and the ability to bring that creativity and ambition to the screen”.

“The fact that we have such a volume of business coming through the pipeline is a credit to this great organisation and I think going forward it is important that we adopt a broad-based approach to each of the screen areas and that we are not dependent on one single area to realise our ambitions for growth,” she adds.

“That we have such large-scale productions coming time and time again is evidence of the skillsets and expertise that we possess in the screen sector. I am incredibly proud of the sector and the people in independent production, who, day in and day out, go in to make fantastic programmes and bring them to audiences around the world.

NI Screen’s ScreenWorks programme offers hands-on work experience opportunities for 14- to 19-year-olds.

“The success of the screen sector in

the talent pipeline and work

Northern Ireland is no accident, it has

collaboratively with the departments and

been a concerted effort. Going forward, I

organisations who can help grow the

think it is important that we continue with

sector to deliver postive economic and

a holistic strategy. Plan and commit

social benefit for Northern Ireland,”

resources long-term, continue to develop

Johnston concludes.

Rotha Johnston took up post as Chair of Northern Ireland Screen in June 2013 and will leave the post in June 2021. A Queen’s University graduate, Rotha has had a career in the textile, economic development, and food sectors. She currently has various investment interests primarily in the property sector. In addition, Rotha holds a number of non-executive positions including Chair of Northern Ireland Electricity Networks and member of KPMG NI Advisory Board.

Rotha is also a director at QUBIS and Ulster Garden Villages. Previously she was a shareholder and director of Variety Foods Ltd, a food service company supplying the Irish market; head of marketing in Moygashel Textiles, part of Lamont Holdings, and business development director, LEDU. Rotha was also a BBC trustee, Pro Chancellor at Queen’s University Belfast and Deputy Chair of Invest Northern Ireland.

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Interim HOCS: Jenny Pyper At the end of 2020, failure to reach political agreement on a new Head of the Civil Service (HOCS) by the First and deputy First Ministers resulted in Jenny Pyper, the first woman to ever hold the position, being appointed on an interim basis. agendaNi spoke to the former Utility Regulator about her role in Civil Service (NICS) reform, the pandemic response and the development of a new Programme for Government (PfG).

Prior to your appointment the HOCS role was vacant for three months. To what extent did this pose a challenge upon taking up the post and what were your immediate priorities?

I took up post on 1 December 2020 at the end of a very challenging year for both the new Executive and a very stretched civil service. The pandemic response has tested Executive ministers and the Civil Service to the limit; ministers were coping with a return to office after a three-year absence and heightened public expectations under the New Decade, New Approach (NDNA) agreement only to be almost immediately immersed into

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the most unforeseen challenge of a lifetime in managing the pandemic response. While the pandemic dominated our media headlines on a daily basis, both ministers and civil servants were simultaneously delivering the public services we largely take for granted, with the latter responding quickly to delivering grant support schemes, providing rapid advice and legislative solutions around the imposing and lifting of restrictions and responding to the increase in unemployment and the hardship that impacted on so many. The absence of a HOCS for over three months before my appointment no doubt presented challenges for ministers and the NICS at a very testing time.

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However, the hiatus did highlight the importance of the leadership and direction provided by the HOCS; and it was an opportune time to carefully consider the role of HOCS and how best it could be restructured to be most effective.

There was no shortage of immediate priorities and this included the provision of advice to the First Minister, the deputy First Minister and to the Executive, support for the Permanent Secretary cohort and wider civil service, leadership of The Executive Office (TEO) with its extensive programme of delivery on cross-cutting issues and engagement with counterparts on a north/south/east/west basis to ensure co-operation on the pandemic response and the implications of Brexit, which was just weeks away at that stage.

You were tasked with leading reform of the NICS in your interim role. What does this entail and what progress has been made to date?

Reform of the NICS is a key commitment in NDNA and will take a number of years to effect. Fallout from the RHI Inquiry and a report from the Northern Ireland Audit Office on capacity and capability of the NICS have put the need for a transformation programme led by the NICS Board, firmly in the spotlight. The First Minister and the deputy First Minister tasked me with leading the necessary cultural, management and operational changes through a corporate programme of NICS modernisation to secure improvements in efficiency, effectiveness, and delivery.

The most immediate progress to date is the reform of the role of the HOCS position itself which will manifest shortly when a substantive new HOCS and TEO Permanent Secretary will be appointed.

What is the value of an outcomes-based Programme for Government and how can we ensure that outcomes remain relevant in the post-pandemic future?

The principles of an outcomes-based Programme for Government are simple: work with our partners and put impactful actions in place to make people’s lives better. It’s an approach that focuses on what we are achieving. It makes us truly question ‘are we making a difference and is anyone better off?’ and that gives us a powerful tool to challenge existing practice and change things for the better. That’s the strength of the outcomes-based approach and it encourages us to continually improve on what we do and the services we provide.

In that regard, and as we begin to look forward to a postpandemic future, the outcomes-based approach is more relevant than ever. The outcomes will be a guide for us and help us focus on the things that matter most to people.

Can you outline the budgetary outlook for the Executive Office and the Civil Service and the challenges this poses?

The pandemic transformed how we deliver our public services. What are the major challenges faced by the Civil Service over the past year? To what extent has Covid crisis accelerated reform and unlocked greater efficiencies?

The 2021/22 Budget does present significant challenges for the Executive and all departments with a constrained spending review outcome, particularly in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Executive has again been provided with a singleyear budget which constrains planning and makes prioritisation of services over the longer term difficult. Although the final budget for TEO indicates an increase in TEO’s Resource DEL budget when compared to our baseline, the budget does not provide any additional funding for business-as-usual activities.

The increase is essentially due to additional funding in 2021/22 for particular areas such as the implementation costs for the Victims’ Payments Scheme for Permanent Disablement, the Historical Institutional Abuse Redress Scheme, EU Match Funding and EU Exit, all of which are ring-fenced for these purposes. So, the challenge for TEO and the other operational departments, will be to address inflationary pressures in the context of a standstill baseline budget.

The multi-faceted nature of the services provided by around 23,000 NICS staff brought considerable challenge. Not only were many staff repurposed to deliver Covid-specific support, but many were also unable to work from home due to the nature of their roles: benefit office/frontline staff, industrial staff and key ministerial support teams. Like many other organisations, the challenge for people working remotely to deliver public services, often with home-schooling and caring responsibilities added to their daily workload, was without doubt the most difficult thing for all concerned. Working from home has worked exceptionally well but it hasn’t been without its downsides. Our recent staff survey indicated that while there was overwhelming support for a ‘blended’ approach of home and office-based working going forward, there was also a strong desire to return to the office when conditions allow. While remote meetings online have proved invaluable for everything from Executive meetings to team briefs, people seem united in their view that they miss the

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The Taskforce continues to lead on the implementation of restrictions throughout Northern Ireland to help reduce the spread of coronavirus and to help manage the pressures on the health and social care system. Priorities have been focused on the pathway out of these restrictions and looking at ways to address potential changes in behaviours as restrictions are lifted and vaccinations are administered. Work is ongoing on the development and agreement of the Executive’s Covid Recovery Strategy with long term focus on adherence, social and economic recovery.

Will the splitting of the HOCS role be a positive step?

The role of HOCS has now been restructured to ensure that the corporate, strategic, and Executive priorities are HOCS-led, while the accounting officer role, as with all other departments, will fall to the new TEO Permanent Secretary who will also lead on areas such as NICS reform and Executive Office policy. This can best be described in private sector terms as akin to having a Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer. Having been in the HOCS seat since December, I feel strongly that this is the correct direction of travel. The First Minister and deputy First Minister are supportive of the new structure and place a strong emphasis on delivery. There’s much to do operationally and we’re working against a backdrop of an ongoing pandemic, severely constrained public finances, and finite human resources and at times, an unpredictable political scene locally, nationally and internationally. While I like to think my multi tasking game is strong, there’s simply only so much one person can do. I’m confident that the revised structure will aid delivery on a number of fronts.

“I believe I will have re-established, stabilised, and refreshed the role of the HOCS, and positioned it, the senior team and the NICS Board to lead the civil service and support the Executive to deliver ever better public services for the good of the people here.” human contact, the camaraderie and simply a change of scene.

It’s fair to say that the pandemic has fast-tracked some aspects of reform via remote working and tech and proved it can work but I find that expectations of how much people can cram into the working day have increased. While that can be beneficial at times, I worry that we have moved to a 24/7 ‘on’ mode which is simply unsustainable.

As Chair of the recently established Covid-19 Taskforce, could you outline what this role entails and the work the taskforce has undertaken?

The Executive’s Covid-19 Taskforce (ECT) continues to lead and coordinate an integrated programme of work of response to, and recovery from, the Covid-19 pandemic. The ECT structures its work under four workstreams: protect, recovery, adherence, and strategic communications. Work under each of these areas is being led by relevant departmental permanent secretaries, each of whom sit on the Strategic Oversight Board.

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What do you hope to have achieved by the end of your tenure?

I believe I will have re-established, stabilised, and refreshed the role of the HOCS, and positioned it, the senior team and the NICS Board to lead the civil service and support the Executive to deliver ever better public services for the good of the people here. As the first woman to occupy the ‘HOCS-seat’ in the 100year history of the NICS, I’ve tried to champion diversity and inclusion and I’m proud of the NICS and all it has delivered, especially over the past year. As I reflect on my tenure which has seen a huge range of challenges — economic, health, social and political — in a very short space of time, I’d like to think I might also manage to retain my sanity, dignity and sense of humour.

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Parallel climate bills New DUP leader and Environment Minister Edwin Poots MLA has opposed a Bill which would set a net zero carbon by 2045 target, with Northern Ireland now potentially facing the prospect of progressing two parallel climate bills.

Minister Poots, whose department launched a public discussion document as a preparatory step in bringing forward what would be Northern Ireland’s first climatespecific legislation in December 2020, took the unusual step of publishing a departmental statement to voice his disappointment at the progress of a Private Member’s Bill, also aimed at introducing climate-focused legislation.

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The Minister claims that the Bill, which recently passed its second reading after 58 MLAs supported its progression following a six-hour debate in the Assembly, would have a negative impact on the environment and the agri-food sector. A total of 29 MLAs opposed the Bill’s progression.

In a statement released by his department, Poots said that the progression of the Private Member’s Bill had been done

“without any regard to either the long-term sustainability of our hard-working agri-food sector, nor the long-term achievability of the environmental targets and commitments contained within the Bill”.

The Minister also claimed that “unachievable deadlines and unreasonable demands” would disengage farmers.

Until the Private Member’s Bill was introduced, Northern Ireland was the only

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region of the UK without its own climate legislation and, as it stands, contributes to wider UK reduction targets.

In January 2020, the New Decade, New Approach deal to restore the Northern Ireland and Executive and agreed by all five main parties, pledged to bring forward a Climate Change Act to give environmental targets a strong legal underpinning. A month later, the Assembly followed the UK’s decision in 2019 and declared a climate emergency.

On 21 July 2020, the Assembly passed a motion on the introduction of a Climate Change Act within three months. Around the same time Minister Poots had said that officials in his department did not accept the terminology “climate crisis” or “climate emergency”. However, following criticism, the Minister received an apology from his Permanent Secretary for the briefing he was given and Poots has accepted that there is a climate crisis.

Poots described the three-month timeframe to introduce legislation as “impossible”, stating that he was committed to action and not words.

In response, Green Party leader Clare Bailey submitted a Climate Change Bill to the Assembly in October, which she said had cross-party and cross-community support.

The Bill, drafted by Climate Coalition NI, a coalition of academics, lawyers, environmentalists, NGOs and youth organisations, sets out a 2045 net zero greenhouse gas emissions target for Northern Ireland and establishes a legal framework, including five-year plans for emissions cuts. However, the Bill does not specify the level of reductions required across various sectors. Instead, it proposes these be set by Executive departments and would require Assembly approval.

The Bill also proposes the introduction of a Climate Commissioner to oversee progress on departmental targets.

“My take on the Bill is clear and consistent in that it is both ambitious and achievable.

Ambitious because it needs to be and achievable because it is a governance framework Bill without sectoral specific targets,” says Bailey.

Minister Poots says that he has tabled policy proposals for discussion at the

Executive, which he says need to be heard as soon possible so that he may introduce an Executive Bill to the Assembly.

It is understood that one of those policy options to be put forward by the Minister, and the one most likely to be recommended by the Department, is for a target below net zero carbon.

In December 2020, following a request to Minister Poots, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the UK Government’s advisory body, responded with an assessment of Northern Ireland’s required contribution to the UK’s net zero carbon by 2050 target.

The CCC indicated its assessment that an 82 per cent reduction in all greenhouse gases in Northern Ireland “represents equivalent effort and a fair contribution to the UK net zero target”.

The CCC advice was highlighted by Poots in his statement opposing the progression of the Private Member’s Bill: “The independent experts of the UK Climate Change Committee have categorically stated that a net zero target by 2050 for Northern Ireland covering all greenhouse

gases cannot credibly be set at this time.”

Highlighting “major concerns” around the potential outworkings of the Bill, Poots pointed to “the apparent disregard” of advice from the CCC and inclusion of the 2045 target. He also suggested a lack of consultation on the Bill compared to his “proper” consultation and accused the sponsors and drafters of the Bill of providing a lack of evidence and impact assessments.

Finally, the Minister flagged potential “significant costs” to the public purse when implementing and meeting the requirements of the Bill, which he says will “serve to push our emissions overseas rather than having a contribution to the reduction of overall global greenhouse gas emission”.

He added: “We don’t need just any climate change bill. We need the right climate change bill that sets out an achievable pathway for Northern Ireland to contribute to the wider UK and global efforts for greenhouse gas emissions reductions.”

The Private Member’s Bill will now pass to committee stage in the Assembly.

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Translink: Ready for you Safety on-board Safety is Translink’s top priority and commuters can be assured that robust measures are in place to ensure that services are safe, including encouraging contactless/cashless payments wherever possible; social distancing and the wearing of face coverings on-board services, unless exempt; delivering high cleaning and sanitisation standards, with regular enhanced deep cleaning of vehicles and facilities using a protective long-lasting anti-viral disinfectant; and monitoring and enhancing capacity as and when required to meet passenger needs.

As restrictions ease, many businesses are planning for a return to the workplace in the period ahead. To help meet that ambition, Translink is working alongside local businesses and their staff to deliver safe, greener and convenient journeys to and from Chris Conway, Group Chief Executive. the workplace in the coming months as part of a wider modal shift towards a ‘green’ recovery.

By promoting moves towards increased usage of bus and rail travel, local businesses can join Translink in supporting a sustainable future, one in which public transport has a fundamental role to play.

Translink stands ready to support businesses and keep staff and customers safe as they return, and we are engaging with local employers, business representative organisations and other stakeholders to listen to their needs and concerns.

Translink has introduced an online digital travel toolkit, which will enable people to plan their journeys in advance with confidence. This provides important journey safety advice, as well as information on best value ticket options and the rigorous safety measures we have adopted on-board to reassure customers, particularly those who may be returning to public transport for the first time since the pandemic began.

Support for safe, sustainable public transport There are significant opportunities to develop and enhance sustainable public transport options in the years ahead, and a reduction in society’s dependence on the private car is essential in order to reduce congestion in our urban centres and improve air quality.

Recent research commissioned by Translink, which surveyed public transport users and non-users across Northern Ireland, reveals that 79 per cent of respondents anticipate they will return to their normal workplace by the end of 2021, with 50 per cent of those surveyed also saying they would be happy to use public transport immediately once restrictions lift. The same research has identified several factors that will be key to encouraging greater take-up of bus and rail services,

including the use of face coverings, enhanced cleaning and sanitisers at stations – these are measures in which Translink has led the way throughout the pandemic.

The research also revealed that Translink is recognised for keeping our economy moving and keeping communities connected. Significantly, over two thirds agreed that public transport is a better option for the environment and for our air quality.

Climate action: A net zero vision Public transport touches all aspects of life, and it is clear that the shift to net zero emissions will be a defining policy issue in the years ahead. During lockdown, we saw air pollution levels and emissions drop significantly, all while public transport services continued to operate. It is very encouraging that over half of those surveyed claimed they would consider using public transport as a sustainable, more environmentally friendly mode of transport in the future, helping to drive emissions down further, reduce pollution and congestion and improve air quality across Northern Ireland as we work towards our ‘Climate Positive’ vision.

‘‘We welcome the new digital travel toolkit from Translink which is an excellent resource for everyone to utilise.”

John Healy, Vice President and Managing Director of Allstate

With the right funding, Translink aims to operate a net zero emission bus and rail fleet across our network by 2040, with fleets in Belfast and Derry~Londonderry achieving this by 2030. Our initial hydrogen-powered and battery-electric double-deck vehicles – the first anywhere in Ireland – have entered service, with another 100 zero emission vehicles set to join the Metro fleet in the coming months. By the end of this year, Translink will operate the UK’s fourthlargest zero emission bus fleet and we continue to work towards the achievement of further important milestones on our journey to net zero and securing a brighter future for everyone in our community.

Translink at the heart of the recovery Public transport sits at the heart of Northern Ireland’s recovery, and Translink has a clear vision to cement bus and rail travel as a key component of our recovery, with additional capacity, new fleet investment and a move to new technologies, including zero emission

and our new Translink Future Ticketing System, including on-board contactless payment capability, which will improve

journey and make public transport their first choice for travel in Northern Ireland for today and tomorrow.

choice for everyone. Initial roll-out is planned for later in 2021. We hope to inspire others to join us on our net zero

Find out more at www.translink.co.uk

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Cross-border health cooperation ‘natural’ and ‘logical’

With few exceptions, cross-border health collaboration has been “minimalist and often project specific”, says Ulster University’s Deirdre Heenan, who argues that Covid-19 cooperation has not extended beyond “window dressing”.

From the earliest days of Covid-19 in Ireland, the absence of an all-island approach to dealing with this global emergency has been identified as a critical issue. We share a single island, are one epidemiological unit, and therefore cross border cooperation is not only natural, its logical.

Throughout the last year, it has been asserted ad nauseam that ‘this virus doesn’t respect borders’ and ‘the disease does not discriminate’, but has this led to significant policy action? Despite the broad acceptance that thinking in terms of narrow political allegiances or identities would only prolong this crisis and deepen the impact on every community, to date collaboration has been extremely limited.

Both governments have continued to plough their own furrow with little more

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than lip service paid to working collectively to fight this common scourge.

In March 2020, the outgoing First Minister Arlene Foster slammed the Taoiseach for lack of cooperation with Stormont over Coronavirus. She claimed that he did not brief the Northern Executive before announcing school closures and Belfast officials learnt of the new regulations through the media. The Irish Government pointed the finger of blame at the Executive, suggesting some were more interested in slavishly replicating Westminster policy, rather than developing a bespoke all-island response.

In April 2020, the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the North and the South was broadly welcomed and viewed as a significant step in the right direction. In

the face of this existential threat, it appeared that constitutional politics would rightly play second fiddle to public health considerations. The MoU acknowledged a compelling case for strong cooperation, including information-sharing and, where appropriate, a common approach, but at best it has made a marginal difference.

Practically, it has translated to regular Zoom calls between the Chief Medical Officers and some sharing of data.

Window dressing and a far cry from the integrated, single-epidemiological coherent response to Foot and Mouth Disease (affecting livestock). Substantial differences in regulations, restrictions, data analysis and messaging pose practical challenges, cause confusion and are completely illogical on an island the size of Ireland.

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The debate on the divergent responses to Coronavirus, coupled with the spectre of a border poll has pushed comparisons between the two healthcare systems into the spotlight. Prevailing wisdom in the North suggests that the health and social care system here is superior to the South’s HSE, but the reality is much more layered and complex.

Significantly though, the ability to make robust comparisons about health outcomes across the island is fraught with difficulties. Providing healthcare services commands one of the largest allocations of public funding on both sides of the Irish border and there are persistent concerns over the efficiency and effectiveness of these systems.

Theoretically, closer cooperation could deliver economies of scale, value for money, opportunities for clinical specialisation and facilitate the sharing of knowledge. Over the past two decades health has been identified as a key area for increased cross-border working.

To date though, with the notable exceptions of the All-Island Congenital Heart Disease Network and the North West Cancer Centre at Altnagelvin, the approach has been minimalist and often project specific. Joint EU membership enabled cross-border healthcare activity in Ireland. Co-operation and Working Together (CAWT) was established in 1992, its mission ‘to improve the health and wellbeing of the border populations by working across boundaries and jurisdictions’. Through this vehicle significant work has been done to

(NSMC) established under the Good Friday Agreement agreed six formal areas of cooperation, for which common policies and approaches are agreed but implemented separately in each jurisdiction, including in health and accidents and planning for major emergencies. In response to the health

that of England, this is a useful deflection.

The regular and repeated calls for further collaboration and cooperation have not been accompanied by any detailed plans, cost-benefit analysis, feasibility studies or robust data to support an all-island approach.

“Both governments have continued to plough their own furrow with little more than lip service paid to working collectively to fight this common scourge.” emergency, the 24th plenary meeting NSMC was held in July 2020, the first since before the collapse of Stormont power-sharing in 2016. It gave a commitment to do ‘everything possible’ in coordination and collaboration to tackle the virus. It was agreed that an early meeting of the health sectoral group would be convened to review responses to the pandemic. At its meeting on 2 October, 2020, the sectoral group agreed to review its existing health work programme. No time frame nor objectives were agreed for this review.

The Health Minister is legally required to provide a statement to the Assembly on this meeting, to update on progress and allow for scrutiny. To date no statement has been presented, nor is one scheduled in the Assembly business timetable. If this is how a priority is treated, one wonders how the Government treats things that it doesn’t view as important.

Meaningful change in the all-island health agenda will not happen without a major policy imperative. There is an absence of any agreed strategic framework for health and social care systems to underpin cross-border cooperation, a situation exacerbated by the apparent lack of political will, north and south, to commit to all-island cooperation on an agreed plan of work.

Currently, there is a complete lack of momentum in this policy area. The pandemic has raised difficult questions about the extent to which both governments have lived up to commitments to developing cooperation across the island.

The new €500 million Shared Island Unit provides a unique opportunity to address the long-standing issues around cooperation in health and reflect on the Covid-19 response. A comprehensive

“The regular and repeated calls for further collaboration and cooperation have not been accompanied by any detailed plans, cost-benefit analysis, feasibility studies or robust data to support an all-island approach.”

programme of research and development could provide the evidence to identify interventions that would be to the ultimate benefit of all of the citizens on this island.

Given the similar social, economic and

enhance cross-border collaboration in health service delivery. Indisputable benefits have been achieved, providing access to services for communities within the border region, largely on a south-tonorth basis. However, in most instances in these initiatives funding has been timelimited, and services have not been mainstreamed.

The North South Ministerial Council

Recently, the deputy First Minister, Michelle O’Neill, suggested that ramping up cross-border health provision could help to reduce Northern Ireland’s “dire” waiting lists. Whilst there can be no dispute that they are dire, this is empty rhetoric.

Given that the Executive has yet to formulate a strategy for dealing with waiting lists which are currently 100 times

political pressures faced by both health care systems coupled with a pandemic that has steamrolled the country, it is an opportunity that we can ill afford to miss.

Deirdre Heenan is a Professor of Social Policy at Ulster University and Senior Associate at London’s Nuffield Trust.

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Towards a new Ireland The creation of a new Ireland will first require a focus on creating a shared island, says Fine Gael TD Neale Richmond, who has set out his detailed roadmap to how Irish unity might be achieved and what it might look like.

Brexit, the Covid-19 public health response, and ambitions of economic recovery have all served as disrupters to what once was the narrative of unification on the island of Ireland.

Advocates of and opponents to Irish unity have always existed but as the decades ticked by since partition, the middle ground has tended to lean heavily towards conservatism.

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the island of Ireland. One such example of that change is a series of interventions by southern politicians in the unification debate.

In Northern Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement served to focus minds on peace, politics, and progression, pushing the unity question on to the long finger.

In the South, the role reversal of economic fortunes from what once was the affluent north entrenched the mindset of ‘hold what we have’ and limit the risks.

In April, Dublin Rathdown TD Neale Richmond delivered a paper entitled ‘towards a New Ireland’ to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University as part of a wider series of discussions on Ireland’s future. Richmond, a Protestant Fine Gael TD, a grandson of an Orangeman and a regular visitor to Northern Ireland, is a self-confessed long-term believer in a united Ireland but believes that the freedom to talk about a united Ireland has emerged from a generational shift. “My parents’ generation would never have talked about this,” he admits.

However, the rhetoric around Irish unity has changed in recent years, accelerated undoubtedly by the UK’s exit from the EU and the implication that it has had on

Richmond is recognised as having a firm grip on Northern Ireland affairs, not just because of his family ties to north of the border but also through his role as his

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party’s spokesperson on European Affairs, a role dominated by Brexit. He previously chaired the Irish Seanad’s Brexit Committee and has engaged widely on the subject.

Quizzed on why he has chosen now to publish his vision for unity, Richmond admits that the invite to speak at Sidney Sussex College necessitated him to put his thoughts to paper and a 10,000-word paper ensued.

Previously critical of those who pushed for a border poll as Brexit negotiations were ongoing, the TD, who emphasises his long-standing belief in a united Ireland, says he now feels “comfortable” coming into the discussion. “There is no perfect time to do this, but I think it was a better time to engage in this conversation now, than it would have been a year or two ago. There is a certain element pushing a united Ireland, who have

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always been pushing it, but they have never put any flesh on the bones. I think it is important to do that. It is what I am partially seeking to do with this paper and something I am hoping to expand on in the coming months.”

Richmond believes that Brexit “has accelerated the ability to have the conversation” by creating a “schism” between the UK and the EU. Pointing to common membership of the EU for Northern Ireland and the Republic as an enabler of the Good Friday Agreement to settle, economically and socially, if not politically, he is critical of the political system in the South for disengaging from “transformative” political activities in Northern Ireland, which has led to a large increase in the middle ground.

because ultimately, the decision of when to hold a border poll is not our decision but that of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.”

Richmond’s paper is comprehensive and includes his vision of a new Ireland in relation to the education, health, and political systems. However, central to his roadmap is the need to first focus on “creating a shared island by building relationships across communities and by truly maximising the institutions provided for by the Good Friday Agreement”.

Expanding on this, Richmond says: “My vision is that if and when, and I do believe it is when, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland declares that a border poll is necessitated, then a process is kicked in whereby an

Agreement and the second is the utilisation of the Government’s recently formed Shared Island Unit, not as a pathway to a united Ireland, but as a tool “towards the genuine betterment of society”.

Shared Island Outlining why the Taoiseach’s Shared Island Unit shouldn’t be viewed as a method to push out a move towards unity, Richmond says: “If you want a united Ireland, you want both the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement and the aims of the Shared Island Unit to be successful. If you don’t want a united Ireland, you should still want them to be successful.

“We should be hopeful and optimistic for

I would never expect a unionist to vote for a united Ireland, but I fundamentally believe that we must create a new Ireland where unionists are welcomed and ensure they do not feel like second class citizens or that they feel compelled to leave.

“I think Brexit has accelerated the ability to have the conversation because life has changed in Northern Ireland,” he says.

Despite his support for it, Richmond does not buy in to the assumption that unification is inevitable. He does, however, believe that a border poll is inevitable but holds reservations about a positive outcome in either jurisdiction, especially if one was held too quickly.

Put to Richmond that there are some who believe that the swell of southern politicians advocating their support for a united Ireland, while at the same time labelling any moved towards a border poll in the short-term as divisive, is a stalling tactic devised to ride two horses when appealing to the electorate, the TD fundamentally disagrees.

“A border poll tomorrow would probably get defeated. However, even if it were to pass, I would be worried about the implications of a poll being rushed and foisted upon people, be they nationalist or unionist. I make the point very clearly in the paper that we need to have a plan

independent Electoral Commission with an external chairperson is established to oversee the process.”

our shared future even if we do not necessarily agree on what constitutional form that future should take.

Richmond envisages the setting out of a date for a poll (suggesting two years from agreement) with two referenda held on the same date in both jurisdictions, with a simple ‘do you agree to a united Ireland?’ question. What a united Ireland would look like would be shaped by both a citizen’s assembly and a dedicated Committee of the British Parliamentary Assembly, before being referred to the Executive Committee of the Northern Irish Assembly, the House of Commons Northern Irish Affairs Committee, and the Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.

“We can talk about a border poll and setting a timeframe but unless we are putting energy into breaking down barriers and having that poll, then we’re just talking for the sake of it, and it becomes academic. I am interested in the practicalities of achieving something and achieving it in the right way.”

Asked about potential timeframes, Richmond believes that the upcoming Assembly election in Northern Ireland means that no border poll will be forthcoming in the next year. In that time, he advocates for two things to happen.

The first is the maximising of all of the institutions provided by the Good Friday

Respectful disagreement Richmond acknowledges the “threat” felt by many unionists about such a discussion. Their legitimate aspirations, he says, should be acknowledged but should also not serve to limit contrasting aspirations, allowing what he terms “respectful disagreement”.

“We owe it to society to show that we can disagree without being disagreeable, the same will be true for the varying opinion of how a united Ireland should be achieved and what it should look like,” he adds.

agenda issues

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issues agenda

potential cost given that Northern Ireland currently receives around £10 billion per year subvention from Westminster.

Cost of unity Asked for his view on whether Northern Ireland is affordable, Richmond says: “Of course it is affordable but there is going to be a cost and we can’t dismiss that.”

Richmond offers the example of Ireland’s switch from net recipients to net contributors of EU funding by way of showing how opportunities for European funding can be used to change the dynamics of the economic outlook.

“Ultimately, Northern Ireland’s subvention from Westminster is not something to be proud of but it is also not something that is going to stay rigid, particularly if you pursue an economic programme and an ambitious consolidation for the entire

Ultimately, Northern Ireland’s subvention from Westminster is not something to be proud of but it is also not something that is going to stay rigid, particularly if you pursue an economic programme and an ambitious consolidation for the entire island.

island.

“I don’t think we should assume from the outset that a united Ireland would be as costly as the figures are today because there is a way to work through it. The argument I would make is that, like in business, you have to speculate to accumulate. However, this is exactly the type of issue underlining why you can’t rush a border poll. You need to convince people with collegiate and coherent

Turning to facilitation of unionists in a united Ireland, Richmond is clear that a 50 per cent plus one quota is enough to see a referendum passed, underlining the principle that all votes are equal. He acknowledges suggestions that a new Ireland could be a federal one, but instead suggests an agreement for a devolved administration for the North, parallel to an all-Ireland Dáil, for an initial agreed period of a decade, which he says should “ensure that the transition to the new state is done so, cognisant of the desire to achieve as great a buy in as possible from all communities”.

The TD uses the paper to restate a previously publicly stated and controversial opinion that a united Ireland should apply to join the Commonwealth

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agenda issues

of Nations. He also believes that the provision for citizens in Northern Ireland to avail of either British, Irish, or both citizenships, must be extended into a united Ireland.

evidence, not back of an envelope

“While I never expect any unionist to vote for a united Ireland, I fundamentally believe that a united Ireland must be a place where unionists do not feel compelled to leave. It needs to be respectful, warm and demonstrate genuine equality of opportunity,” he sates.

towards a new Ireland. While Brexit and

The TD is aware that opposition to a united Ireland is not centred in the North alone. A central plank of the argument of those opposed to a united Ireland in the South is, more often than not, the

calculations.”

Concluding, Richmond acknowledges that his paper is not the solution, but the foundations for discussion on a move Covid-19 may have accelerated the discussion, he is adamant that the underlying issues to be addressed remain largely unchanged.

“Whether or not a border poll will arrive in a near or far future, our island is moving closer together and all residents, regardless of political affiliation, will reap the benefits. United or not, we are certainly moving towards a new island that will benefit us all,” he adds.

brexit

Brexit and health of choosing private healthcare, offered by CBHD, is no longer available.

The Trade and Cooperation Agreement included the S2, meaning Northern Ireland patients can apply for public health treatment in any of the 27 EU member states. However, the treatment must be available in both the patient’s own country and a number of conditions, including consultant approval, are required.

An EU scheme which facilitated over £50 million worth of cross-border healthcare has not been replaced post-Brexit, narrowing the options for UK patients.

The Cross-Border Healthcare Directive (CBHD), a scheme which facilitates EU patients to access treatment in most member states and claim back costs, has closed for UK patients and also means that EU patients can no longer use the CBHD to access health in the UK. The scheme was popular because it enabled reimbursement for both private and state-funded treatments, with figures for the five years before the end of the Brexit transition in 31 December 2020 showing over £50 million reimbursed in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

The end of the transition means that UK patients are no longer permitted to submit applications for treatment costs, additionally Irish patients can no longer use the CBHD to access healthcare in the UK. In response, the Irish Government set up a temporary scheme for residents seeking treatment in Northern Ireland, however, the scheme has only been given a lifespan of one year.

The Northern Ireland Planned Healthcare Scheme is unilateral and was introduced

on 1 January 2021. It means that patients from the Republic can access some private healthcare treatments in Northern Ireland and apply to be reimbursed. A long-term solution has yet to be identified.

The Trade and Cooperation Agreement signed by the EU and UK in December 2020 recommitted to the Common Travel Area a long-standing agreement which means that Irish and UK residents can live, work and access public services in each other’s jurisdictions.

Figures gathered by the BBC show that Ireland’s health service reimbursed 16,500 applications through CBHD in the past five years, at a cost of around £40 million. Of these, over 95 per cent were requested for treatment in Northern Ireland.

For the same time period, Northern Ireland’s Health and Social Care Board spent £14 million reimbursing Northern Ireland patients for treatment in the EU, including in the Republic of Ireland.

While the scheme is now closed to UK patients, some avenues still remain open for UK patients to access healthcare in European countries, however, the option

Consultants can also recommend transferring a patient outside of Northern Ireland if their care is unavailable locally, however, it is not possible for patients to arrange care themselves.

In April, the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Health Committee heard evidence from the Department of Health in relation to Brexit. The Committee Chair, Colm Gildernew MLA, raised a question on reciprocal healthcare and the crossborder directive, stating that he was witness to large numbers of people being impacted.

“I understand that the legacy cases are still being dealt with and that there are some short-term reciprocal arrangements between here and the 26 counties.

However, other parts of Europe were a significant outlet, and, given our waiting list situation, is the current situation not a disaster and should it not be a priority to get an urgent replacement for the crossborder directive?” he asked.

A spokesperson for the Department responded: “The cross-border healthcare directive was an additional provision, which was available when we were part of the European Union. Options are being given to the Minister as to whether those provisions can be continued. I have to wait for his decision on the options that he has been given.”

Asked when the Department expected a decision from the Minister, a representative responded: “Very shortly. I was waiting for legal advice, which I received this morning. That will go to the Minister this week.”

agenda brexit

27

Digital Government 2021 Wednesday 6th October ● Europa Hotel, Belfast This annual event will provide a valuable opportunity to bring together key stakeholders to gain insight into the government’s objectives for digital transformation and hear directly from those responsible for driving this forward. From March 2020, the way we live and work has been utterly changed, as has the role that technology now plays. All areas of our public services have been hugely impacted, particularly health, education and social welfare and digital inclusion has never been more important. As part of the national Covid-19 response, the move towards digital public services has been accelerated to ensure they can deliver for Northern Ireland’s citizens. This conference will feature a range of expert speakers who will talk about their digital transformation journey and look ahead to what’s next as we look to the post-Covid recovery.

Sponsorship opportunities There are still a number of sponsorship opportunities at the conference. For further information on speaking opportunities and the packages available call Olivia Ross on 028 9261 9933 or email Olivia.Ross@agendaNi.com

Key themes covered: •

Accelerating the digitisation of public services;

•

Putting digital at the heart of our economic recovery;

•

Responding to the pandemic: Digital strategy for resilient organisations;

•

Citizen engagement – making government accessible;

•

Collaboration as part of the Covid-19 response;

•

Digital transformation for resilience and better healthcare;

•

The future of work: Supporting hybrid working;

•

Cyber security in the health sector;

•

Better data for better services;

•

Improving the user experience;

•

eLearning: A new way of working;

•

Emerging technologies and IoT;

•

Embracing Robotics and AI in the public sector: Challenges and opportunities;

•

Smarter government, driven by digital;

•

Digital inclusion: Technology to empower citizens;

•

Best practice case studies in digital delivery from outside Northern Ireland.

Speakers include: Ignatius O’Doherty

Claire McGuckin

Dan West

Director of Digital Shared

Director, Covid-19 Response

Chief Digital Information

Services, Enterprise Shared

Programme, HM Revenue &

Officer, Department of Health

Services

Customs

Peter May

Dr Jayne Brady MBE

Communities Executive

Permanent Secretary

Belfast’s Digital Innovation

Business in the Community

Department of Justice

Commissioner

Stephanie Berkeley

Colin Daysh

Manager, Farm Safety

Head of IT/IS, Belfast

Foundation

Metropolitan College

Angela McCartney

Sponsored by

Register now:

T: 028 9261 9933

W: www.digitalgovernment.agendaNi.com

E: registration@agendaNi.com

Housing report

housing report

Housing Minister Deirdre Hargey MLA: Housing system revitalisation Minister for the Department for Communities, Deirdre Hargey MLA, discusses her plans to tackle the significant challenges facing the housing system, including the revitalisation of the Housing Executive and the development of a housing supply strategy.

Outlining that legislative and structural transformation is needed to address housing need in Northern Ireland, the Minister sets out her “ultimate ambition” to ensure that every household in Northern Ireland has access to “good quality, affordable and sustainable housing, which is appropriate to meet its needs”.

Hargey recently announced plans to revitalise the Housing Executive and points to the landlord function of the Housing Executive, with ownership of some 85,000 homes, as an area where the most significant challenges lie.

Offering a context of the long-standing investment challenges which exist, the Minister points to 2018 analysis which

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put the cost of maintaining standards of Housing Executive stock over the next 30 years at £7.1 billion.

“More than two years have passed since that analysis. The current situation is most certainly worse, and the scale of investment is even greater,” she states. “It is clear that the Housing Executive, as it is currently structured, cannot afford to fund the investment required. Neither can the Executive, as this would require funding to be diverted from other services which we all depend on.”

The Minister moots some other “equally undesirable options” in the form of diverting the Department’s resources to build new social homes or a reduction

in Housing Executive stock by 40,000 homes, both of which she says will result in increasing levels of housing stress.

“None of these options are acceptable to me. That is why I am seeking an alternative way forward which will provide the Housing Executive with the freedom to borrow without scoring against public expenditure,” she explains.

Outlining her vision for the Housing Executive as a sustainable landlord to maintain and provide good quality and affordable social homes to those in need of them, the Minister says that she is committed to “co-designing viable options for change” alongside

tenants, communities, staff, and their representatives.

Hargey indicates that revitalisation will not be focused on the Housing Executive’s landlord function alone.

Stressing that it is important to reflect on the Housing Executive’s role as the regional housing authority, responsible for functions including assessment of need, management of the common waiting list and the geographical distribution of new social builds, the Minister outlines her view that the organisation must remain accountable to a publicly appointed board, with oversight from an Executive Minister.

Under plans set out by the Minister, a comprehensive review of the Housing Executive’s rental structure is to be conducted, a commitment previously set out in the New Decade, New Approach agreement. The review will be focused on delivering social rent levels which are affordable for tenants, while at the same time being financially sustainable for the landlord, according to Hargey.

Hargey says that the recent UK Budget announcement, which included an exemption for the Housing Executive from paying corporation tax, registers as an important contribution to her plans to revitalise the organisation.

Additionally, she has tasked officials to explore options for the removal of historic debt alongside colleagues in the Department of Finance and with the British Government.

Returning to the issue of social housing stock protection and a reduction in levels of housing stress, the Minister identifies a conflict in policies between capital investment and discounted sales.

“Over the past few years, we have invested an average £100 million of capital in building around 1,800 new social homes. However, each year we have sold an average of 483 homes under the Right to Buy scheme at a discount of up to £24,000. This is a discount the public have funded, and we clearly have policies that are in direct conflict with one another.

“I will make sure that we have a suite of options to ensure community stability and enable everybody to buy a family home, if they wish, but this must not reduce the supply of social housing that we are striving to increase.”

Hargey outlines her intention to launch a consultation on the future of the Housing Executive House Sales Scheme, building on legislation passed by the Northern Ireland Assembly in June 2020 which will see the end of the house sales scheme for housing associations in August 2022. This, she says, will address the need to do more to protect the social housing stock.

On building plans, she says: “I believe the targets for social housing build are far too low and I am keen to gain sufficient budget, as well as introducing policy changes to increase the capacity of the Social Housing Development Programme and to deliver more homes where they are most needed.”

Included in these plans, the Minister sets out an intention to: •

reintroduce ringfencing of funding;

•

carry out public body engagement to address infrastructure complaints;

•

encourage housing associations to identify available land for social housing;

•

identify surplus public land for social and intermediate housing; and

•

update the Housing Selection scheme.

“I want to revitalise our social housing to make it work better and to make

housing report

“I believe the targets for social housing build are far too low and I am keen to gain sufficient budget, as well as introducing policy changes to increase the capacity of the Social Housing Development Programme and to deliver more homes where they are most needed.”

“Mutual and cooperative designation are some of the options to be considered, however, my priority will be to retain the value of the Housing Executive model. I want to give full consideration to the options that limit change as far as possible,” she states.

sure that there is a lot more of it,” the Minister states.

Private rent Highlighting her understanding that housing stress is not a challenge for the social housing sector alone, Hargey says that the private rented sectors, now of a similar size to the social sector but containing twice as many families with children, was one of the Department’s most urgent areas of intervention as the pandemic broke.

The Minister says that development of the Private Tenancies (Coronavirus Modifications) Act (Northern Ireland) 2020 helped focus attention on the vulnerability of tens of thousands of families and hundreds of thousands of people living in private rentals.

Elaborating that 40 per cent of all housing benefit is paid to private landlords, Hargey says that it is only right that her Department ensures that hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money being paid to private landlords is not paying for low quality or overpriced housing.

“I will bring forward legislation to the Assembly that will improve the safety, security and quality of the private rental sector,” the Minister states. “Four weeks is far too short a time for anyone to be asked to leave their home and to find a suitable new house, which is affordable. My department previously consulted on extending the notice to quit to eight weeks, but it is my view that it should be a lot longer.”

Suggesting her preferred notice period is for six months, the Minister adds: “I am looking to see what is possible given the limits of our legislation.”

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housing options, focusing capital grants on building more social homes and in parallel to protecting and enhancing our social hosing, improve the situation for those private renters and deliver more intermediate housing options,” the Minister summarises.

housing report

Homelessness Setting out the prioritisation of actions to improve the response to homelessness, Hargey says that the Department’s future homelessness policy will build in the lessons learnt in response to the pandemic and will include the roll out of an interdependent homelessness action plan which will continue to support the Housing Executive to deliver its statutory responsibility for responding to homelessness.

“My department previously consulted on extending the notice to quit to eight weeks, but it is my view that it should be a lot longer.”

On rents, the Minister acknowledges that tenants in the private rental sector often face the highest rents and often get the least value for their money. “I accept that landlords run businesses, but I will not let them exploit tenants, especially given that so much of the rent that they receive comes from the taxpayers,” the Minister says.

“It does not matter if you rent a social house or from a private landlord, I will bring forward protections to ensure that your rent is fair and secures you a good home.”

Hargey emphasises her intention to continue to help people into home ownership if it is their choice to do so.

The pandemic has had a recognisable impact on mortgage availability, not least because of the introduction of stricter lending criteria by banks. To this

32

end, the Minister says that she allocated some £13 million of additional funding for the co-ownership scheme.

Additionally, she signals an intention to expand intermediate housing options, recognising that intermediate rent homes can be a stepping stone to lowcost homeownership for some or can provide better, more affordable solutions for others.

FTC The Minister says that she aims to ensure that a choice will not have to made between private renter supports and social housing investment by maximising the potential of new funding streams such as financial transactions capital (FTC) loan funding.

“I will use FTC to deliver additional

Highlighting that her department does not have responsibility for the whole housing market, Hargey says that the recognition that housing is an integrated system and that the challenges facing the increase in supply of social and intermediate housing are the same as those effecting housing supply more broadly, are the reasoning behind the development of a new Housing Supply Strategy.

The Department for Communities is leading on the strategy’s development which will look at whole-system issues which act as a barrier to supply but will also give consideration to wider issues around quality, sustainability, and affordability in the context of changing demographic and household formation trends.

“The Strategy will align with the Executive’s energy and green growth strategies and, in doing so, will provide the long-term basis for sustaining improvements across the entire housing market but with a specific focus on equality and on increasing housing supply and housing options for those in greatest housing need,” the Minister explains.

Summarising her approach to a lengthy list of challenges in the housing sector, the Minister concludes: “Equality and rights are the basis of my approach and you can’t get more basic than the right to a home.”

Private Rented Bill scope limited by time The Executive has been asked to bring forward a limited Bill to improve protections for private renters.

Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey has stated that the Bill is not as “far reaching” as she would like but said that the Bill “needs to be achievable in the 11 months left in the mandate”.

housing report

Hargey is preparing to ask the Executive to bring legislation to the Assembly following publication of the Department’s response to a consultation carried out in 2017 on proposals for change to the private rented sector.

The Department has yet to indicate whether the Minister will seek accelerated passage of the Bill, which enables a Bill to pass all scrutiny stages (skipping committee stage) in as little as 10 days.

However, it is understood that the scope of the Bill will exclude a number of key reforms previously indicated by the Minister as desirable, including changes to Letting Agent Regulation and the introduction of Grounds for Eviction and Fitness Standards.

Northern Ireland’s private rented sector has grown significantly in recent years and is now similar in size to its social housing sector. Twice as many families with children live in private rentals in comparison to social housing and it is estimated that some 40 per cent of all housing benefit paid out goes directly to private landlords. In 2019/20, over £270 million was paid out in housing benefit and Universal Credit costs to the private rented sector.

The sector and the vulnerabilities of those within the sector were recognised from the outset of the pandemic. Legislation in the form of the Private Tenancies (Coronavirus Modifications) Act extended the notice to quit period to 12 weeks. The Act was put in place in April 2020 and has been extended several times throughout the pandemic.

In November 2020, then interim Communities Minister Carál Ní Chuilín outlined to the Assembly the intention to introduce sweeping changes across the housing sector, including in relation to private rentals.

Minister Hargey has now begun progressing those plans and, in early May 2021 set out the main contents of the Bill set to be brought forward. One of the main components of the Bill will be a move to permanently extend the notice to quit period, however, the length of the extension remains unclear. The Department has previously consulted on an extension from the existing four weeks to eight weeks but speaking recently to agendaNi, Minister Hargey stated her opinion that this needed to be longer and pointed to six months as a potential timeframe. The Minister said that she has asked her officials to “explore what is possible”.

Other elements of the Bill include: • ensuring all private tenants are issued with a written agreement of tenancy terms; • restrictions on rent increases to once in a 12-month period; • a mandatory requirement for private landlords to provide smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and to carry out periodic electrical checks; and • the introduction of enabling power in primary legislation which will make provision for the introduction and enforcement of minimum standards of energy efficiency in the sector.

Acknowledging that reform of the private rented sector, accompanied by primary legislation is challenging, Hargey says: “It is clear reform is urgently needed to improve protections in the private rented sector particularly for the most vulnerable in our communities. The initial Bill is only the start. In the longer-term, I will also address issues such as letting agent regulation, the introduction of grounds for eviction and fitness standards. These improvements have been a long time coming and will enhance conditions for tenants living in the sector.”

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housing report

Building for the future

Grainia Long, Chief Executive, Housing Executive.

New Housing Executive Chief Executive Grainia Long discusses the role of the organisation in planned transformation of the housing sector and how the ability to borrow will have positive outcomes for exiting and future tenants.

Long, a housing professional for over 20 years, officially took up post in April 2021 and quickly set to work getting to grips with an organisation she knows is at its best when focused on people.

As someone who has previously worked in partnership with the Housing

Executive, Long is well aware that decisions taken by the largest public sector landlord in western Europe, and owner of some 85,000 homes, are massively impactful on a range of individuals and so must be made with “empathy, sincerity and professionalism”.

“My vision for the organisation is one that is very people-centred,” she explains.

“Everything we do should be done for positive outcomes for the communities that we serve and the people in our homes. That 70,000 children and young people go to sleep in Housing Executive homes every night highlights the responsibilities that we have.

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“What has really pleased me is that there is a strong, existing understanding of that responsibility. Culturally, as an organisation, we know we are there, primarily, to keep people safe, warm and dry in their homes.”

The importance of this understanding has never been more evident than in the context of the transformative events of the past year. As well as dealing with the wide-ranging impacts of the pandemic, in November, the organisation learned of the Housing Minister’s vision for transformation of the housing sector and, in particular, revitalisation of the Housing Executive.

Long takes little credit for the agility shown by the Housing Executive in response to the pandemic, something that was already well underway by the time she joined but describes the impacts of the move to ensure staff safety and redesign services as both “profound” and “long-lasting”.

“The first step we must take is to fully assess the impact of this year on our staff, our systems and our services, and any long-term impact. Where we see issues we can act quickly, such as investing in the health and wellbeing of our staff. However, we also have to identify what improvements and innovations have been made and ensure that we retain them going forward,” explains Long.

Revitalisation Embedding those improvements will be a critical part of the future of the organisation. The year 2021 marks 50 years since the organisation’s formation, introduced as a strategic housing authority to bring equality and fairness to the allocation of housing in Northern Ireland. Since then, the organisation has evolved.

Housing benefit administration of some £600 million, responsibility for assisting the homeless in Northern Ireland, tackling anti-social behaviour and promoting social enterprise are examples of services delivered by the Housing Executive beyond its original remit, as it sought and succeeded to deliver for changing demands.

Long is well aware that she has taken up post at a critical juncture of the Housing Executive’s future, with the groundwork being laid to how the next 50 years of the organisation might look.

Central to that vision are ministerial plans to reform Northern Ireland’s housing system and revitalise the Housing Executive.

The Chief Executive welcomes the ambition of the Minister’s vision,

identifying intractable problems in housing supply and identifying the need for transformative measures.

While the scale of reform is wideranging, one of the most significant ambitions is to equip the Housing Executive with the power to borrow.

“What is really exciting about the ministerial statement is that it sets out a plan to enable this organisation to have the freedom and autonomy to do things it can’t currently do,” says Long.

For the past two decades, housing demand in Northern Ireland has outstripped supply. As a result, Northern Ireland faces a social housing shortage, and some 40,000 people are currently on the social housing waiting list.

Much emphasis has been put on how the Housing Executive’s ability to build again will help reduce the gap between supply and demand, however, Long emphasises the importance of borrowing power also enabling greater investment in existing stock.

“Our ability to set out what our borrowing is for is very important,” she states. “Any landlord with the capacity to borrow will use that capacity, not just to build, but to invest in their existing stock and to maintain the quality and standards of their homes.

“It is really important that we treat with equal importance our future tenants and our existing tenants.”

housing report

The Chief Executive says that as a services-orientated organisation, the primary focus was on ensuring connection with tenants and wider communities was not undermined.

Although assessing the organisation’s response as largely successful, Long recognises an opportunity to learn from the pandemic response for future improvement.

“Revitalisation of this organisation and the ability to borrow is critical to our ambitions to reinvest in our stock and decrease the gap between the level of social housing supply and those waiting for homes.” term “structural inability” to close the social housing supply and demand gap.

“We have seen that incrementalism is not closing the gap at a quick enough pace and so we need to try new methods. One of those methods is enabling this organisation to borrow and to build. We plan to do that alongside our delivery partners and alongside housing associations who have proven their ability to build at scale and to invest in communities.

“Output for the previous year was really positive and is evidence that we have an eco-system of housing deliverers who work well together. It is in everyone’s interest that we continue with that, but we also need to increase the numbers and that is why revitalisation is so exciting,” states Long.

The Chief Executive does not have a preferred model for the future of the organisation. Instead, she says, attempts to pursue a specific model at this stage would “miss the opportunity” to sufficiently focus on the organisation’s mission and purpose for the future.

“Tenants have to be at the core of this,” stresses Long. “If we spend too much time focused on the legal structures now then I think we will miss the opportunity to engage with current and future tenants on their strategic interests.”

The Housing Executive is currently working with the Department for Communities to deliver a business case

4

Long is complimentary of the role housing associations have played as social housing providers, particularly over the previous years. Figures from the Department for Communities show that in 2020/21, 2,403 new social homes were started, 30 per cent more than the target. However, she recognises a long-

35

“There are very few organisations in Northern Ireland investing at that level in physical infrastructure, which we know has a large multiplier effect in relation to the economy.”

housing report

The Housing Executive’s maintenance programme over the next seven years spans to several hundred million pounds, included in which is at least 50 apprenticeship places annually. Long adds: “Market cycles come and go but housing has the potential to be a constant and sustainable growth lever.

That places us as a key organisation economically.”

“If we spend too much time focused on the legal structures now then I think we will miss the opportunity to engage with current and future tenants on their strategic interests.”

by March 2022, which is set to include a range of options on how borrowing may be raised and an outline of what that borrowing will then be spent on.

“Previous attempts to think differently about this organisation and restructure the organisation have, in my view, felt like they were being done to the Housing Executive. One of the first questions I asked on entering the Housing Executive was whether this was being done with or to the organisation. I think it is very important that we are working alongside the Department to deliver a transformational process.”

Another reason this collaboration is important, explains Long, is that even

with the capacity to build, the Housing Executive will still face many of the challenges currently being felt by social housing providers including issues like land availability and the speed at which planning decisions are taken.

“We need to look in strategic terms, not just as organisations, but as a housing sector, at those challenges which have been limiting supply.”

Economic recovery Long is quick to point out the wider benefits of housing sector transformation on Northern Ireland’s economy, something which is vitally important as the economy seeks to recover from the impact of the pandemic.

On the role of the Housing Executive, she says: “The sheer scale of the economic impact of this organisation can not be overstated. We plan to invest £217 million towards stock improvements this calendar year and that investment will not only be beneficial for tenants but will have a positive impact on jobs and supply chains, locally.

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The Chief Executive is aware of her organisation’s central role in not just the economic but also the environmental future of Northern Ireland. The region is set to target net-zero carbon by 2050.

While progress has been made in relation to electricity decarbonisation, little progress has been made in relation to heat, transport and agriculture.

“We will not get to net-zero emissions without transformation of the housing system and without retrofitting the existing stock across housing,” states Long. “Central to that is our 85,000 existing homes and any new ones that we build. We understand our responsibility and it is one that we take on with relish.

“On joining the organisation, I found teams of people with expertise and focus on the transition to net-zero carbon who were already well advanced in their thinking and that puts us in a really good place.”

One practical example of the positive impact of this work offered by Long is matched funding by the Housing Executive of the European Regional Development Fund, which will see €38 million in total spent on energy efficiency upgrades of some 2,000 homes.

“We’re central to the decarbonisation agenda and conscious of the forthcoming Energy Strategy from the Department for the Economy and we’re working alongside officials in relation to energy efficiency. We’re also engaged with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs on the Green Growth Strategy. These aspirations will be challenging but I’m excited about our role because of the scale of the potential benefits.”

Homelessness

Recently, the Housing Executive launched their Homelessness Reset Plan, a response to the impacts of Covid-19 on homelessness. Outlining, the reasoning behind the plan, Long says: “The actions taken since early March 2020 have mirrored much of our existing strategic commitments, but the pandemic has forced faster progress on key fronts.

“We need to protect this progress while also considering the wider strategic impacts.”

In May the Minister confirmed that she would fully fund the £9 million investment of the Housing Executive's Reset Plan for this year.

The response from the Housing Executive, the community and voluntary sector and the private sector to rough sleeping at the outbreak of the pandemic was highly commended but also recognised as an emergency response to a crisis situation.

“I don’t think anyone around the table would say that what we came up with was a sustainable solution, because what we were doing was placing people in accommodation that was temporary,” says Long, who explains that the plan also goes beyond rough sleeping and to those individuals and families in unsuitable accommodation.

Highlighting a recognition that the profile of homelessness has changed over recent years and that many of the complex underlying issues often identified in relation to homelessness are set to be compounded by the pandemic, the Chief Executive hopes that the collaboration which saw an effective response to the pandemic can now be carried over to deliver long-term solutions.

“The solutions that were delivered were only ever designed to be temporary, so, the next set of challenges are different, and the solutions will need to be

“Any landlord with the capacity to borrow will use that capacity, not just to build, but to invest in their existing stock and to maintain the quality and standards of their homes.” different. The Reset Plan is about recognising this and about deliberately doing things differently than was the case during the pandemic but retaining the collaboration and problem-solving in the same focused way.”

Concluding with her short, medium, and

The approach to the Reset Plan will also largely inform the Housing Executive’s future Homelessness Strategy, which is currently in development to be delivered for 2022. Long adds: “Now is the perfect time to step back and assess where we have succeeded in the past two decades and what are the learnings we can take from the things that haven’t worked.

by residents through planned

“We are a strategy-heavy organisation and sector and while strategies are important, the critical factor is in delivery.

Our strategy will be delivery-focused because homeless people deserve a delivery-focused plan.”

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An increase in supply and reinvestment in stock will also go some way to helping address Northern Ireland’s growing homelessness problem. The Housing Executive is legally responsible for helping those who are homeless and preventing homelessness in Northern Ireland. In 2019, almost 20,000 people and families asked the Housing Executive for help dealing with homelessness.

long-term goals of her tenure, the Chief Executive says that the immediate focus must be on recovery from Covid. Further out, she believes the impact of investment in existing stock will be felt maintenance in the coming years, with a multiplier effect on the local economy.

Finally, she says: “This organisation has capacity to do so much more than it is doing. I look forward to releasing and realising that capacity with a focus on social outcomes in the years ahead.

Revitalisation of this organisation and the ability to borrow is critical to our ambitions to reinvest in our stock and decrease the gap between the level of social housing supply and those waiting for homes.”

Grainia Long Grainia took up post as the Chief Executive of the Housing Executive in April 2021. Prior to this she was the Commissioner for Resilience for the city of Belfast and co-Chaired the Belfast Climate Commission. Grainia was also the Chief Executive of the national child protection charity in the Republic of Ireland, ISPCC Childline.

This position followed several years working in housing, including as Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), and previously national Director of the CIH in Northern Ireland. She has served two terms as a member of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, was a member of the Lyons Commission on Housing Supply and Advisor to the Best Commission on the Future of Housing in Northern Ireland. She is a Senior Independent Director on the Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Group Board, a social housing provider in England.

Grainia is Dublin-born but came to Belfast to study at Queen’s University Belfast, and she has returned to the city following several years in Scotland and England. Her weekends are kept busy with her husband, a three-year-old child and 12-year-old dog, which she says often involves outdoor activities, including long walks. Over the pandemic, she has rediscovered a love for home cooking, on which, she admits, the jury remains out.

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Poo-power and green gas could supply our future heating needs Director of Business Services at NI Water, Alistair Jinks, outlines the organisation’s pride at being one of the leading public bodies pushing forward innovative solutions to address the climate emergency.

Alistair Jinks, Director of Business Services at NI Water.

As the biggest user of electricity and the second largest landowner, NI Water is uniquely placed to harness its assets for a wide range of environmental initiatives.

Whilst NI Water’s drives to provide customers with high quality water and wastewater services, the company is acutely aware of its broader leadership responsibilities as a custodian of nature.

The utility has invested significantly in renewable energy sources and its extensive asset base has the potential to help society become self-sufficient in lowcost green energy.

Alistair Jinks, Director of Business Services, NI Water explains: “We recognise that as we emerge from the health pandemic, there is a once in a lifetime opportunity to address recovery by resetting our economy for green growth, to decarbonise and deliver sustainable prosperity. To provide green power for the increasing adoption of electric vehicles and to start to decarbonise heating for homes and places of work, Northern Ireland needs to double its renewable generating capacity in the next 10 years. That means thinking to the future and planning with that in mind, indeed it means making things happen now so that we are ready.”

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Transport accounts for around a quarteri of our harmful climate emissions in Northern Ireland, and with the UK Government’s commitment to phase out fossil fuel vehicles in 2030, there is an expectation that electric vehicles (EVs) will quickly become common place in our every-day lives.

Cue then for NI Water to unveil progress in this area, as its first electric vans enter operation.

NI Water’s fleet of 600 vehicles are a familiar sight to the public, with staff providing an essential 24/7 service, 365 days a year, to all areas of Northern Ireland.

Jinks continues: “A reliable, efficient fleet is vital for NI Water staff to deliver essential water and wastewater services for the community. Given NI Water’s commitment to health, environment and the economy, our use of alternative fuel vehicles is under continual review. With circa 600 light commercial (LCVs) and heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), NI Water recognises in particular the importance of decarbonising our fleet.

“Ahead of the ban on the sale of many new petrol and diesel vehicles, we have been actively considering how, when and where to upgrade to the various forms of

alternative fuel technology. It is exciting to see the tangible impact of that work in the form of the first delivery of four new eNV200 vehicles from Nissan.”

For Northern Ireland to play its part in achieving Net-Zero by 2050, NI Water faces a number of challenges. One challenge where good progress has been made is in decarbonising the company’s use of electricity, with over 40 per cent in 2020/21 being generated by renewable sources.

It’s a good start, but as Jinks explains: “We have a wider responsibility to help to ensure that Northern Ireland’s green electricity is affordable. High costs lower everyone’s standard of living and adversely impacts our economy.

Decarbonisation presents us with a once in a lifetime opportunity that we must grasp to create green growth.”

One way to lower costs is to put NI Water’s assets to use in helping to supply affordable electricity. In the next 10 years Northern Ireland’s renewable generating capacity will need to double but the existing system infrastructure is not capable of supplying this requirement. To avoid unaffordable strengthening, the electricity system will need new and much greater flexibility to

be provided by innovative solutions that are designed to help keep customer bills down.

NI Water is unique in that it has over 3,000 widely distributed grid connected sites with substantial numbers of assets that will be increasingly relevant in providing electricity network flexibility. For example, many hundreds of large pumps are operating across the province to deliver water and wastewater services.

Today, these operate without factoring if customer demand for electricity is high or low but in the future this could be very different. The Intelligent Operations Control Centre at NI Water is developing the capability to flex the company’s energy consumption at distribution level.

The aim is for NI Water to use less power in peak demand periods so that more electricity can be supplied to customers who need it, leaving NI Water to ramp up activity at other times. By using existing assets in this way, costs for electricity and water customers can be lower.

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Jinks adds: “NI Water already has resources that are connected to the electricity network, such as standby generators. With the demand for flexibility increasing significantly, NI Water is deciding how other assets may play a role, such as advanced electrolysers and large-scale batteries. Digital technology also means that existing assets, such as our pumps, can also play an important role.”

Maghaberry Wastewater Treatment Works.

NI Water’s capability to help Northern Ireland to become self-sufficient in lowcost renewable energy is increasingly being recognised by senior stakeholders in government.

“Poo-power may be another opportunity,” explains Jinks. “The decarbonisation timescale we are operating to, does not allow us to harness and supply enough renewable electricity to decarbonise all of our energy needs by 2050. We are going to need to change to conserve energy and stop wasting it. Our sewage system could provide an important part of the answer.”

Thanks to things like showers and washing machines, the average temperature of wastewater that runs through the sewers beneath our feet is 15 degrees. This energy can be captured to create sustainable, low carbon heat.

The heat found in wastewater is harnessed via a heat exchanger to transfer it to the clean water network using a closed loop. A heat pump then

Alistair Jinks, Director of Business Services and Damien O’Mullan, Head of Energy at NI Water with a small-scale electrolyser on site at Kinnegar Wastewater Treatment Works.

increases the temperature of the clean

Indeed, green hydrogen may also have

water, which in turn provides heating and

a growing role in supplying the gas grid

warm water to buildings. District heating

as it seeks to decarbonise. Time will tell,

schemes based on ‘poo-power’ for

but the decarbonisation clock is ticking

housing or town centre buildings could

and Northern Ireland needs to be ready.

very well be part of our future.

“We all have to act to tackle the climate Green gas could also be key. Jinks adds:

emergency. NI Water has an ambitious

“Whilst the primary focus for NI Water in

strategy to play its part. Poo-power and

deploying electrolysis at its Belfast Renewable Resource Hub is to produce oxygen to improve treatment processes

green gas might just prove to be an important part of it,” Jinks concludes.

as well as green hydrogen, a gas that can help to decarbonise its vehicle fleet, the surplus heat created by the electrolysis process could also supply

NI Water W: www.niwater.com

district heating schemes.”

i. https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/news/northern-ireland-greenhouse-gas-inventory-1990-2017-released

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Homelessness crisis A rush back to ‘normal’ would be a failure to recognise the pre-existing homelessness crisis in Northern Ireland, writes David Whelan.

To some extent, the pandemic-induced response to Northern Ireland’s growing homelessness crisis obscured the realities of an area already in dire need of intervention. The mammoth task undertaken by statutory bodies and stakeholders to get people suitable accommodation in the middle of a public health emergency is to be commended but as they themselves will tell you, the sticking plaster is already starting to loosen.

There is a common argument circulating since March 2020 that the response the pandemic, which saw rough sleepers removed from the streets of Belfast and Derry and placed into temporary accommodation, is evidence that Northern Ireland’s homelessness challenge is easily

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solvable, with the right resources and attention.

Unfortunately, the homelessness crisis in Northern Ireland is far more complex.

The first thing to highlight is that while rough sleeping is one of the more extreme manifestations of homelessness and often includes those with the most acute needs, homelessness in Northern Ireland is a challenge on a much broader scale and ranges from people staying in temporary accommodation, staying with friends or family and continuing to live in unsuitable housing conditions.

The second issue is the need for recognition that what has occurred over the last year has been an emergency response to a crisis situation. Extra

resources made available following the arrival of Covid-19 in Ireland were a critical factor in ensuring that accommodation was made available, not only for rough sleepers but also to facilitate social distancing in shared accommodations and enable selfisolation when needed. However, other factors made this response possible. A prime example was the absence of tourists and some students, meaning that temporary accommodation was more readily available.

Physical infrastructure itself is only part of the solution to end homelessness.

Support services play a key role in getting people into accommodation, sustaining their tenancy, and also offering alternative pathways to prevent homelessness occurring again.

Ensuring these support services are and will continue to be available to all of those in need is a significant challenge. There is a genuine concern that unless action is taken to ensure accommodation and services are sustainable, people will be forced to return to rough sleeping.

A return to ‘normal’ will not be adequate to solve the homelessness crisis.

Assessing the scale of the challenge, between July to December in 2020, 7,971 households presented as homeless. Of the 4,849 households accepted as statutorily homeless, a third were families and almost 15 per cent were pensioner households.

Included in these figures were 3,136 children.

On 4 January 2021, a total of 3,140 households were in temporary accommodation, 37 per cent of whom had been so for more than a year. Over 94 households had lived in temporary accommodation for more than five years.

Added to this is Northern Ireland’s growing social housing waiting list. By 31 December 2020, 42,665 people were on the social housing waiting list. The likelihood that Covid-19 will compound an existing problem in relation to housing availability can be seen in rising figures even pre-pandemic. The 2.3 per cent rise recorded in March 2020 from the previous year, was the highest figure (38,745) Northern Ireland had seen for years. By December of the same year, this figure had risen by 10 per cent.

One of the concerns raised has been the lack of success of attempts to reverse the growing number of homelessness households in Northern Ireland. Various strategies and action plans have been rolled out over the last

back to the pre-Covid position; it should be to work towards a better position.” decade including the Housing Executive’s (with statutory responsibility for responding to homelessness) most recent Homelessness Reset Plan and its Ending Homelessness Together Strategy 2017-2022. As well as this, the Department for Communities has issued a number of interdepartmental homeless action plans and other crossdepartmental initiatives have been initiated in the past. Undoubtedly, past efforts have played a role in tackling homelessness in Northern Ireland, but none can point to any form of major success when looking at the overall ambition of ending, or dramatically reducing, homelessness.

Those involved in the sector have called for a new approach and a positive sign that progress may be on the horizon is the establishment of taskforce in response to the pandemic, which looks set to play a leading role in the codesign of the Housing Executive’s new homelessness strategy for 2022-2027, which is currently underdeveloped.

The taskforce, encompassing statutory bodies and leading charities operating in the sector was credited with the efficient response to the pandemic and part of its remit will be to not only investigate how homelessness services coped during the pandemic but also outline necessary changes for the short to medium term, and recommend preparations for longer-term challenges.

An encouraging sign that a return to ‘normal’ should not be considered a success, the Housing Executive’s Homelessness Reset Plan states: “The goal should not be to go back to the pre-Covid position; it should be to work towards a better position.”

Another encouraging sign is greater recognition that the Housing Executive must be supported in its statutory duty and that the crisis needs to be tackled on a cross-Executive basis. A new AllParty Group on Homelessness set up in

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Thirdly, it is unclear what the homelessness situation will look like post-pandemic, however, an increase in homeless presenters is often aligned to times of economic decline. It is quite likely that post-pandemic, Northern Ireland’s homelessness crisis will be compounded further. Jim Dennison, Chief Executive of the Simon Community recently outlined his understanding that housing support need is currently 14 per cent higher than supply and put a 10-year projection on the increase of homeless presenters at between 30 to 43 per cent.

“The goal should not be to go

the Northern Ireland Assembly should help focus attention on the broader issues such as housing supply, prevention services and support services.

As should fresh indicators under a new Programme for Government (PfG).

Criticism has been levelled at the absence of a specific outcome for housing in the draft PfG circulated for consultation. The New Decade, New Approach agreement committed to a new outcome and indicators to provide a focus on “ensuring every household has access to a good-quality, affordable and sustainable home that is appropriate for its needs”, however, housing is not one of the nine overarching outcomes outlined so far.

Homelessness and suitable housing for all citizens does feature as indicators within three of the nine wellbeing outcomes.

Housing Minister Deirdre Hargey has stated her desire to see housing as a standalone outcome for the forthcoming PfG. The Minister has indicated tackling homelessness as a priority in ambitious plans for transformation of the sector, not least revitalisation of the Housing Executive. Speaking recently to agendaNi, Hargey indicated a recognition that homelessness was not a challenge that could be tackled in isolation and would require a wholesystem approach.

Undoubtedly, this approach will have to encompass sweeping change to ensure that the approach to homelessness not only improves through learnings of the pandemic but acknowledges the extent of the problem which existed prior to Covid-19 and acknowledges the challenge for what it is, a homelessness crisis.

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Delivering with purpose

As Clanmil Housing Group launches its new ambitious five-year strategy, Chief Executive Clare McCarty discusses the heightened importance of people-focused delivery as we emerge from the pandemic.

With over 30 years’ experience at the helm of Clanmil Housing Group, McCarty remains passionate about Clanmil’s purpose, to provide homes for people to live well. She is clear that quality homes and connected communities create safety, stability and opportunity.

This is at the heart of Clanmil’s new fiveyear strategy, which the Chief Executive 42

says is designed to “stretch the organisation and maximise its potential for good”.

Clanmil has an annual turnover of circa £40.3 million and owns over 5,500 homes, ranging from family homes to supported housing and independent living for older people and people living with dementia.

McCarty is excited about the new plan,

which has been shaped by colleagues, customers and stakeholders, and is values driven. It aims to reaffirm Clanmil’s purpose and to become a living guide as to not only what Clanmil does, but how it does it.

Built in the plan are the lessons learned from the pandemic, acknowledging the impact that this has had on both the organisation and its customers. McCarty

paid tribute to the great effort by Clanmil staff to keep people safe, connected and key services maintained during this period. An acknowledgment of the differing impacts this unprecedented trauma will have on people is referenced

by McCarty, referring to a built in sensitivity and empathy to plans going forward. This is also reflected in the new ways of working being introduced at Clanmil.

One of the key themes within the new Clanmil strategy is to provide services that make life easier for its customers.

McCarty explains: “We want our customers to sustain their tenancies for as long as they choose, so it’s important that we remain responsive to changing customer needs and that we make it easy for them to do business with us.

We need to build and maintain healthy, trusting and respectful relationships and empower people to help shape the standard of services we provide.”

The Chief Executive says that the “person-centred strategy” will “stretch what we can do as a housing association and as a social enterprise, in terms of being a force for good”.

“We believe there are more ways in which we can support people and their communities beyond simply providing them with a home. We are passionate

about playing our part in helping to make Northern Ireland a more shared and inclusive place to live and we know that shared communities have a lasting positive impact on people’s lives.”

McCarty continues: “We are also passionate about providing much needed homes for the near 30,000 people in urgent need of a home in Northern Ireland. The plan has a target of providing 1,400 homes over the next five years, with a mixed tenure approach.” Quality design and placeshaping is important to Clanmil, as is the environmental impact and it aims to introduce a target to reduce its carbon footprint over the life of the plan.

Reducing fuel poverty remains a related key aim.

In 2020, Clanmil was responsible for almost 20 per cent of new social homes provided in Northern Ireland and

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Referring back to the five-year strategy, McCarty emphasises that it aims to make every customer experience a positive one, never losing sight of the individual and their unique needs. delivered around 1,000 new homes at over £110 million in the last three years.

McCarty points out that: “The pandemic has served to reinforce the importance of the home in relation to safety, space and wellbeing. Our investments will be targeted not just on increasing the number of homes we provide and on place shaping but also, and very importantly, in our existing homes. We want our customers to be proud of where they live.”

The Chief Executive welcomes the discussion to include housing as a key output of the Programme for Government, commenting that housing is so evidently critical to most of the ambition of the Programme.

Commenting on the Minister’s ambition to transform the housing sector and enabling the Housing Executive to raise funds for retrofitting and development, she welcomes the potential this may bring in terms of increased collaboration and joined up working, and additional leverage on issues such as land supply, planning delays, infrastructure failures and allocations.

She adds: “I believe housing associations could do more, if we were asked to do that, and it’s collaboration and sharing which could be really powerful in relation to social housing delivery.”

In conclusion, McCarty looks forward to sharing the detail of the plan with colleagues and stakeholders and implementing lessons learned from the last year to positive effect.

Clanmil Housing Group T: 028 9087 6000 E: housing@clanmil.org.uk W: www.clanmil.org 43

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Construction capacity and housing supply A planned increase in Northern Ireland’s housing supply will require a greater focus on the skills pipeline to ensure capacity exists in the construction sector to deliver on ambitions.

In April 2021, it was revealed that it could take up to two decades for housing supply to meet waiting list targets at the current rate in Northern Ireland. The need to dramatically increase housing supply to meet demand has been identified and a number of initiatives are underway which could help to address this, including the reclassification of housing associations, plans to equip the Housing Executive with borrowing power and the development of a housing supply strategy by the Department for Communities.

The building of new units alone is not the sole challenge facing Northern Ireland’s housing sector. A legacy of underinvestment in public housing means that much of the public housing stock is in need of upgrading, demographic changes will require an adaptation programme to ensure homes are fit for purpose and the climate change agenda means that mass retrofitting will be required to improve energy efficiency.

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All of this work will require a construction sector with the capacity and skill to meet the demand. The readiness of Northern Ireland’s construction sector to meet future challenges is still undetermined.

How the sector will emerge from the effects of the pandemic remain unclear.

Recent statistics paint the picture of a rebound but in the context of it being one of the hardest hit sectors by the pandemic.

It would appear that while the level of demand should be there for the sector to grow in the coming years, a concentration must be applied to developing a talent pipeline to ensure a sustainable workforce exists. This must be done in recognition that Northern Ireland will not be the only jurisdiction where construction skills are set to be in high demand in coming years. Both the UK and Republic of Ireland governments have recognised the need to address skills shortages in construction if they are to meet ambitious growth plans.

Construction output in Northern Ireland has rebounded after the dramatic

slowdown caused by the outbreak of the pandemic. The last quarter of 2020 saw construction output raise to a 10-year high and the sector registered as the only area with two consecutive quarters of growth at the end of 2020.

However, while the rebound is welcome, growth must be viewed in the context from which it has emerged. The second quarter of 2020, when restrictions were put in place, saw a 30 per cent drop in output from the same period the previous year and the initial response to the pandemic saw the largest quarterly and annual decreases on record. The rebound may have seen construction output increase by 10.3 per cent over the year but on a more accurate rolling four-quarter basis, it has decreased by 5.7 per cent.

Encouragingly, the rebound has been driven by increases in new work (15.8 per cent) and repair and maintenance (15.6 per cent), however, whether these figures are a response to pent up demand or are sustainable long-term trends remains to be seen.

Volume of Housing Output in NI, Q4 2005–Q4 2020

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Source: NISRA

In Q4 2020, the largest sub-sector was housing, which accounted for 34.5 per cent of all construction output. This figure grew by 13.2 per cent when compared to the end of 2019 but was still 11.2 per cent lower on a rolling four-quarter basis. Housing output is currently almost half (47.2 per cent) what it was at the beginning of 2006.

The pandemic’s impact on the labour market is also currently difficult to fully analyse, given that government supports aimed at supporting employment remain in place, however, the latest employment survey paints a picture of rising unemployment across various sectors. At the end of 2020, the overall number of employee jobs across the labour market are estimated to have fallen by 1.2 per cent.

The construction sector accounts for around 5 per cent of all employee jobs in Northern Ireland. At the end of 2020, the number of jobs had fallen by 2 per cent compared to the previous quarter, however, this is in contrast to a 3.3 per cent annual increase over the year. For context, employment in construction in Northern Ireland is currently 24.4 per cent below those figures December 2007, right before the financial crash.

The contrast of the quarterly decrease and the annual increase might be explained by the general slowdown of most sectors across the economy since restrictions were enforced, with those employees suffering job losses in other sectors switching to the construction

sector where there was a recognised pent-up demand.

Northern Ireland’s construction sector performance is closely aligned with overall economic performance and it is understood that efforts to rebuild Northern Ireland’s economy will need to be underpinned by investment in infrastructure. Concerns around skills availability within the sector to meet an increase in investment is not limited to Northern Ireland alone. In March 2021, the Federation of Master Builders warned that the year-on-year decline in construction apprenticeships threatens the UK’s economic recovery and the ability to build back better from the coronavirus pandemic.

Across the UK, it is estimated that 3,000 fewer apprentices started in the first half of the 2020/21 academic year than in the year previous and the impact of declining apprenticeship numbers can be seen in a report for the first quarter of 2021. Of builders surveyed across key trades, 38 per cent reported a bricklayer shortage, 34 per cent struggled to get carpenters/joiners, 10 per cent recorded difficulties hiring general labourers and 9 per cent said getting plasterers had proven difficult.

Northern Ireland is developing a wide variety of new strategies which should see heavy increases in infrastructure investment, ranging from the Energy Strategy and Climate Change Bill, through to a Green Growth Strategy, a Housing Supply Strategy, and a review

of the 2011 Planning Act. Additionally, a future Economic Strategy, the outworkings of the City and Growth Deals and any potential review of the Regional Development Strategy, will all have implications on investment levels and the capacity of the construction sector to meet these demands.

The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB NI), tasked with encouraging the adequate training of those employed or intending to be employed in the construction industry and to improve the skills and productivity of the industry in Northern Ireland, has outlined its belief that training within the industry is more important now than ever and have provided a range of supports during the pandemic.

Pre-pandemic, CITB NI had estimated a need for at least 2,500 new recruits to the construction industry over the next five years to meet an expected 0.8 per cent growth for the sector, however, it is widely acknowledged that these estimates will change as a result of recovery plans.

As the Department for the Economy seeks to finalise a Skills Strategy for Northern Ireland, crucial to meeting future demand will be not only supporting the construction industry to emerge from the pandemic but also fostering the skills to ensure capacity exists to meet growth plans.

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Ark Housing Association: Diversity in delivery Deirdre Hargey MLA in her Department’s recent call for evidence in the development of a Housing Supply Strategy: “Access to a safe and secure home is a basic human right, a cornerstone of life, essential to our health and well-being. Limiting access can harm community cohesion, hinder educational development, prevent people connecting to job opportunities; and have a negative impact on physical and mental health.”

Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey cutting the first sod at the new £6.5million shared social housing scheme at Ogle Street in Armagh City Centre. The Minister is pictured with (front row) Lord Mayor Kevin Savage and Deborah Donnelly, Ark Housing Chair. Also pictured (back row) are Chief Executive of the Housing Executive Grainia Long and Jim McShane, Ark Housing Chief Executive.

Welcoming a renewed investment focus on housing delivery in Northern Ireland, Ark Housing CEO Jim McShane says that ambitions for the organisation to maximise its capacity for growth will see it build an additional 900 homes in the next five years, including a diversity of house types.

Ark Housing Association provides housing and related services to meet the needs of families, older persons, and single person households. Our general needs homes include a range of house types, apartments, and bungalows, whilst our supported accommodation comprises of residential care, supported living, sheltered housing, dementia care, and mental ill health.

We also provide temporary accommodation for homeless families, and on 1 March this year, we successfully launched a new floating support service in partnership with the

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Housing Executive aimed at assisting families experiencing or threatened with homelessness in the Greater Belfast area.

As one of 19 housing associations tasked with addressing social and affordable housing provision, Ark Housing is committed to maximising its capacity for growth and aims to increase its contribution to social and affordable housing provision by building many more new homes over the next number of years.

As prefaced by Communities Minister

With over 40,000 households currently on waiting lists for social housing, and half of those deemed to be in housing stress, the steady supply of safe, secure, and affordable homes will become even more acute over the next decade, as demographic trends on the number of households increase.

At Ark Housing we very much welcome the Minister’s renewed focus on housing supply as well as her recent commitments to significantly increase government investment in this area and to explore new models of provision in the form of intermediate and affordable homes.

In 2019, we undertook a fundamental review of our contribution to the social housing development programme and subsequently agreed an ambitious growth strategy aimed at delivering nearly 700 additional new homes by 2024, increasing to 900 by 2026.

This programme will require significant investment, amounting to close to £135 million for the period 2019 to 2026 with approximately half of that financial requirement funded by the Department for Communities through the Housing Association Grant programme. As of March 2021, approximately £30 million of that total figure has already been committed.

Our current development activity extends across most local council areas and is focused not only on increasing the number of new social homes in

those districts, but on ensuring that we attain the right balance of diversity in house types and household profiles in order to deliver for the broad spectrum of need in our society.

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Operational delivery of our development programme rests with Cathy Walsh, Director of Property Services; Susan Gibson, Development Services Manager; and Lily Kennedy, Development Assistant. To date the team are on track to meet our key milestones with 537 homes currently under management, 262 progressing on-site, and a further 228 due to start before the end of this financial year.

Ogle Street, Armagh Underpinning our growth, we work to support and build strong community networks through our Tenant Participation Strategy and Shared Housing action plans. One such ‘Housing for All’ scheme, where Ark Housing will roll out a strategic community cohesion plan over a fiveyear period aimed at bringing people together, is our £6.5 million development at Ogle Street Armagh.

Ark Housing Association Growth Strategy 2019-2026 1,329

1,400 1,129

1,200 968

1,000 800

701 561

600

Occupying a prime and historic citycentre location this scheme will deliver 42 new homes including a mix of town houses and apartments, including wheelchair accessible accommodation to meet the housing needs of citizens.

Officiating at the launch in May of this year, the Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey stated: “I have asked the Department to begin the biggest reform of social housing in over 50 years. This includes building more homes, where they are needed. This new social housing scheme will provide much needed homes for families in housing need in the Armagh area. It reminds us too that homes make neighbourhoods and schemes like this create places where people want to live and to thrive as a community.

“When the transformational plan to make our housing system better was outlined, a key component was to improve housing, and to make sure there is a lot more of it. This Ogle Street scheme in Armagh demonstrates my commitment to delivering more homes through an ambitious housing programme consistent with New Decade, New Approach. I want to build more homes that meet the needs of our society, now and in the future."

The scheme will be capital financed by a Department for Communities Housing Association Grant of £3.4 million and

1,217

453

480

2019

2020

400 200 0 2021

2022

private investment by Ark Housing of £3.1 million. As part of the ‘Housing For All’ programme the scheme attracts an additional £598,000 of Good Relations funding.

Commenting at the launch on behalf of Ark Housing, Chair Deborah Donnelly says: “On behalf of Ark Housing Association, and our developing partners Ogle Street Investments, I was delighted to welcome Minister Hargey, Lord Mayor Savage and Housing Executive Chief Executive Grainia Long to mark the official launch of this shared housing and mixed tenure residential development.

“Ark Housing achieved 232 new homes onsite in the past 12 months in our drive to help meet social housing need. This success would not be possible without the support and financial assistance provided by the Department and the Housing Executive and I would therefore like to thank Minister Hargey for her ongoing commitment to the Housing Association sector.”

2023

2024

2025

2026

Future considerations As housing associations increasingly play a key role in delivering new housing supply, we will encounter a greater number of challenges as that activity is ramped up. Maintaining affordability whilst delivering future carbon neutral requirements may require a rethink across the sector in respect to financing options. Creating sustainable homes that are fit for the future will also require a radical rethink, and the long running issues of unlocking land supply, streamlining planning processes, and tackling our infrastructure deficit will remain high on our agenda as we move forward.

For further information on Ark Housing Association and its development programme, or if you are interested in working with us on our new build agenda, contact info@arkhousing.co.uk

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housing report

Housing first: Eradicating homelessness Saija Turunen. Credit: Juha Kahila.

The Y-Foundation’s Saija Turunen discusses how a housing first approach in Finland has seen the country close in on its ambitions to eradicate homelessness by 2027.

Highlighting that Finland is currently the only EU country where the number of homelessness people is on the decline, Turunen points to a dedicated and sustained focus to addressing homelessness in Finland which has seen an almost 80 per cent decrease in homelessness numbers over the past 35 years.

Turunen is a Research Manager at Finland’s Y-Foundation, set up in 1985 as a response to a serious housing shortage in the country. The organisation now owns over 17,000 apartments in over 50 cities and

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municipalities in Finland, making it Finland’s fourth largest landlord, and was a leading developer of the housing first principle.

Turunen confirms that the Y-Foundation’s latest 2020-2030 strategy aligns with the Government’s ambition to halve homeless numbers in Finland by 2023 and totally eradicate homelessness by 2027.

This ambition is realistic when considering the steady progress Finland has been making, not least in reducing homelessness numbers from 20,000 in

1985 to 4,341 in 2020. Of those 4,341 homeless people, only 1,054 are classed as ‘long-term’ homeless.

Interestingly, the number of families experiencing homelessness in Finland has fallen by 85 per cent since 1987, down to 201 families in 2020.

“The situation has not always been brilliant and clearly it is not a quick fix,” explains Turunen. “You are talking about very persistent and committed work over 35 years to get to where we are today and still there is a lot of work to be done.”

housing report

Key to success to date is the inclusion of the housing first principle in the national strategy since 2008.

by providing different kinds of housing, but housing is always the top priority,” she says.

“Everything we do in Finland is about housing first,” she states.

Adding: “In the housing first model, a dwelling is not a reward that a homeless person receives once their life is back on track. Instead, a dwelling is the foundation on which the rest of life is put back together. When a person has a roof securely over their head it is easier for them to focus on solving their other problems.”

The Research Manager points to research which suggests the economic benefit of this approach, with savings in emergency healthcare, social services and the justice system totalling around €15,000 annually for every homeless person in properly supported housing.

Additionally, research for housing first units suggests that residents’ use of health, social and police services decrease by 34 per cent.

However, she is quick to point out that the benefits to a housing first approach should not be measured in monetary value alone, with immeasurable benefits occurring for individuals, families, and society as a result.

Housing first Setting out that housing first is not simply a principle in Finland but also an operating model, Turunen points to two cornerstones of this model. The first is housing as a human right and the second is the provision of support if needed. Additionally, a third critical element of success in Finland is the provision that housing solutions are delivered where others are living.

“All the work done for homeless people starts from the assumption that the first support measure should be the provision of housing. The work can be organised using different models and

Reiterating that the reduction in homelessness in Finland has been a centrally led process, over many decades, Turunen highlights the various iterations of national policy which began in 2008 with a recognition that more affordable housing was needed in the market. The construction and purchasing of new, affordable housing was one of the most important goals of the Finnish National Programme (PAAVO 1, 2008-2011). Both PAAVO 1 and PAAVO 2 (2012-2015), the nation’s second programme for government, focused on tackling long-term homelessness and saw a large conversion of shelters to permanent housing solutions.

Highlighting the State’s strength of conviction to ending homelessness, Turunen flags that commitment towards reducing homelessness remained a priority throughout the economic recession which began in 2008, even as cuts were made to many other public services.

Finland’s third national strategy from 2016–2019 took a greater focus on

homelessness prevention and the current programme 2020-2022 has evolved further, decentralising a lot of responsibility to local levels within cities.

“Critical to the success of these successive strategies has been the continued political will and commitment to eradicating homelessness,” explains Turunen.

Halving homelessness The importance of measurable quantitative goals is highlighted by Turunen, who points to a cooperation programme within the national strategy to eradicate homelessness by 2027 which aims to halve homelessness by 2023. Key elements of the plan include city-specific plans for the 11 cities with the largest homelessness numbers, increased social housing share within new housing areas from 25 per cent to 30 per cent (rising to 35 per cent post2023), impact investing, a move to make housing advisory services statutory and the development of new low threshold services and forms of support in scattered housing.

These plans build on the successes to date, the main elements of which have been systemic change from temporary accommodation solutions to the delivery of permanent homes, the role of housing advisors in preventing evictions and the inclusion of experienced experts in planning.

Interestingly, the Y-Foundation is not solely focused on eradicating homelessness in Finland but also

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housing report Väinölä Housing First Unit from Espoo, Finland. Credit: Jouni Törmänen.

“To end homelessness, we need a systemic change.

To change the system of homelessness policy and services we need an adequate and accessible social housing supply, universal access to welfare; a prevention first approach and a transition from emergency and temporary accommodation to permanent housing with housing first.” reducing it internationally. In this context, Turunen points to the importance, in a global context, of adopting the critical elements of: • housing first as a mainstream policy; • offering alternative housing solutions and tailor-made support; • offering permanent housing solutions; • ensuring social housing is affordable; • utilising Finland’s general housing benefit; and

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• implementation through partnerships, in a timely manner and with concrete goals.

“To end homelessness, we need a systemic change. To change the system of homelessness policy and services we need an adequate and accessible social housing supply, universal access to welfare; a prevention first approach; and a transition from emergency and temporary accommodation to permanent housing with housing first,” she says.

Challenges However, the Research Manager is aware that challenges exist to progress in reducing homelessness. She identifies complacency of progress as a leading challenge but adds that even with success has come a recognition that a greater number of people now need a wider network of supports in the context if the pandemic and potential economic impacts.

Looking specifically at Finland, Turunen says that intensive case management (ICM) has not always been intensive enough and there is a recognised lack of integration between basic health and social services. This, for example, has led to insufficient availability for drug users.

Finally, Turunen states that as is common in other areas of Europe, the ‘not in my back yard’ way of thinking is still persistent in some parts, particularly affluent, parts of Finland. This has not been helped by an uneven development of housing first thinking and practice across various stakeholders.

Health report

health report

Health Minister Robin Swann: ‘No time for complacency’ Health Minister Robin Swann MLA discusses waiting lists, vaccination rollout and rebuilding of the health and social care system.

Looking back over the course of the pandemic, what are the major lessons for the Department of Health?

“Undoubtedly, the preexisting fragility in our system also hampered our response to the pandemic and underlined the particular need for caution in Northern Ireland as we emerge from lockdown.”

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The pandemic has highlighted serious, long-established fragility in our health and social care system, especially in staffing capacity. Our health and care system was under immense and growing pressure long before the pandemic. Ten years of financial stringency and short-termism had undoubtedly taken its toll. During the last decade, our health system has been repeatedly documented as being out of date and failing. Sir Liam Donaldson's 2015 report, The Right Time, The Right Place, referred to Northern Ireland having an “ossified model of care”, with specialist staffing resources “too thinly spread”.

Similarly, the 2016 Bengoa report, which was endorsed by the Northern Ireland Executive and the other parties in the House, referred to the model of care as “outdated” and “not the one that Northern Ireland needs”. It also stated: “The current configuration of acute services is simply not sustainable in the short to medium term.”

The following year, an expert panel assessed our adult social care system, and its report, Power to People, concluded that it was “collapsing in slow-motion”. The decade of chronic underfunding has had consequences, not least of which is the failure to build greater capacity and resilience. We have some of the best staff and most innovative treatments in the world. Northern Ireland should simply not have the waiting times that it has. They have been intolerable for some time and have grown worse. The time for words of concern has passed. I firmly believe that we require a period of firm action now. The hundreds of thousands of people who are on a waiting list deserve no less.

What are the principles informing your ambition to rebuild the health and social care system?

The trust rebuild plans are based on five principles, which are, first, that we de-escalate ICU as a region; secondly, that staff are afforded an opportunity to take entitled annual leave; thirdly, that elective care is prioritised regionally to ensure that those who are most in clinical need, regardless of place of residence, get access first; fourthly, that all trusts seek to develop green pathways with the aim of maximising theatre throughput; and, fifthly, that the Belfast City Hospital Nightingale facility is prioritised for ICU de-escalation in order to increase regional complex surgery capacity as quickly as possible.

For that fifth principle, I was recently able to confirm that the Belfast City Hospital Nightingale facility is now closed, with the last remaining ICU patients vacating the site on Friday 9 April. I am also pleased that the trust rebuild plans reflect our many regional initiatives, not least my action to ensure that all elective surgery is prioritised in line with greatest clinical need and is not dependent on a patient’s postcode.

Alongside the trust rebuild plans a data annex has been included that sets out the trust activity projections for the three-month period of April to June 2021. The activity projections for May and June are indicative at this stage and will be constantly reviewed. That reflects the ongoing high degree of uncertainty that we continue to face, but it is also because I want to make sure that, if it becomes clear going forward that trusts can do more, I expect them to do that, even in the context of many competing challenges and uncertainties. I still want to see as much activity delivered as quickly as we can.

The New Decade, New Approach agreement pledged to address the waiting list crisis. What is the expected timeframe for the delivery of action plans on waiting times and cancer care? What are the critical elements you believe will change the status quo?

Our health service prides itself on being available to all and free at the point of access. I contend that we are still in grave danger of undermining this essential feature of our health service. With evergrowing waiting lists, I question whether all of our citizens have adequate access to the health service that they need. The people of Northern Ireland deserve better than having to wait months or, in many cases, years for access to elective healthcare. Many suffer pain and discomfort while they wait.

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Undoubtedly, the pre-existing fragility in our system also hampered our response to the pandemic and underlined the particular need for caution in Northern Ireland as we emerge from lockdown. The publication of the trust rebuilding plans comes as we emerge from the severe third Covid wave, which has further depleted the resilience of our health and social care system. Over the winter, our health and social care services have been under pressure like never before. I am pleased that we are now coming out of the latest Covid-19 wave, and, while there is no time for complacency, the highly successful rollout of the vaccine is giving real hope. I am aware that our hard-pressed health and social care staff, especially those who have worked in the most challenging roles over the past 13 months, are in need of rest, and that is reflected in the trust rebuild plans. However, I also know that they wish for nothing more than a return to their normal duties, delivering the care that they are expertly trained to do.

We simply cannot let the situation continue to deteriorate. If we are to address the dire situation that we face we need to have the support of all elements of society and in particular a united political front across the Assembly and Executive.

As I have said repeatedly, we will need to utilise every square foot of space that we have in our hospitals. Each hospital may not provide every service that it has in the past. The challenge of the regional approach is to put an orthopaedic surgeon in one centre where he can see more patients than can be seen in three orthopaedic services doing a lesser degree of work in a number of other capacities.

Too often we have seen politicians using the sort of language that unnerves staff. There is nothing more unnerving for people working in our health service than social media campaigns about saving their hospital when it is not under threat.

I would ask everyone, especially politicians, to step away from the party-political campaigns and support the staff who are working in the hospitals to deliver the entirety of the services in those facilities. As I have said, we do not have enough staff. We need more staff, so no one will be done away with. We do not have a big enough footprint, and we need every square foot that we have. It may not be that everyone gets every service that they want delivered on their doorstep, and that has to be the reality, if we are to address the waiting lists that we are talking about today. It also has to be about a political commitment from all politicians to Bengoa and all the other reforms that have been talked about. Now is the time to implement those changes and stop talking about them. We had three years when we were unable to meet the challenges and make the transformations that were needed. Now is the time, as we come out of the pandemic, to serve the people of Northern Ireland by addressing the huge challenges that face us.

We have seen that professionals and healthcare staff are willing to travel. It is not just surgeons; the entirety of the team — anaesthetists, ICU nurses and everybody who makes up the surgical delivery 4

Health Minister Robin Swann pictured at Paragon Health, Limavady with Martin and Ryan Tierney.

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team — are willing to travel to access theatre capacity, recovery beds and ICU beds for their patients. The professionals in our health service very much see people as their patients. People are now willing to travel. Realistically, Northern Ireland is not a big place, especially if you need a surgical procedure. We have seen that people are now willing to travel.

Health Minister Robin Swann pictured at one of three oxygen generation units being sent to India.

The challenge is no longer for health professionals or patients; the challenge is for us politicians to let the clinical demand be met by the clinicians, who can deliver a service, no matter where it is, on a safe site, using the green lists and regional priorities so that those who are in most clinical need are seen more quickly than by using the postcode in which they live or want to be treated. One of the outworkings of the pandemic has been the breaking down of silos across the entire health service. From primary care hospitals to community pharmacy, everyone working in the healthcare family has pulled together and pooled the resources. That will serve Northern Ireland well because the staff want to get back to the day-to-day work of seeing and treating patients.

How confident are you that funding on a multi-year basis will be made available to the Department of Health and to what extent is this critical to address the enduring challenges in the health system?

“Our health service prides itself on being available to all and free at the point of access. I contend that we are still in grave danger of undermining this essential feature of our health service.”

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The present funding model that we operate within is not fit for purpose. What is really needed is a multi-year budget, and, unfortunately, the Executive have not received that from Westminster. One-off Covid funding cannot be effectively deployed in rebuilding services as that requires us to make multi-year commitments to training places and to appoint people to permanent posts in order to attract and retain staff. We require major sustained investments to rebuild our services. In particular, increasing the capacity of our elective care system, whether in-house or in the independent sector, requires a significant recurrent funding commitment. Only with such a commitment can we begin to invest in the staff and infrastructure required to make progress. At a minimum, a recurrent source of earmarked funding agreed in advance is needed to close the capacity gap and to address the patient backlog. An incremental year-on-year increasing allocation will be required, and it could take five to 10 years to return waiting times to an acceptable level. Longerterm surety of funding at a significant scale will enable innovations in-house and with independent sector providers.

Northern Ireland’s vaccination rollout has been widely commended. As the rollout continues, do you have any concerns around vaccine hesitancy? If so, how can these be addressed?

I have visited a large number of vaccination sites from the huge operation at the SSE Arena down to a local pharmacy, where I received my first dose. One of the most emotive of those visits was when I went to the Ballymena centre in the Seven Towers Leisure Centre. The majority of the staff on duty were volunteering and working on their days off to deliver vaccines, because they see it as such a psychological lift for them and for the people of Northern Ireland.

They are providing part of the relief and part of the way out of what has been a terrible 14 months. Those staff, some of whom have come back from retirement, and some of whom are trainees, have energy, commitment, and drive. I spoke to physiotherapists, speech and language therapists and dieticians, all of whom had come forward to be part of the vaccine programme because they see it as such a positive thing that our health service is doing.

Talking to the centre manager, I learned that one of the things that they did not prepare for when they established the centre was putting boxes of hankies in each vaccination booth. The manager said that the number of people who burst out in tears because of the relief of getting the vaccine was immeasurable.

Vaccines are helping us get back to doing the things we have missed; they protect you and those around you. This new campaign is a poignant reminder of some of the things we have to look forward to as a society.

The Covid-19 vaccines are safe and very effective. The vaccines have gone through the same safety checks as any of the other longestablished vaccines and will protect you and the people close to you.

It’s vital that as many people as possible book their vaccine when given the opportunity so we can continue to reduce the impact of this awful virus on our lives, and I urge everyone to play their part and get their jab when invited. If you are eligible for the vaccine, book it without delay to help protect yourself and those around you. Most people won’t receive an invitation for their vaccination, you just need to go ahead and book it as soon as you are in an eligible age group.

What is your assessment of cross-border collaboration in relation to the public health response to Covid-19?

It was obvious from the very beginning of the pandemic that the virus would recognise no border and as such we had mutual interest to work closely and collectively. So, it was important, not least in the interests of public health, that there was sustained collaboration. Last April, I was pleased that a Memorandum of Understanding was formally agreed between both departments of to underpin and strengthen that important north-south co-operation.

Over the last 15 months, there has been significant collaboration, especially at Chief Medical Officer level. I have on occasions been frustrated that despite what I thought to have been best efforts the

How important is the delivery of a longterm mental health strategy for Northern Ireland in the current context?

One of the first initiatives that the Executive took was to establish the Executive working group on mental well-being, resilience and suicide prevention. That set the tone and tenor for what we were going to do about mental health and for how the Department was able to move forward. I have said before that no matter how bad the first pandemic was we still moved ahead and launched the mental health strategy. It was something that we had committed to doing, that we were going to do and that needed to be done. That is why we went ahead and appointed our first interim mental health champion: to make sure that we recognised mental health and the challenges that it presents to the people of Northern Ireland and got it the recognition that it needs in our health service, this place and the Executive, so that mental health services could get the support — practical, financial and political — that they need to address many of the challenges that they have long faced across Northern Ireland. In particular, I believe we need to have a specific focus on funding for the voluntary community groups, charity organisations and specialist organisations that have experience and knowledge of how to address the issue at a community level, to challenge what needs to be challenged and to address what needs to be addressed. The challenge that I have is that the funding is non-recurrent. It is not long-term funding, and that puts additional stress and strain on the people who are already doing that work and will continue to do it.

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Those releases that the vaccinators and those who are vaccinated are getting are immeasurable. I am glad that the Member has got his vaccine, and I am glad that some one million of our citizens have already been vaccinated but would urge those who have yet to do so to come forward. Our vaccination programme has already saved many lives and is protecting our loved ones and bringing down infection rates to a point where we can see normality on the horizon. However, as we start to see restrictions easing this is exactly the time when we must make sure that we don’t see an easing off in our vaccine uptake rates.

cooperation was not always what it ought to have been on a political level. Too many key announcements were made in isolation and for instance there are still wholly excessive delays to resolving the important issue of sharing key information on international passengers coming up from the Republic of Ireland.

Would you be willing to take on the health portfolio again in the next mandate if conditions permitted?

That is a question that is not for me to answer. My appointment as Health Minister was within the gift of my party leader but I was honoured and privileged to accept the opportunity it provided me to serve the people of Northern Ireland, but first and foremost it lies with the electorate of North Antrim.

The National Health Service is precious to me. It is precious to me not just as Health Minister but because of the support that my family has received from it, like many families across Northern Ireland.

The core strength of our National Health Service is that it is free at the point of need, free at the point of care and free at the point of delivery, no matter the ailment or stress.

Health Minister Robin Swann receiving his flu jab in September 2020.

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Vaccine hesitancy The Department of Health has said that it does not routinely record reasons why people are choosing not to be vaccinated but is in the process of finalising a platform to record data on vaccine uptake amongst health service staff.

Everyone in Northern Ireland who works in a healthcare role within the health and social care (HSC) system has been eligible to receive the vaccine as a health care worker and at the end of April, the Department estimated that more than 137,000 first doses of the vaccine had been administered to people working with health and social care. With “most” of these individuals having also received their second dose.

However, while the Department believes “that overall there has been a good uptake of the vaccine amongst health and social care staff” it did not respond directly to a query on what percentage of HSC had taken up the option to receive their first vaccine, instead saying that it is finalising a platform that will offer enhanced data reporting.

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“This will enable the Department and trusts to drill down and obtain more granular data regarding the various parts of the health service and if necessary, focus on those areas with lower uptake rates,” a spokesperson said.

While vaccine hesitancy amongst the general population is of concern, perhaps, a more acute concern is vaccine hesitancy amongst health and social care staff, particularly those tasked with delivering care in people’s own homes.

Although Northern Ireland’s vaccine rollout has been commended, there are concerns that vaccine hesitancy could become an issue, given that the vaccines impact on suppressing the pandemic relies not just on the effectiveness of the vaccine but also the number of people taking it.

Domiciliary care is defined as the range of services put in place to support an individual in their own home. During one week in September 2020, 509,582 domiciliary care visits were provided to clients by health and social care trusts, an estimated 278,979 contact hours of domiciliary care. Domiciliary care workers and independent sector staff were invited to receive the vaccine from 11 January 2021.

Vaccine hesitancy is defined not solely by those opposed to taking a vaccine but where there is a delay in acceptance or refusal of a vaccine by an individual, despite their availability to the public.

The Department estimates that around 25,000 domiciliary care staff are employed across all Northern Ireland’s

By 13 May, over one and a half million vaccinations had been administered in Northern Ireland, over half a million of which were second doses. The Department of Health does make data available on vaccine refusal rates and it is unclear whether levels of hesitancy are being recorded.

“The Department does not routinely record reasons why people choose not to be vaccinated.”

However, the Department’s Covid-19 vaccination dashboard does display levels of first dose vaccine uptake. The size of the cohorts in age category appears to be based on older information, for example, more first doses of the vaccine have been issued to the over 80s than the size of the cohort identified by the Department, but the data does give an indication of the levels of uptake amongst various age groups.

Italy became the first country in Europe to make Covid vaccination mandatory for healthcare workers. In the Republic of Ireland, the Health Information and Quality Authority, while not ruling out mandatory vaccination in the future, described it as the “most intrusive step” and recommended progressive interventions to encourage healthcare workers who decline the vaccine.

In 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared vaccine hesitancy one of the 10 biggest threats to global health for the year.

On 13 May, the dashboard showed that 100 per cent of Northern Ireland’s over 80s had received their first dose. Over 90 per cent of the 70-79 age group had also received their first dose, as had over 98 per cent of 60–69-year-olds. It

Vaccine uptake likelihood from those not already vaccinated

Very likely Fairly likely

5%4% 12%

Very unlikely 79%

Source: NISRA Covid-19

*Sum of cohort size

Vaccinations (first dose)

Percentage vaccinated

18–29

284,364

53,297

18.74

30–39

251,344

124,823

49.66

40–49

242,034

178,864

73.90

50–59

256,638

220,775

86.03

60–69

195,677

192,000

98.12

70–79

143,273

137,667

96.09

81,578

82,143

100.00

1,454,908

989,569

68.02

80+ Total

On 10 May, the Department, through the Public Health Agency, launched a public information campaign to boost the vaccination drive, aiming to maintain “strong take-up rates”.

The campaign was timed to coincide with the vaccination programme reaching younger age groups and highlighted that half of 30–39-year-olds had taken up the opportunity to be vaccinated.

“Some younger people may need more convincing to get the jab, believing themselves to be at less risk from the virus. The information campaign highlights the fact that getting vaccinated protects you and others and helps us all get back to enjoying important activities that have been halted by the pandemic,” the Department said.

The Public Health Agency says that public opinion tracking surveys undertaken by the organisation, show that younger people, particularly those aged 24-34, are less likely to say that they will definitely get vaccinated compared to older age groups.

Fairly unlikely

Age group (as at 13/05/2021)

is from here, where uptake starts to decline as the age groups get younger.

86 per cent of 50–59-year-olds have opted to get their first dose, compared to just 73 per cent of 40–49-year-olds.

With the vaccination programme recently opened to the 30-39 age group, the Department’s website was showing an almost 50 per cent uptake.

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health trusts but has signalled no intention to make vaccination mandatory. Stating that the vaccination is voluntary, a spokesperson for the Department added: “As cohorts become eligible, individuals make their own decisions about stepping forward for vaccination.

A spokesperson for the PHA confirmed that tracking surveys undertaken were not published.

The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency recently published the findings of its Covid-19 opinion survey carried out over the year to April 2021. Of those surveyed, who had not already received a vaccination, 9 per cent declared themselves either fairly unlikely or very unlikely to get the vaccine.

Amongst the most common reasons for those likely to refuse the vaccine were concerns about side effects (53 per cent), long-term health effects (42 per cent) and feeling unsafe (34 per cent).

However, 33 per cent said that they were likely to wait to see how well the vaccine worked.

*Based on 2019 mid year estimates 59

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Record hospital waiting times The pre-existing crisis of waiting lists in Northern Ireland has been compounded further by the pandemic. agendaNi assesses the scale of the challenge and the need for dramatic intervention.

Almost 140,000 patients are waiting for a diagnostic service, over 300,000 outpatients are waiting for their first appointments and almost 3,5000 patients were left waiting over 12 hours in emergency departments in March 2021. Northern Ireland’s health system is left with waiting lists that ‘could take 10 years to tackle’.

A governmental target states that at least 75 per cent of patients should be waiting no longer than nine weeks for a diagnostic test. By December 2020, the inverse of the targets, with 75 per cent of patients waiting over nine weeks was closer to being a reality than its achievement. 62.8 per cent of patients, a total of 90,463 were left to wait over nine weeks for a diagnostic service.

None of the health trust areas met the 75 per cent target amongst their own patients, although the location of a patient’s treatment does increase or decrease their chance of having their diagnostic test on time. Patients served by the Western Trust were most likely to be served outside of target times, with only 53.1 per cent of patients seen within nine weeks; patients served by

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the Southern Trust were most likely to have their diagnostic test on time, with 74.7 per cent happening within nine weeks.

The 62.8 per cent overall rate of those waiting over nine weeks showed a decrease on the quarter ending September 2020, when 65.4 per cent of patients (103,085 in total) were waiting over nine weeks. However, there has been a year-on-year increase, with December 2019 having had a 57.5 per cent rate of these patients (81,286 in total) were waiting over nine weeks for a diagnostic test.

Perhaps even more critical than the missing of the nine-week target is the complete failure to meet the 26-week target that states that no patient should be waiting longer than 26 weeks for a diagnostic test. 40 per cent of patients overall (a total of 57,818) were waiting longer than 26 weeks for a diagnostic test as of 31 December. Again, these figures show a decrease from the quarter ending September 2020, when a 44.8 per cent figure rate meant that 71,968 people were waiting over 26 weeks, and an increase on December

2019 figures, when 30.4 per cent of patients (42,895 in total) were waiting over 26 weeks.

The likelihood of a patient waiting over 26 weeks, again, depended on their trust area, with the rate of the worst performing trust (the Southern Trust, 52.2 per cent) almost double that of the best performing trust (Western Trust, 26.5 per cent). Still, these figures show that a best-case scenario was having an over one-in-four chance of waiting over 26 weeks for a diagnostic test, while the worst-case scenario meant it being more likely than not that a patient would be waiting over 26 weeks.

These quarterly decreases and annual increases in the rates of those waiting for diagnostic tests are reflected in the total number of tests carried out, 361,248 diagnostic tests were reported on in hospitals in Northern Ireland during the quarter ending December 2020, showing a 3.6 per cent increase on the previous quarter, leaving less people waiting. However, a 14.6 per cent decrease on the amount reported on in December 2019 points to the impact that Covid-19 has had on an

Percentage of emergency department patients discharged within four-hour target time

90%

70%

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% Waiting Under 4hrs

80%

Ap

r2 Oc 008 t2 Ap 008 r2 Oc 009 t2 Ap 009 r2 Oc 010 t2 Ap 010 r2 Oc 011 t2 Ap 011 r2 Oc 012 t2 Ap 012 r2 Oc 013 t2 Ap 013 r2 Oc 014 t2 Ap 014 r2 Oc 015 t2 Ap 015 r2 Oc 016 t2 Ap 016 r2 Oc 017 t2 Ap 017 r2 Oc 018 t2 Ap 018 r2 Oc 019 t2 Ap 019 r2 Oc 020 t2 02 0

60%

already strained health system.

Unsurprisingly, attendances at emergency departments began to drop with the outbreak of the pandemic, with attendance figures dropping from 7,571 in February 2020 to 5,909 in March 2020. Following a significant rise during the first reopening of summer 2020, attendance again dropped but has begun to climb again as of March 2021 when 6,438 patients attended Type 1 emergency departments.

NHS targets state that 95 per cent of patients should be waiting no longer than four hours between arrival and discharge from the emergency department; in March 2021, just 55.8 per cent of patients in Northern Ireland emergency departments were discharged within four hours. While not the lowest rate on record (54.1 per cent in November 2019), the low rate continues a long-term decline that has existed long before the pandemic.

Since its peak of 91.2 per cent in August 2008, the rate has steadily nosedived save for yearly recoveries in the summer months. However, each summer recovery tends not to reach the highs of the previous summer, leaving the rate to decrease significantly over time.

The four-hour target is just one indicator of a range of delays and extensive waiting times in emergency

departments, with 3,489 patients left waiting over 12 hours to be discharged in March 2021, as few as 20 were forced to wait for such times in 2009.

Outpatients The overall bleak image of waiting times is not simply confined to hospitals, with numbers of outpatients awaiting their first appointment having increased by 6 per cent year-on-year from December 2019 to December 2020. Like most figures, these show an improvement from the quarter ending September 2020, showing a 1.2 per cent decrease from then. Again, a patient’s location affects their likelihood of waiting, with the Belfast Trust area making up almost one-third (103,836) of those waiting.

Two targets for March 2021 in relation to outpatient treatments are also on course to be missed by significant margins; as of December 2020, 85.3 per cent of patients were waiting longer than nine weeks for their first appointment, significantly higher than the target of no more than 50 per cent; and despite a target of zero patients waiting over 52 weeks by March 2021, there were 167,806 waiting over a year as of December 2020, meaning that one of the few concrete aims within the New Decade, New Approach agreement will most likely not be achieved.

Fully aware of the backlog of patients awaiting treatments across differing categories, Health Minister Robin Swann MLA told the Assembly in April 2021 that people are waiting “too long for treatment”. Following a warning from Department of Health officials that current waiting lists could take between five and 10 years to tackle without adequate finding, Swann told the Assembly that without a joint executive approach, Northern Ireland would be “fighting the scourge of waiting lists with at least one hand tied behind its back”.

Swann stated that the current health funding model is “not fit for purpose”, a sentiment that Finance Minister Conor Murphy MLA expressed in January 2021, when he stated the budget for the forthcoming year was “difficult and effectively a standstill of our 2020-21 budget position”.

The budget published in January 2-21 included a 5.7 per cent increase for health, taking day-to-day spending to £6.5 billion for 2021-22, but the health and social care arms-length bodies leaders stated in their respond to the budget that financial planning was extremely difficult without multi-year budgets and that addressing waiting times will “require significant additional resource and will cost many hundreds of millions of pounds over a number of years”.

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Systemic change needed at the heart of recovery

Head of British Heart Foundation Northern

•

At the end of 2020 there were 30 times as many people waiting over six months for cardiac surgery compared to the same period in 2019

•

Between June and December 2020, the number of people waiting over six months for cardiac surgery doubled

•

Between the end of 2019 and the end of 2020, the number of people waiting for cardiac surgery grew by 40 per cent

Ireland (BHF NI) Fearghal McKinney reveals how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected heart patients across Northern Ireland, with the charity calling for a strategic approach to tackle the issue.

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In January 2020 Linda Murray was referred for open heart surgery by her cardiologist to repair a damaged heart valve.

services in Northern Ireland. Surgeries were cancelled and many cardiology services were paused in order to deal with the impact of Covid-19.

Almost a year and a half later, the Lisburn woman is still waiting for the operation and lives daily with the impact of a leaky heart valve.

In fact, BHF NI analysis of the cardiac waiting lists found 30 times more people are waiting over six months for cardiac surgery than a year ago.

Linda’s story is not unusual. The pandemic has seriously affected cardiac

Analysis from the leading heart charity has revealed:

McKinney says each number on a waiting list is more than a statistic, it is a person waiting on life enhancing, and often life-saving, surgery.

“Heart operations are not something that people can easily go without, delaying them can cost lives,” he states.

“The significant backlog of people needing heart surgery will keep growing as there are also significant numbers of people waiting for cardiology referrals and many of these are likely to require

surgery. That waiting list will only get longer and make no mistake, as this goes on people will die on that waiting list or will have died already.

“Every number on that waiting list is a person with a family worried sick about the future. Many of them are facing anxiety and a worsening quality of life as time goes by.”

McKinney believes there are no easy answers but there is a need for a different approach to dealing with cardiology.

“Staff across our health service have worked tirelessly for more than a year now to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

In cardiology, services were pulled or dramatically reduced in order to deal with the onslaught of the pandemic, and staff have gone above and beyond since last March,” he explains.

“Quick fixes like assuming staff can work weekends or longer hours to tackle the waiting lists is not possible. These people are exhausted and we can’t ask any more of them. We need to look at it differently with systematic change.”

Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Taskforce Using BHF NI convening power and relationships the charity has brought together a panel of experts, including cardiologists and health officials in a Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Taskforce.

The aim is to identify key priorities to ensure that people with, and at risk of, heart and circulatory disease across Northern Ireland receive the best possible care today and in the future in line with the transformation principles within health and social care.

“Our CVD Taskforce was set up prepandemic because we believe we needed a new CVD Strategy for Northern Ireland and we were perfectly placed to bring the right people around the table to deliver that,” says McKinney.

“Services are operating within the context of no new strategic framework since 2014. There has been a lot of

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As Northern Ireland emerges from the pandemic, focus is on rebuilding the health service and where we go from here. BHF NI says cardiology should be one of the priority areas for the health service in Northern Ireland as the system rebuilds. The heart research charity said it is vital that heart services are prioritised, protected and expanded to address the significant backlog of people awaiting treatment.

Linda Murray was been waiting over a year-and-a-half for heart surgery.

“An ambitious, long-term, strategic plan, informed by innovative thinking along with significant and recurrent funding for cardiac care will ensure that services build back better. We must see this commitment to cardiac services from the Department of Health in the form of a heart disease strategy.” change in the health care system since then, not least the transformation agenda and this year as we consider the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Heart and circulatory patients are now, more than ever, vulnerable.

“The impact of the pandemic on already struggling waiting lists shows just how bad it is for heart patients.”

McKinney says the taskforce will now produce a CVD Strategy that will take into account the impact of the pandemic on cardiac services as well as putting people living with CVD at the heart of the strategy by involving them in its development.

“Heart disease is a major cause of ill health and death in Northern Ireland and the pandemic has only exacerbated the situation,” he adds.

“We estimate that around 225,000 people are living with heart and circulatory diseases here and people living with these conditions are at significantly higher risk of serious ill health and death from Covid-19.

“An ambitious, long-term, strategic plan, informed by innovative thinking along with significant and recurrent funding for cardiac care will ensure that services build back better. We must see this

commitment to cardiac services from the Department of Health in the form of a heart disease strategy.

“In BHF NI patients are at the heart of everything we do. It is important to us that we are including patients as we develop a strategy that meets their needs.”

The CVD taskforce is looking at the key areas of detection, diagnosis and optimal management of high-risk conditions, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and atrial fibrillation. Variation in treatment and long-term support, so that people can live well with their conditions. The effective use of health data, issues in workforce and governance are also being explored.

“We have an opportunity to look at these challenges and beyond them to identify what our priorities should be to ensure that people with heart disease in Northern Ireland today, and in the future, receive the best possible care,” McKinney concludes.

For more information contact Fearghal McKinney on mckinneyf@bhf.org.uk

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Health and social care services plan The Strategic Framework for Rebuilding Health and Social Care Services, first released in June 2020 and updated sporadically since, provides the framework for how Northern Ireland’s health system will be rebuilt after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The publication of phased plans under the Rebuilding Health and Social Care Services plan had to be halted toward the back end of 2020 due to the severity of the second wave of Covid19. Having initially published rebuilding plans for each HSC Trust and the Ambulance Service in both Phase 1 (April to June 2020) and Phase 2 (July to September), publication of phased rebuilding plans was paused for phases

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3 and 4 after the second wave of

by Health Minister Robin Swann MLA in

Covid-19 hit Northern Ireland severely

June 2020.

and put the health system under significant pressure once again.

Writing in his foreword to the framework, Swann said that the

Publication of the phased plans

pandemic had “presented our HSC

resumed in April 2021, with the release

system with its biggest challenge since

of the April-June Phase 6 plans. The

inception” but also admitted that the

phased plans all fall under the Strategic

health system “faced huge strategic

Framework for Rebuilding Health and

challenges prior to Covid-19, which

Social Services, which was published

included an ageing population,

The three principles governing HSC Trust incremental plans: • ensuring equity of access for the treatment of patients across Northern Ireland; • minimise the transmission of Covid-19; and • protect access to the most urgent services for the population.

increasing demand, long and growing waiting lists, workforce pressures, the emergence of new and more expensive treatments and ongoing budget constraints”.

The effect of Covid on the health system is seen in the increases in various waiting time statistics, which though already significant, worsened throughout periods of lockdown and placed severe stress on the health system. The framework states that “population health is, on balance, likely to be negatively affected by the wider impacts of Covid-19”. The framework report states that the “disruption has been particularly acute in elective services which have been stood down, multidisciplinary community teams and district nursing teams where student training would have generated additional footfall”.

Other challenges concurrent with the pandemic addressed in the framework document include Brexit, which requires an understanding of the implications for the sector of “the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol and ensuring that the sector is prepared and risks are managed in areas such as workforce, health

security and healthcare supplies”, and the Department’s budgetary position, which “continues to be hugely challenging, with the Department facing a funding shortfall in respect of forecast inescapable pressures necessary to maintain existing services”.

The service rebuilding plans included in the framework are planned to cover three-month periods from April 2020 to March 2022, after which time an Assembly election will be imminent. The HSC Trusts have adopted three principles in the development of their plans: ensure equity of access for the treatment of patients across Northern Ireland; minimise the transmission of Covid-19; and protect access to the most urgent services for the population.

Among the immediate priorities identified in the framework are reorganisation of HSC governance, with changes to governance frameworks implemented. The Department “through temporary amendments to the framework document, and the establishment of a new management board” is now giving direction to the HSC Board, the Public Health Agency, trusts and the Business Service Organisation in order to reflect the

In section five of the framework, the overarching approach of the incremental service plans is laid out.

The framework states that this approach will involve “mandating the wide range of existing managerial clinical networks, project boards, task and finish groups or other service improvement vehicles to provide service specific incremental plans for their respective areas”, to be achieved by “reviewing the existing patient pathways, applying a range of Covid-19 factors and producing revised patient pathways to implement rebuilding services within the context of prevailing Covid-19 conditions”.

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“The framework states that ‘population health is, on balance, likely to be negatively affected by the wider impacts of Covid-19’. The framework report states that the ‘disruption has been particularly acute in elective services which have been stood down, multidisciplinary community teams and district nursing teams where student training would have generated additional footfall’.”

Minister’s wishes. These revised arrangements are “intended to be in place over the next two years [from 2020] to facilitate rapid decision making in rebuilding HSC services”.

The framework then presents a checklist of aspects of health such as communication with patients, staff involvement, working environment risk assessment, workforce, etc. In a familiar tale with it comes to healthcare plans produced by the Executive, the framework is vague when it comes to concrete targets, thus making it difficult to analyse its implementation thus far.

For instance, under the workforce heading, the framework states that “in line with the Workforce Strategy, [the HSC should] protect and support the HSC workforce by taking action to ensure the care and resilience of staff working in all HSC disciplines”; what action should be taken is not specified.

Some further detail is offered in the localised phased plans, for instance the Belfast Trust’s Phase 5 plan makes mention of the importance of allowing staff to avail of the annual leave denied to them by the pandemic last year, but also speaks in generalities in terms of staffing vaccination drives and makes no mention of how these numbers will be met or what numbers of staff will be required in the first place.

The Belfast Phase 5 plan notes that financial constraints are likely, and it is here that the crux of the issues facing the health services is revealed. Facing two unknowns in the guises of Covid and Brexit, it is the familiar inabilities to set targets or rely on funding that leave the HSCs attempting to rebuild in a sea of uncertainty.

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Cancer waiting times Almost 45 per cent of red flag cancer patients in Northern Ireland were not treated in the recommended time at the end of 2020, with the latest figures showing an overall decrease in the number of cancer patients being treated within 62 days after an urgent GP referral.

Department of Health targets state that 95 per cent of urgent GP referrals for suspected cancer should be treated within 62 days. It is a target which has never been met in Northern Ireland. A pledge to develop a new strategy and implementation plan on cancer by December 2020 within the New Decade, New Approach agreement by December 2020 has still not happened and the extent of the challenge is highlighted in projections that rates of cancer in Northern Ireland are expected to rise by 43 per cent for men and by 40 per cent for women by 2026.

If the ministerial target of a 95 per cent rate were to be achieved, those in

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receipt of an urgent GP referral with suspected cancer would still have a one-in-20 chance of not being treated within the allotted 62 days; as things stood in December 2020, that likelihood was almost nine-in-20, just under 4.5 out of 10. 59.4 per cent of those given urgent GP referrals for suspected cancer were treated within 62 days in October, this rate dropped to 53.2 per cent in November before slightly rising to 55.3 per cent in December.

The figures, released in March by the Department of Health, survey cancer treatments over the months OctoberDecember 2020, and they show a widespread failure across all trust

areas, as could be seen in over 60 per cent of patients being treated outside targeted times in the Northern Trust area in November. All five trust areas recorded failures to even approach the 95 per cent targets, rates achieved range from a low of 38.1 per cent in the Northern Trust area in November to a high of the Western Trust’s 71.7 per cent in October.

While it could be assumed in some quarters that this poor performance is related to the Covid-19 pandemic and the pressure it has placed on the health system, figures for December 2019 show that only the Northern Trust area suffered a decrease in the rate of

referrals treated within 62 days from December 2019 to December 2020. In the other four trust areas, none of the final three months of 2020 had 62-day treatment rates as low as they had had in December 2019, pointing to this as an issue that far predates Covid-19.

The December rate of 55.3 per cent meant that 184 people were treated within the target time while 333 in receipt of urgent GP referrals were treated in the month, meaning that 149 patients were treated outside of the target time. Of these 149 patients left to wait over 62 days for their treatment, over a third (50 or 35.6 per cent) were diagnosed with a urological cancer.

Unlike the 62-day target, where failure was widespread across trust areas, a patient’s chances of having their treatment start on time does depend on where they are being treated. For instance, both the Belfast and Northern trusts recorded a monthly rate of less than 90 per cent once in the final three months of 2020 while the Western Trust’ lowest rare across the same time period was 97.9 per cent.

October saw 96.6 per cent of patients treated within 31 days, a rate which fell to 93.1 per cent in November and rose slightly to 93.4 per cent in December.

This December rate was a slight decrease on the December 2019 rate of 93.7 per cent.

In real terms, this means that 795 people out of 823, 778 out of 836 and 740 out of 792 were treated within the target time in October, November, and December respectively. However, this leaves a total of 138 people not treated within the target time across the last three months of 2020.

patients in Northern Ireland long before the pandemic; the Pathways to Diagnosis report published in 2020 found that one-fifth of the 46,068 cancer patients diagnosed from 20122016 were diagnosed through an emergency route, leaving a poor net survival rate at three years of just 23 per cent. Research by the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry, published in November 2020, did point to a specific issue arising from the squeeze placed on the health system by the pandemic.

The Registry said that 1,130 fewer cancers were diagnosed from March to September 2020 than in the same period in 2019, a 23 per cent decline, meaning that early detection chances will have been missed.

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The total number of patients who were treated following an urgent GP referral did, however, fall, possibly pointing to a reduction in those presenting with symptoms due to restrictions on GP visits. As well as this fall, trusts have cancelled surgeries for ‘red flag’ patients, with more than 4,000 procedures cancelled in 2020.

December 2020’s number overall patients treated of 333 was a fall from the 387 and 377 of the preceding November and October respectively and an annual decrease from the 351 of December 2019 as well.

stating 98 per cent of patients diagnosed with cancer should receive their first definitive treatment within 31 days of a decision to treat has also not been met.

As the health service begins to recover from the damage wrought by the pandemic, Health Minister Robin Swann MLA will be aware that the problems in treating cancer are long-term and any exasperation caused by the pandemic is just that, exasperation of already existing issues. With the publication of the latest cancer waiting figures, Swann stated that the Cancer Recovery Plan, the strategy to rebuild and stabilise cancer services, is being finalised.

Swann said the plan will “address the

“Further targets set in 2009 have also been missed, although by much smaller margins, but the fact still remains that an Executive recalled in part because of a health crisis and nursing strike has not broached health targets that are over a decade old upon its return.”

December 2020’s total of 333 people treated was the lowest of the second half of 2020, with only the 324 and 279 treated in June and May respectively lower throughout the entire year. The 184 treated within the 62-day target is, in raw numbers terms, an improvement on five months in 2020, with the 149 treated after 62 days lower than the amount in the same situation in six of 2020‘s months.

Further targets set in 2009 have also been missed, although by much smaller margins, but the fact still remains that an Executive recalled in part because of a health crisis and nursing strike has not broached health targets that are over a decade old upon its return. A ministerial target also set in 2009

9,677 people altogether were given a decision to treat in 2020, with 9,145 of them being treated within the target 31 days, leaving 532 people to be treated outside of target times. In the case of targets being achieved, patients given a decision to treat would have a one-in50 chance of not being treated within 31 days, a rate that would have seen 194 people treated outside the 31-day target in 20202. However, this target has never been met and for the year 2020, those with cancer diagnoses had a slightly over one-in-20 chance of not receiving their first definitive treatment within the 31 days.

immediate issues in cancer services

Missed opportunities for early diagnoses and treatment have become an unfortunate fact of life for cancer

through the independent sector and

with the aim of getting us to a place where services are stronger than before” and that it will be “fully aligned with the priorities in the draft Northern Ireland Cancer Strategy”. While no definitive date for the plan’s publication has been announced as of yet, Swann has detailed that it will “increase capacity to address backlogs in screening, diagnostic and treatment services” and, along with expanded inhouse capacity, “provide additional diagnostic and surgical capacity other UK and Republic of Ireland providers”.

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Health inequalities 2021 Life expectancy continues to increase in Northern Ireland but there are worrying signs of widening inequality gaps, especially in relation to drug-related deaths.

Life expectancy The Health Inequalities Annual Report 2021 states that between 2017 and 2018, male life expectancy at birth has continued to improve in both the most and least deprived areas of Northern Ireland. However, the deprivation gap among males in terms of life expectancy stands at 7 years, a slight improvement on the 7.1 years reported in 2020. Female life expectancy improved overall but the deprivation gap has slightly widened since the 2020 report, from 4.4 years to 4.8 in 2021.

Both the male and female life expectancy deprivation gaps are now wider than they had been from 20132015, when the male gap was 6.5

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years, and the female equivalent was 4.5 years. Overall life expectancy for males now stands at 78.8 years, and 82.6 years for females; male life expectancy at 65 is now a further 18.5 years overall, with a three-year deprivation gap, and female life expectancy at 65 is a further 20.8 years overall, with a deprivation gap of 2.5 years. Both of these overall figures show improvement from 2013-2015, as does the male deprivation gap, although the female gap has slightly widened.

Worryingly, three of the health and social care trusts show a widening of the male life expectancy gap in their areas. All five trusts report no change in the female inequality gap.

Belfast Trust’s area, where the male life expectancy of 76.6 years is 2.2 years less than the overall average, reports an unmoving inequality gap of 5.7 years.

Female life expectancy stands at 81.2 years, 1.4 years less than the overall average, and an inequality gap of 4.2 years is reported. Overall life expectancy for males in the area covered by the Northern Trust is 79.5 years, 0.7 higher than the overall average. However, the male inequality gap has widened to 3.7 years, meaning the males in the most deprived area of the ward have a life expectancy of 75.8 years. Female life expectancy in the ward stands at 82.9 years overall, again 0.7 higher than the overall average, with an unmoving inequality gap of 2.5 years.

Life expectancy per HSC Trust area, 2017–2019 86 84 82 80 78 76

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74 72 70 68 66 64 Belfast

Northern

South Eastern

Southern

Western

Average male

Average most deprived area male

Average female

Average most deprived area female

Northern Ireland

Source: Department of Health.

The South Eastern Trust again shows a widening male life expectancy gap. Its overall male average of 79.4 years ranks it 0.6 years ahead of the overall average, but its inequality gap has widened to 3.9 years. The area’s female life expectancy is 83.1 years, 0.5 above the Northern Ireland average and with an inequality gap of 2.1 years. In the Southern Trust area, an overall male life expectancy of 79.3 years is reported, with a narrowing inequality gap of 2.2 years. Female life expectancy also stands at 83.1 years here, with no change in an inequality gap of 1.5 years. The Western Trust area reports a male life expectancy of 78.5 years, 0.3 lower than the average, with a widening inequality gap of 4.4 years. Female life expectancy stands at 82.2 years, with an unmoving inequality gap of 2.8 years.

No major changes have been reported in either male or female healthy life expectancy or disability-free life expectancy for males or females. The average male healthy life expectancy stands at 59.2 years, a slight decrease from the 59.7 recorded from 2016–2018, with an inequality gap of 13.5 years, its lowest since the 11.9 year gap recorded from 2013–2015.

The overall average healthy life

expectancy for females stands at 61 years, an increase of 0.2 years on 2016–2018. Despite the inequality gap of 15.4 years being a slight raise of 0.2 years, it is still at its highest rate since 2013.

Male disability-free life expectancy stands at 57.9 years, its highest since 2013, and its inequality gap has fallen from 14.5 years in 2016–2018 to 12.5 years. Female disability-free life expectancy stands at 58.4 years, a 1.2year rise on 2016–2018 levels, with an inequality gap of 13.3 years, a slight decrease from the 13.9 gap of 2016–2018 but still ahead of the 2014–2016 gap of 11.3 years.

Premature mortality Rates of premature mortality generally decreased in Northern Ireland over the 2017–2019 period, but large inequality gaps persist between the least and most deprived areas. For example, respiratory mortality among under 75s in the most deprived areas is three and a half times that of those in the least deprived areas.

The rate of potential years of life lost per 100 people fell from 8.6 years in 2016–2018 to 8.5 in 2017–2019.

However, the rate in the most deprived

areas slightly rose from 13 years to 13.2 years in the same time, while the rate in the least deprived areas remained stagnant at 5.7 years. The inequality gap in this indicator now stands at 130 per cent, significantly higher than the 118 per cent gap of 2014–2016.

Using the OECD definitions of avoidable mortality, the standardised death rate (SDR) from treatable causes stands at 84 per 100,000 of population.

This figure rises to 120 in the most deprived areas and falls to 62 in the least deprived areas, a 92 per cent inequality gap for the 2015-2019 period, a slight raise on the 90 per cent raise of 2014–2018, but still an improvement on the 104 per cent rate of 2011–2015. The SDR in the most deprived areas has fallen in raw numbers in this same period from 133 per 100,000 to 120.

The SDR for deaths considered preventable show a worrying widening of the inequality gap from 175 per cent in 2011–2015 and 184 per cent in 2014–2018 to 195 per cent in 2015–2019, meaning that people in the most deprived areas are now almost three times as likely to die from preventable causes as those in the least deprived areas. The overall SDR for preventable deaths is 170 per 4 69

Inequality gaps in premature mortality, 2011–2019 300% 250% 200% 150%

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100% 50% 0% 2011–2015

2012–2016

2013–2017

2014–2018

2015–2019

Treatable

Preventable

Avoidable

Avoidable: Children & Young People

Circulatory U75

Respiratory U75

Cancer U75

All causes U75

Source: Department of Health.

100,000, 297 in the most deprived areas and 101 in the least deprived areas.

SDR in avoidable deaths also shows a widening inequality gap despite longterm improvements in both the least and most deprived areas. 417 avoidable deaths per 100,000 in the most deprived areas shows improvement from the 429 in 2011–2015, but a decrease from 173 per 100,000 to 163 in the same times in the least deprived areas means that the inequality gap now stands at 156 per cent, a widening from 2011–2015’s 148 per cent.

Among the most worrying of the stats in the entire report is the significant widening of the inequality gap in the SDR for avoidable deaths of children and young people. Having stood at 72 per cent in 2011–2015, the gap had closed to 48 per cent by 2014–2018, but now stands at 77 per cent. With an overall rate of 23 deaths per 100,000, this figure rises to 30 in the most deprived areas and 17 in the least deprived areas. Despite the widening inequality gap, in raw numbers terms, all of the categories show improvement from 2011–2015, when an overall rate of 24 per 100,000 was flanked by rates of 34 and 20 in the most deprived and least deprived areas respectively.

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SDR across all causes (respiratory, circulatory, and cancer) in under 75s all sow either stagnation or improvement in raw numbers in all categories except respiratory, where both overall deaths per 100,000 and deaths in the most deprived areas have increased since 2011–2015. Inequality gap in circulatory and cancer SDRs have narrowed slightly and stayed the same respectively, while the gaps in respiratory and all causes have widened.

Suicide, alcohol, and drug-related deaths Some of the greatest inequalities in Northern Ireland’s health indicators remain in the crude death rate for intentional self-harm and alcohol and drug-related indicators. The crude death rate from intentional self-harm does, however, show signs of improvement in both raw numbers and in the narrowing of its inequality gap.

Only the crude death rate per 100,000 of population in the least deprived areas shows an increase, from 6.9 in 2013–2015 to 7 in 2017–2019. An overall crude death rate of 9.7 per 100,000 shows a decrease from 11.6 in the same time period, with the rate in the least deprived areas dropping from

17.9 to 14.3. The inequality gap has noticeably narrowed, from 161 per cent to 105 per cent, although this does still mean that death via suicide is over two times as likely in the most deprived areas as compared to the least deprived.

The SDRs for both drug- and alcoholrelated deaths have worryingly increased across all markers. Alcoholspecific deaths have an overall SDR of 17.1 per 100,000 for the period 2015–2019, an increase on the rate of 14 of the 2011–2015 period. Both the least deprived areas (from 6.6 per 100,000 to 8.3) and the most deprived areas (29.8 per 100,000 to 34.9) suffered increases in this same time period, where the inequality gap shortened from 348 per cent to 319 per cent.

The SDR for drug-related causes also shows and increase in all three categories, with an overall rate of 8.5 per 10,000 for 2015–2019, an increase from 2011–2015’s 6.3. Both the least deprived (3.0 per 100,000 to 4.0) and most deprived areas (13.5 to 20.3) also suffered increases, with the inequality gap widening from 347 per cent to 404 per cent.

Children and young people report

children and young people report

Closing the gap A Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) report has found that over £900 million of funding pledged to the narrowing of the educational attainment gap in Northern Ireland made no “demonstrable difference”.

Closing the Gap — social deprivation and links to educational attainment, the report published by Northern Ireland’s Comptroller and Auditor General Kieran Donnelly, analyses the impact of two Department of Education interventions, Targeting Social Need (TSN) and Sure Start. Of the £138 million of annual funding targeted towards children from socially deprived backgrounds in the 2019–20 academic year, £102 million was accounted for by TSN and Sure Start.

From the beginning of TSN in April 2005, £913 million of funding has been provided, but the report found that the Department does not have any data to “clearly demonstrate” if this funding has improved the academic performances of pupils with Free School Meal Entitlement (FSME). While “educational attainment of all school leavers is improving”, the report states that “progress to close the attainment gap

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between FSME and non-FSME pupils has been slow”.

return of the TSN Planner for the 2018–19 academic year.

The gap in achievement of five GCSEs including English and Maths has “not changed significantly in the last 15 years”, with a long-term trend of a 30percentage point gap having opened up. The gap currently stands at 29 percentage points, as compared to 32.1 percentage points in 2005-06.

Donnelly said: “I understand that improving educational attainment is more than a matter of providing funding and that a broad range of factors contribute, including school leadership, classroom teaching, and parental and community involvement. However, for over 15 years, targeted funding totalling hundreds of millions of pounds has been provided to support disadvantaged pupils and close the attainment gap.

Aside from a lack of progress, the report also found a lack of accountability when it came to these funds, with there being no requirement for schools to spend TSN funds solely on supporting their pupils from socially deprived backgrounds. The report found that the Department “has not collated information on the use and impact of TSN funds” and that “a new TSN Planner, designed to capture such information, has had very low uptake”.

Only 6 per cent of schools provided a

“It is simply unacceptable that the Department does not have adequate information to establish how these funds have been targeted by schools or the effectiveness of the interventions used… The issues raised in my report must be addressed urgently in order to maximise outcomes for pupils, and value for money for taxpayers.”

£913 million

of Targeting Social Need funding provided to schools in the 15 years between 2005–06 and 2019–20.

96,686

pupils with Free School Meal Entitlement (FSME) in 2019–20.

6%

children and young people report

of schools that input information to the Department’s TSN Planner for the 2018–19 academic year.

49.5%

of school leavers with Free School Meal Entitlement (FSME) achieving at least five GCSEs A*–C (or equivalent) including GCSEs in English and Maths in the 2018–19 academic year, compared with a target of 60 per cent.

32.1%

attainment gap between non-FSME and FSME school leavers in 2005–06 as measured by the proportion of school leavers achieving at least five GCSEs A*–C (or equivalent) including GCSEs in English and Maths.

Other key findings in the report include: • 50 per cent of FSME school leavers achieved at least five GCSEs including Maths and English in 2018–19, compared to a departmental target of 60 per cent.

In comparison, 79 per cent of nonFSME leavers achieved at least five GCSEs including English and Maths.

• There has been a persistent gap between FSME and non-FSME pupils in Key Stages 1, 2 and 3 in Communication, Using Mathematics and Using ICT. Targets for the percentage of pupils achieving the expected level were missed in both Communication and Using Mathematics in Key Stages 2 and 3.

No targets were set for Key Stage 1 or for Using ICT. • Provision of Key Stage assessment data is a statutory requirement, but the report found that only 14 per cent of primary schools and 15 per cent of post-primary schools provided assessment data for the 2018–19 academic year. This was blamed on the industrial action taken

29%

attainment gap between Non-FSME and FSME school leavers in 2018–19 as measured by the proportion of school leavers achieving at least five GCSEs A*–C (or equivalent) including GCSEs in English and Maths.

by teachers that ended on 28 April 2020.

• As part of the New Decade, New Approach agreement, an expert panel was commissioned to examine the links between persistent educational underachievement and socioeconomic background as a matter of priority. The expert panel provided an interim report on its findings in April 2021 and are expected to submit their final report and action plan to the Education Minister by the end of May 2021.

The report also states that, as of the 2018–19 academic year, the Department

is not meeting its own targets set out under the 2011 strategy Count, Read: Succeed — A strategy to improve outcomes in Literacy and Numeracy. The strategy sets out targets “for the levels of achievement expected in the long term if the Department was to be successful in meeting its aims of raising overall standards of achievement in literacy and numeracy and closing the gap in achievement”.

With no targets set for Key Stage 1, performances in Key Stages 2 and 3 during the academic year 2018–19 were below all of the milestones targeted by the Department.

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children and young people report

Usel’s U Shred NI secures major government contract

Leading social enterprise Ulster Supported Employment Ltd (Usel), which provides employment for people with disabilities, has won a major contract to shred and recycle sensitive documents for the Northern Ireland Executive.

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Usel’s subsidiary U Shred NI secured the three-year £317,000 contract to destroy confidential documents held by Stormont departments and other key government bodies, with the shredded documents recycled to create new paper products.

disadvantaged people in the workforce.

The company, which has implemented the strictest industry compliance and security measures, is one of the first to win Northern Ireland government tender opportunities reserved for organisations dedicated to supporting disabled and

Adding: “We are delighted to have been awarded this contract, which has allowed us to further extend our provision having been awarded several significant contracts over the year. This contract will allow us to secure jobs for people with

Usel Chief Executive Bill Atkinson says the contract will reinforce Usel’s position as a key provider of employment for people with long term health conditions and disabilities.

disabilities or health conditions during this difficult time with the opportunity to create further jobs in the future.”

Social value Finance Minister, Conor Murphy MLA, recently visited the Usel manufacturing and recycling base in Belfast to view its operations and said: “It was great to see first-hand the impressive set up and to be able to meet some of the staff. Delivering maximum social value from public procurement is one of my key priorities and I am delighted that by awarding this contract we have been able to support this social enterprise which is supporting people with disabilities and health-related conditions into employment.

“The awarding of this £317,000 contract will provide job security for those working within the organisation as well as potential employment opportunities for

others and highlights that social enterprises have the skills and experience to deliver significant contracts to our public sector.”

Scott Jackson, Head of Manufacturing and Recycling at Usel, says that the contract is the largest secured by the new subsidiary to date and something the organisation view as a launch pad for winning more contracts in the public and private sectors.

U Shred NI already provides shredding services for councils, schools, banks and a range of blue-chip companies and smaller businesses.

Green economy Usel has plans to continue to expand U Shred NI to become the largest social enterprise confidential waste provider in Northern Ireland. The confidential shredding industry is currently worth £10 million per year in Northern Ireland and with the Stormont Executive’s increasing commitment to the green economy, this is set to grow even further.

Jackson says: “We are dedicated to recycling as much material as possible to reduce the reliance on landfill. 100 per cent of the pulped documents will be sent to paper mills in Great Britain to make products such as napkins, kitchen roll and toilet paper.”

As an organisation, Usel is committed to the green economy and their shredding service can be an asset to companies looking to fulfil their Corporate Social Responsibility commitments by reducing waste and providing jobs in the local community.

“Everything we do centres around developing a greener society while at the same time creating a brighter future for people with disabilities by providing sustainable jobs and excellent training and support. We are delighted to be working with the Executive and look forward to partnering with other businesses and organisations looking to reduce their waste through our secure confidential document shredding service,” adds Jackson.

Usel, was formed in 1962 with the aim of providing supported paid employment for people with disabilities within its Belfast manufacturing base.

It is the largest direct supporter of people with disabilities and health related conditions and trains, supports and employs up to 1,200 people across Northern Ireland every year.

children and young people report

It is expected that the contract will help create up to 15 new green jobs for U Shred NI, which was formed in January 2020. U Shred NI currently employs 16 people in a state-of-the-art operation that disposes of confidential material in a secure environment and recycles it in line with Usel’s commitment to green principles and the circular economy.

Usel: six decades dedicated to helping the most vulnerable in society

The company uses the social enterprise model, tackling social issues and reinvesting its profits back into expanding its workforce. For every £1 invested Usel, £18 is created in social value.

As well as U Shred NI, it runs a number of other successful social enterprises including three Ability Cafes at Belfast Zoo, Lady Dixon Park and the Spectrum Centre; Usel Recycling Solutions reprocessing mattresses, carpets, furniture, plastics and cardboard; Manufacturing Solutions, making mattresses, bedding and bespoke kit bags for the emergency services and SMARTPAC, a customised sewing service.

Usel has won several major contracts in recent months. Recycling Solutions recently won a tender to process Mid and East Antrim Borough Council’s cardboard waste. All the material is baled and sent to England to make new cardboard boxes and products.

The company also provides training programmes such as STRIDE (Support and Training to Realise Individual Development Employment) which helps hundreds of people with disabilities and health related conditions find work throughout Northern Ireland every year.

Usel’s head office and main base includes a 65,000 square foot factory situated on a three-acre site in Cambrai Street in North Belfast. It also has offices in Derry/Londonderry, Portadown and Ballymena.

During the Covid pandemic, Usel staff provided a range of support services to help some of the most vulnerable people in Northern Ireland. They offered support and training to find employment; virtual social activities, including cooking demonstrations, online yoga, and quizzes for those isolated in their homes and expert tips on how to stay safe and healthy.

The company runs a highly successful manufacturing, recycling and employability business and is in partnership with organisations to provide support to get people back into employment, operating a range of training programmes that assists people with disabilities to gain the qualifications and skills required for sustainable employment.

Usel Chief Executive, Bill Atkinson says: “We would like to appeal to companies seeking to recruit to offer opportunities to someone with a disability or health condition. We can provide a range of training programmes to ensure they are ready for work. The people we work with are highly motivated and want to work and have the skill set to do a great job for any willing employer.”

For more information about all Usel’s services visit www.usel.co.uk

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children and young people report

While it is difficult to measure the impact the switch to remote learning has had on children and young people, one evident trend is that those who entered the pandemic with the fewest academic opportunities are on track to exit with the greatest learning loss.

Described as a global experiment, remote education, necessitated by the pandemic, has taken many forms as nations sought to manage the spread of the virus within their own restrictions.

Pinpointing the outcomes of remote learning for children and young people has proven difficult when considering the many variables, not least the different lengths of school closures, different delivery methods and differing levels of accessibility.

While it is obvious that remote learning has brought benefits in relation to access to education that would not have existed had schools simply remained closed, the overwhelming indication from research is that remote learning remains a poor substitute for being back in the classroom and that students have paid a heavy price in lost learning.

A common theme emerging from current research is a divide in relation to remote education outcomes.

In February 2021, the Republic of Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO)

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offered some insight into the divide when it published data in relation to the impact of school closures on students’ learning and social development, informed by input of more than 1,600 parents.

The data sought to capture opinions on the different outcomes for different age groups within education. It suggests that the negative impact of school closures is less prevalent when moving down the sliding scale of age groups, for example, almost half of parents with a child in fifth or sixth year of secondary education reported a major negative impact on their learning, compared to just over a third for the whole of secondary education. These figures fell further when assessing the impact of school closures on primary school children, where almost 15 per cent reported a major negative impact.

Looking at it from another perspective, the data outlines that only 9 per cent of parents with a child in fifth or sixth year reported a positive effect of remote education on their child’s learning and

this figure fell significantly further for children in junior cycle secondary education, where the rate was just 1.5 per cent.

Disadvantage However, research carried out globally would suggest the need for closer analysis, not just of the outcomes for children and young people of different ages, but also the impact on the different levels of disadvantage.

A report by McKinsey and Company has sought to look into the cost of remote working on pupils, with a particular focus on vulnerable students.

Unlike the CSO data, the McKinsey report surveyed teachers, recognising their unique viewpoint in “deciphering the long-term impact of this protracted learning experiment”.

UNESCO estimates that by mid-April 2020, 1.6 billion children were no longer being taught in a physical classroom and while it is recognised that many nations used different timelines in relation to school attendance

Ireland: Impact of enforced school closures on student learning by school cycle in the Republic of Ireland, February 2021

Secondary school

children and young people report

Primary school

0%

10% Major negative

restrictions and that within that there were various models and experiences of remote learning, the broad consensus was that remote learning is a poor substitute for being in the classroom.

Recognising the value of face-to-face learning, amidst the pandemic, The World Health Organization released guidelines which states that school closures should be “considered only if there is no other alternative”.

20%

30%

40%

Moderate negative

50%

60%

Mild negative

70% No impact

80% Positive

90% Source: CSO

Global: Student engagement with remote learning by share below poverty line % of students 80 70 60 50 40 30

A trend recognised as a result of teacher feedback from various nations is that while remote learning has improved as schools adopt best practices, it remains difficult for students who struggle with issues such as learning challenges, isolation or lack of resource.

“Teachers in schools where more than 80 per cent of students live in households under the poverty line reported an average of 2.5 months of learning loss, compared with a reported loss of 1.6 months in schools where more than 80 per cent of students live in households above the poverty line,” the report stated.

Although different countries reported different experiences of the effectiveness of instruction once classes went online, one of the most telling trends is an almost universal outcome that teachers in private and wealthy schools are more likely to report effective remote learning, access, and engagement.

20 10 0 <20%

>80%

100%

Average

McKinsey teacher sentiment survey: 28 October-17 November 2020

In a score out of 10, of the teachers surveyed, those who taught in public schools gave remote learning an average global score of 4.8, which compares to a 6.2 average rating by those who teach in private schools, where it is assumed there is better access to learning tools.

This disadvantage trend is analysed further in assessing the scale of poverty within public schools. Teachers working in high-poverty schools flagged an ineffectiveness of virtual classrooms, rating it just 3.5 out of 10, a finding which feeds into concerns that the pandemic has exacerbated educational

inequalities. Teachers in wealthy and private schools reported a much higher rate of students logging in and completing assignments, linked to higher levels of reporting that their students were more likely to report that their students were well equipped with internet access and devices for remote learning.

The report adds: “The full impact of this unprecedented global shift to remote learning will likely play out for years to come. For students who have lacked access to the tools and teachers they need to succeed academically, the results could be devastating.”

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children and young people report

Keeping children and young people safe online In February 2021 the Department of Health, on behalf of the Executive, published a much-delayed Online Safety Strategy and Action Plan for Northern Ireland.

The creation of such policy has been on the cards since 2015 when the then Executive commissioned the Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland (SBNI) to develop a strategy and action plan in recognition of the nature and scale of the challenge and associated risks. However, development has been extensively delayed on a number of occasions.

Entitled Keeping Children and Young People Safe: An Online Safety Strategy for Northern Ireland 2020-2025, the strategy aims to be an enabler rather than limiter of children and young people’s access to the online world, empowering them to access the educational, social and economic benefits of the online world, “safely, knowledgeably and without fear”.

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experiences, while ensuring they can access age-appropriate support services, including recovery services, should the need arise; and

The objectives of the Online Safety Strategy are to support the crossgovernment action plan by: •

•

reflecting emerging evidence of good practice in online safety approaches; engaging with existing online safety mechanisms in the UK and beyond, seeking to add value to existing work rather than duplicate;

•

educating and empowering children and young people, and those responsible for their care, to facilitate their informed use of digital technology;

•

educating children and young people on how to manage and respond to harmful online

•

facilitating the meaningful participation of children and young people, parents, and carers, and those who support them, in relevant policy and service development.

Estimates suggest that Northern Ireland aligns with Office of National Statistics (ONS) statistics showing that 100 per cent of households with children across England, Scotland and Wales had internet access in 2018. OFCOM reported in 2019 that 83 per cent of 12- to 15-year-olds own a smartphone and 99 per cent spend 20.5 hours online per week.

The Strategy recognises that with increased use of online also comes increased concern and an evidence base of increasing levels of incidents including the likes of cyberbullying, grooming and exploitation.

OFCOM estimates that 69 per cent of 12- to 15-year-olds have a social media profile, as do 18 per cent of 8- to 11year-olds, despite the minimum age being set at 12.

The UK Safer Internet Centre classifies risks in the categories of: content, contact, conduct and commercialism.

The Strategy drills further into factors identified as having a potential impact on the types and level of risks faced by children and young people online and these range from gender, through to experience of care and political opinion.

Importantly the Strategy recognises the importance of not just equipping children and young people with knowledge in relation to avoiding online harm but also their parents and carers, those who support them and those who provide services for them.

In 2018 Barnardo’s reported that parent use of digital devices at home may negatively impact their parenting. The report highlighted that parents with a child aged up to three in their house and who had high use of digital devices were less likely to feel like a good role model; more likely to have no rules in place to limit their child’s use of digital technology; and more likely to allow their child to access content alone for longer periods of time.

Three key commitments outlined in the Strategy are: 1. Create a sustainable online safety infrastructure for Northern Ireland.

2. Educate children and young people, their parents and carers and those who work with them 3. Develop evidence-informed quality standards for online safety provision.

A three-year action plan has been developed to support the Strategy. In

Engagement of the Child Protection Senior Official’s Group to oversee online safety – year 1 Development of a core set of online safety messages for children and young people, parents, and carers, in conjunction with key stakeholders – year 1 Review of current reporting pathways and referral mechanisms to support services when issues arise, and development of an agreed reporting pathway to enable children and young people to access support if needed – year 1

children and young people report

There is no legal or universally recognised definition of ‘online safety’, but the Strategy offers the definition of online safety relating to all engagement in the online world. “It means supporting and empowering children and young people to engage in online activities in an educated, safe, responsible and respectful way,” the document states.

Key commitments to action

Review current curricular content on online safety – Promote and embed consistent messaging regarding online safety in the curriculum – year 2 Online safety training needs analysis for practitioners working with children, young people and those who care for them – year 1 Review of current inclusion of online safety content within third level education courses where students will eventually work with children, young people or parents/carers – year 3 Develop metrics to determine how we measure if children are being kept safe online. – year 1

relation to infrastructure, the action plan’s commitments for year one include the development of a central repository for online safety information and facilitation of signposting and strengthening links between Northern Ireland and wider UK and global online safety structures. Year two ambitions are for enhanced education for schools on technical provision and year three will see the identification of new actions for a further year four and five of the plan.

On educating children and young people, their parents, and carers and those who provide services, the plan aims to embed a culture of online safety within schools, colleges and children and youth services and organisations.

Additionally, it will seek to skill up practitioners who work with children, young people, and families.

On developing evidence-informed quality standards for online safety provision, the plan proposes to facilitate better understanding of the scale of the problem through research and data collection. Also, it has specific actions for strengthening self-assessment processes for online safety, including the promotion of the use of good practice audit tools across Northern Ireland.

Beyond the three years of the plan, the policy envisages the potential introduction of an accreditation scheme for online safety training delivery organisations.

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children and young people report

Schooling neglect With some schools choosing to temporarily move away from academic selection in response to the pandemic, an opportunity exists to abolish the practice entirely, writes the ICTU’s John O’Farrell.

Every five years or so, this column gets on its high horse about academic selection. What has prompted this return to the subject is the image of teenagers from Protestant working areas being scooped for attacking police and torching a double-decker bus, and the imminent release of a report by an ‘expert panel to examine the links between educational underachievement and social disadvantage’.

The panel was established under New Decade, New Approach and is approximately the sixth such panel established since the Belfast Agreement. Speaking in the Assembly, the Education Minister Peter Weir said: “I have been involved in the issue of educational underachievement, in particular for Protestant boys in receipt of free schools’ meals, since 2012. I have been passionate about addressing this persistent problem ever since.”

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Back in 2012, the then Education Minister John O’Dowd was challenged

by DUP MLA Paul Frew on “how he plans to increase the number of working-class Protestants who can go on to participate in higher education”.

After reciting the familiar grim statistics about the declining chances of reaching third level for (1) Protestant (2) boys on (3) free school meals at (4) nongrammar schools, then explaining what new departmental initiatives are underway, the Sinn Féin Minister raised the stakes:

Centre of Education at Ulster University found “little evidence that social mobility is increased by academic selection” and that “the current arrangements for school transfer at age 11 contribute to the social and financial costs of a stressful process that serves to benefit a few (generally already privileged with access to tutoring) pupils, while damaging the life-chances of a large proportion of the school population”.

“There is also an important role to be played by unionist political leaders in raising educational awareness and aspiration in socially deprived communities. Continued academic selection in the interests of selective schools does not benefit the education or the needs of Protestant pupils from deprived backgrounds.”

The paper adds to O’Dowd’s direct critique of politicians unwilling to change the system: “It is hard to escape the observation that many of the political class responsible for making decisions on the future of selection, will themselves be the products of the same grammar school system that they seek to defend, and their children in all likelihood also attend such schools.”

Peter Weir went to Bangor Grammar.

A more recent report from the UNESCO

While it is unfair to criticise children for

Bob used to argue that anyone could follow his path, and that the 11+ was a ladder and not a barrier. Where Bob’s argument falls down is the brilliance of Bob himself, as anyone who came into his orbit will attest. The fierce drive of his self-belief earned his fortune, but the same confidence that his was the smartest voice in the room delivered him of his reputation as ‘not a teamplayer’, to put it mildly.

Bob’s nemesis on this matter was another Shankill boy, the late David Ervine, who long despaired of the products of schools along that road. In 2011, in dedication to him from his protégé Dawn Purvis, she led a comprehensive demolition of the theory and practice of grammar schools as any panacea for working class Protestants.

Among the conclusions of A Call to Action was this warning: “High post-16 educational drop-out rates are internationally linked to lowwaged economies, where insecure, highly-changeable, unregulated employment predominates. Large swathes of the UK and Northern Ireland economies have been run on a lowskilled equilibrium. The motivation of young people within the education system is inextricably linked with the degree to which the economy can provide work opportunities with attractive remuneration and career prospects in stable companies in wellregulated trades and industries. The dearth of productive opportunities makes the public sector, by default, the career of choice for too many of our most talented people.”

Since then, we have had a decade of austerity and ‘rebalancing’ the economy away from that sanctuary of decent jobs in the public sector. Decent jobs are around in fintech and other

children and young people report

their parents’ choices for their schooling, there ought to be an expectation of some reflection when adults with power confuse their lives with others who were less fortunate.

Twenty years ago, when this debate got properly underway, the grammars’ champion was that formidable barrister Robert McCartney QC MP, whose path to greatness took him from the Shankill to Cultra, via Grosvenor Grammar School.

“If we use this viral crisis to persuade those schools which abandoned selection this year to make that permanent, then we are saying that more of us are in it together, and that does not require the wisdom of another ‘expert panel’, but the will to do the decent thing. Abolish academic selection, for good.” graduate-level services and low-paid jobs are plentiful in retail, services, and hospitality, but all are scarred by insecurity. There seems little in the middle. And then we had the pandemic.

There are places in Northern Ireland that need ladders. We have the data and the indexes of multiple deprivation.

We know the blackspots like Strabane and the Creggan. We know the ‘problem estates’ around Carrickfergus and Ballymena and west Belfast. We know that we can’t fix every one of these at once, but we can do things which make things better, and that itself ‘sends a message’.

If we use this viral crisis to persuade those schools which abandoned selection this year to make that permanent, then we are saying that more of us are in it together, and that does not require the wisdom of another ‘expert panel’, but the will to do the decent thing. Abolish academic selection, for good.

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tourism report

Tourism’s recovery and growth

John McGrillen, Tourism NI Chief Executive.

Tourism NI Chief Executive John McGrillen looks at the impact of the Covid-19

successful roll out of the vaccine programme, could see the industry bounce back quickly.

pandemic on the tourism sector and discusses the sector’s future prospects post-pandemic.

Tourism NI has invested approximately £25 million on delivering supports to the industry, in addition to the supports offered by the Executive. The Chief Executive outlines that the organisation has had to be agile in its response.

McGrillen admits that the pandemic has dealt a huge blow to an industry, which was riding high after a record breaking 2019 where revenue surpassed £1 billion for the first time and the hosting of the Open elevated Northern Ireland’s status as an attractive destination.

Forecasts suggest that income for the industry in 2020 may have fallen by as 82

much as 48 per cent and it may take to the end of 2022 to reach 80 per cent of 2019 levels, with a fuller recovery not expected before 2024.

“The road back is challenging but we are confident we can negotiate it successfully,” says the Chief Executive, who believes that putting in place the right support mechanisms, alongside the

McGrillen highlights that a lot of Tourism NI’s work in the past year has been directed at supporting the industry “to stay afloat”, as well as preparation for safe and successful reopening.

“We have been on a similar learning curve to many others, discovering how to make partnerships work in an online environment and finding new and innovative ways of doing business and connecting with our industry,” he says.

Research globally shows that there is significant pent-up demand to travel.

Combined with accumulated savings many households have as a result of the lockdown, the research also shows that when people are able to travel, they will be willing to spend more and stay longer.

“Any such move up market would suit Northern Ireland as we are not a low-cost destination,” explains McGrillen, who adds: “As we continue to navigate the impact of the pandemic, we want to send a clear message that our local industry is working very hard to give our visitors a warm and safe welcome back.”

“While it is disappointing that we may be unable to welcome large numbers of international visitors in the short-term, our local industry has a strong opportunity to capitalise on our domestic markets who will be holidaying at home for a while,” states McGrillen.

“In total, 76 per cent of tourism spend in Northern Ireland comes from the UK and Ireland, so we are in a strong position to appeal to our closer to home markets.”

In recognition of this opportunity, Tourism NI recently launched a heavyweight advertising campaign across Northern Ireland. Small Step to a Giant Adventure will encourage staycations and be accompanied by the We’re Good to Go promotion, an industry mark designed to reassure visitors of business compliance to safety recommendations.

Additionally, McGrillen announces that in the autumn, Tourism NI will launch a Holiday at Home voucher scheme offering Northern Ireland households discounts on staycations which will help drive demand after the summer season.

Recovery Tourism is a key element of the Economy Minister’s Economic Recovery Action Plan and features strongly in the Department’s recently announced ‘10X Economy’, an economic vision for a decade of innovation in Northern Ireland.

On the placement of tourism as central to recovery plans, McGrillen says: “This reflects the fact that the tourism sector, along with hospitality, was worst hit by the pandemic. The plan is essentially about job creation; getting those who have lost their jobs back into employment.

“It’s going to be an incredibly competitive marketplace over the next two years because every nation will be trying to

tourism report

With restrictions yet to be fully lifted for international visitors, the Republic of Ireland (RoI) market has became crucial for the sector. In August 2020, when restrictions lifted for a time, there was significant increase in the number of visitors from RoI. Research showed that 75 per cent of these visitors had not been to Northern Ireland before and their experience was better than they had expected.

The Gobbins cliff path in Islandmagee, County Antrim.

rebuild its tourism industry, the Chief Executive outlines, explaining that much of the promotional work has had to be done virtually, which has raised both challenges and opportunities.

“By not bringing people to Northern Ireland, they are not experiencing the warmth of our welcome which is a key part of our offering. However, using digital platforms has allowed us to reach a much wider audience.”

An example of this was the Northern Ireland showcase Tourism NI held online with Tourism Ireland for the US market.

The virtual event was attended by 1,400 agents and tour operators.

“If we had have done that in a hotel in New York we would only have had a fraction of that audience,” he admits, believing that future such events will take a hybrid approach, enabling some attendees to attend online.

Future outlook McGrillen believes the tourism industry has been incredibly resilient in the face of the global pandemic. “When I talk to operators they are very focused on the future and have a confidence in the quality of their offering. They will bounce back,” he states.

To support the recovery, Tourism NI has looked at what needs to be done over the next 12 to 24 months to transition from survival mode through to growth.

Minister Dodds set up a Tourism Recovery Steering Group and a Working Group to bring together the industry to feed into a recovery plan for the sector.

The UK-wide We’re Good to Go scheme has had a strong take-up in Northern Ireland, with 1,700 businesses participating. Tourism NI has also had marketing plans drawn up since late 2020 and has had adverts made and digital assets in place. It has also built a huge amount of content on a new industry-facing website to support the industry.

Additionally, there has been a lot of research carried out to determine who will visit Northern Ireland, and when, during the recovery phase. Tourism NI has shared this data with the industry and has directly supported operators with their marketing and advertising campaigns, in addition to its capital programme to improve the quality of visitor attractions.

Looking to the longer-term, Tourism NI will be going out to consult on a new 10year strategy to rebuild and grow the sector over the next decade.

“The new strategy will look at how the sector responds to climate change, the green growth agenda and how it can be more connected to local communities to contribute not just economically but also environmentally and socially,” McGrillen concludes.

Tourism NI T: 028 9023 1221 E: info@tourismni.com W: www.tourismni.com

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tourism report

A ‘sustainable regenerative’ tourism strategy The Department for the Economy has outlined plans to develop a “sustainable regenerative” Tourism Strategy for Northern Ireland as part of its wider plan for economic recovery.

In May 2021, Economy Minister Diane

can rank high in relation to global

Dodds set out a vision for the Northern

competitiveness and areas of identified

Ireland economy over the next decade.

growth potential.

Designated as Northern Ireland’s decade of innovation, the forwardlooking plan places tourism as a central plank of the transformation agenda.

Northern Ireland’s “thriving tourism offering” is one of these unique factors, recognising the pre-pandemic attraction of three million people annually, the

The Minister has detailed plans to focus

policy outlines: “The vision is

on Northern Ireland’s “uniqueness”,

dependent on unlocking the potential

those areas in which Northern Ireland

demonstrated in our unique

attractiveness throughout this decade, and therefore our tourism sector will be at the forefront of marketing our reputation and attractiveness to the world.”

The vision document is, in part, an iteration of the Minister’s Economic Recovery Plan published in February in 2021, which outlined plans to develop a new Tourism Strategy for Northern Ireland.

Tourism in Northern Ireland has undergone an onerous journey since March 2020, but hopes of recovery are building as wide-ranging restrictions are eased both on the island of Ireland and further afield. In April, the Minister declared Northern Ireland ready for the return of tourists “when the time is right”.

Pre-pandemic, tourism in Northern Ireland has witnessed significant growth. Having breached the £1 billion mark for the first time in 2019, the industry was in line for a recordbreaking 2020 before the pandemic paralysed the sector.

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tourism report

Released eight months after the pandemic began on the island of Ireland, NISRA figures showed that in 2019 tourism revenue had risen some 8 per cent year-on-year. A large part of this rise had been the ability to attract visitors north of the border in Ireland, with statistics showing a 28 per cent increase in overnight trips from the Republic of Ireland and a 31 per cent increase in spend from those visitors.

For context, the figures show that spend from the Republic had doubled in just three years.

That Northern Ireland had become an increasingly attractive destination for the southern market will likely have benefits as the industry seeks to emerge from the pandemic, with pent up travel demand mixed with expected pandemic-driven high levels of foreign travel hesitancy making Northern Ireland a more viable option.

Pre-pandemic, the tourism and hospitality sector in Northern Ireland employed some 65,000 people in 2019.

While a number of supports were deployed to assist the industry throughout the pandemic, the recognised acute vulnerability of businesses and jobs within the sector had raised concerns about their sustainability post-pandemic. That concern largely lay behind the establishment of the Tourism Recovery Steering Group set up by the Minister in April 2020.

Within its Economic Recovery Plan, the Department pointed to a number of initiatives it was already undertaking in relation to the tourism sector including the of delivery of a Covid digital innovation and productivity programme to enhance digital capability and marketing air and sea connectivity to Northern Ireland for 2021/22 through Tourism Ireland.

Other ongoing initiatives included the delivering support to the Market Access Programme to stimulate and sustain tourism marketing activity and the delivery of a Website Development Programme for tourism businesses to receive capital grants for the upgrading of their websites to make them bookable online.

However, it is the future ambitions of the strategy that are likely to be most impactful on the industry’s responsiveness post-pandemic.

Alongside the development of a Tourism Strategy for Northern Ireland, the Department aims to deliver an Experience Development Programme to provide grant funding for tourism

I

ourism N

Credit: T

experience providers to help develop their businesses.

In May, the Economy Minister launched a Holiday at Home campaign ahead of the hospitality sector’s reopening on 24 May. It is expected that in autumn, the Department will open a voucher scheme to drive demand after the summer season.

The role of Tourism Ireland in marketing the island of Ireland as a holiday destination is to be utilised in the form of an international marketing programme, when appropriate, and a Great Britain specific campaign to attract visitors to Northern Ireland.

Central to all this, the Department’s plan indicates a desire to accelerate the development of the Tourism Data Hub to support the industry with real-time data to inform decision-making.

While the full effect of the pandemic on Northern Ireland’s tourism industry

continues to play out, some indications have been sought as to the extent of the damage so far. The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) recently published data gathered from a range of sources in order to offer some indicators to tourism performance in 2020.

The statistics indicate that in the region of 25,000 people working in accommodation and food services in Northern Ireland remained furloughed in January 2021. Highlighting the acute impact on the tourism sector, the statistics show that roughly 24 per cent of all staff in Northern Ireland were furloughed in April 2020, compared to 72 per cent for tourism related industries.

With tourism set to be a central plank of Northern Ireland’s economic recovery, the delivery of an ambitious tourism strategy will be critical to overall economic ambitions.

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Proposal: By-elections under STV candidates have an incentive to maintain their vote, while trying to win over people who had voted for the politician who has died or resigned, or people who did not vote or transfer to any politician who succeeded in getting elected previously.

The ideas of the method are different quotas (the proportion of the overall vote needed to get elected) for each candidate, depending on how many seats their party already holds in the area; penalties, to tackle doublespending of votes; eliminating candidates based on their percentage progress towards their own quota; and not allowing some of a party’s votes to be transferred if it already has seats in the area.

The Alliance Party’s Scott Moore outlines his proposal for a ‘fairer’ by-election system in Northern Ireland.

In Northern Ireland’s assembly and councils, when a politician dies or resigns, their party appoints a replacement. This is called co-option. It contrasts with the UK Parliament, which uses by-elections in an MP’s constituency when they die or resign.

This has meant up to one-fifth of MLAs can end up being appointed by parties, and not being directly elected by voters.

A fifth of MLAs is enough to swing many Assembly votes. Some resignations were due to illness, but others seemed to be because the MLA no longer wanted to serve, perhaps for career-related reasons.

Many co-options mightn’t have happened if parties faced a by-election, and a resignation meant a risk of losing the seat. By-elections are held in the Republic of Ireland to fill vacancies in Dáil Éireann. But because the Republic of Ireland uses STV, by-elections favour the largest party in the constituency, and can change the political balance of a constituency mid-term. As the Assembly and councils also use STV, this was why it was decided by-elections should not be held for these bodies.

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This proposal is a version of STV which would allow for fair by-elections to be held for the Northern Ireland Assembly, its councils, and any body which uses STV. Its core principle is that the makeup of seats post-election should reflect the results of the by-election.

For example, in an ordinary STV byelection, if PBP MLA Gerry Carroll resigned his West Belfast seat, the quota in the resulting by-election would be 50 per cent. Sinn Féin would win, while Carroll’s replacement would languish behind, even if all parties got the same vote as previously. The makeup of the constituency would be five Sinn Féin MLAs, yet in an ordinary election, Sinn Féin only have enough votes for four.

Key here is preventing ‘double-spending’ of votes. That is, if an elector’s vote contributes to the election of a candidate in the ordinary election, the value of that vote shouldn’t also count towards electing a candidate in a by-election. But if a voter’s preferred candidate dies or resigns, the value of their vote should count in the resulting by-election. Thus, we need a by-election method where

The penalties stop double-spending of votes, by stopping certain votes from being counted if it is estimated that those votes contributed to a candidate being elected the last time round, unless that candidate has since died or resigned. These estimations are made in such a way that it will be minimally different to the actual double-spending that has happened. However, unless we abolish the secret ballot, we can’t guarantee a perfectly fair by-election under STV. Despite this, I believe this system allows for the closest possible approximation to fair by-elections, is much fairer than simply holding an ordinary by-election under STV, and if implemented, parties will have an incentive to use the system fairly and as intended.

The procedure Under the proposed method, the ballots themselves would look the same as ordinary STV ballots , voters would rank the candidates 1, 2, 3 etc in order of preference. Once the votes are counted, the process would be as follows.

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For each party, a floor will be calculated. This reflects how many votes they need to justify holding their current seats. It is equal to the size of a quota in an ordinary election in that area, multiplied by the number of seats they won at the

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previous ordinary election and any by-elections, plus one vote. Floors are also found for parties which won seats in those previous elections, but which didn’t stand this time. Throughout the process, they are treated as if they had stood in the election, but won 0 votes.

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For parties below their floor, the difference between their floor and their actual vote is found. This is the ‘floor deficit’. However, the floor deficit has a maximum value of the difference between the floor at the current election, and the party’s proportion of the vote at the last election (if it would have been below the floor proportionally).

However, if the party’s previous proportion of the vote would have been above their current floor proportionally, their floor deficit will be taken as 0. ‘Floor surpluses’ will also be found for each party with a vote above their floor.

The sum of all parties’ floor deficits will be found, and a ‘floor penalty’ will be applied to each party whose vote is above their floor. The floor penalty for each party will be a fraction of the value of the sum of the floor deficits, in proportion to how much] of the party’s vote is above their floor, as a proportion of all votes above parties’ floors. For parties standing more than one candidate (joint candidates), their party’s floor penalty will be distributed between them. A floor will be calculated for each such candidate, with each having an equal share of their party’s floor, and a floor surplus will be calculated for each. A share of the party’s floor penalty will be distributed to each candidate in proportion to each of their floor surpluses.

It this point, a decrease deficit would be found for each party that has fallen below their floor, and also below their previous proportion of the vote (where this previous proportion is lower than their current floor). This will be equal to the difference between their current and previous proportion of the vote (or the floor, if this is lower), with this proportion

expressed in terms of number of votes in the current election.

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The parties that are both above their floor and saw an increase in their proportion of their vote compared to the last election will be identified. Their increase value would be equal to the difference between their current and previous proportion of the vote, with this proportion expressed in terms of number of votes in the current election.

At this point, an increase penalty will be applied to each party that has an increase value. The increase penalty for each party will be a share of the value of the sum of decrease deficits, with each party’s share of that penalty being in proportion to their share of the sum of the increase values.

Where two or more candidates are standing for the same party, the party’s increase penalty will be distributed among these candidates. A notional previous vote for each candidate will be calculated, which will be an equal share of their party’s previous vote, and their individual increase values will be the difference between their current vote and their notional previous vote. The party’s increase penalty will be distributed to each candidate in proportion to their individual increase.

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Quotas are calculated, determining how many votes each candidate needs to get elected. The quota would be updated at each stage of the election count if any party is standing more than one candidate.

A candidate’s quota would reflect the number of ordinary election quotas they’d need to justify winning an additional seat (given the number of seats, if any, their party has won in the area in previous elections), if any joint candidates in their party are ahead of them in votes at that election, and if any joint candidates in their party have been elected so far at that election.

Any candidate that has met the quota will be deemed elected. If all seats have been filled, the election

is over at this point. If not, all second preferences are counted, and the value of the surplus is split between the remaining candidates in proportion to the number of second preferences cast for each, as normal.

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However, if no candidate is elected, the candidate with the least votes in proportion to their quota will be eliminated, while other candidates with a low number of votes eliminated if they could not overtake the next candidate above them in terms of votes as a proportion of quota, even if they received all preferences possible at that point.

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Once a candidate is eliminated, the value of the candidate’s individual floor will be subtracted from the value of their votes, and the remaining value will be redistributed to other candidates in proportion to the number of immediately subsequent preferences cast across all of the eliminated candidate’s votes. The process will continue until all seats have been filled.

The system in the real world From 2000-2018, I estimate five of the 13 by-elections would’ve produced different results under my method.

For the period 2000-2010, one-third of contested by-elections (for which full data is available) would have resulted in seats changing hands under the proposed method, compared to onequarter under ordinary STV. However, there have not been many by-elections since 2000, so this is a low sample size – but only because many by-elections which would have happened were avoided by agreement by councils.

For comparison, there have been 64 byelections for the UK Parliament since 2000, 15 of which (23.4 per cent) have resulted in seats changing hands.

Scott Moore is a former council election candidate for the Alliance Party from Strabane and a student of international politics and conflict studies at QUB.

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A CONTESTED CENTENARY

A contested centenary Chair of the Northern Ireland Office’s Historical Advisory Panel, Paul Bew, outlines the composition and work of the panel, which he hopes will enable access to new and challenging theories and opinions on Northern Ireland’s past.

When I was asked by the Secretary of State to chair the historical advisory committee to be set up in the context of the commemoration of Northern Ireland’s first 100 years, I had mixed emotions. On the one hand, I had, in 2015, co-chaired with pleasure the UK parliament’s advisory committee for the commemoration of Magna Carta. This was obviously a great event in British history. But there was vigorous debate as to its meaning and, indeed, the deeper meanings of the 800 years of British history since then. What do we mean when we talk about the rule of law?

Many declared their determination to resist an uncritical and romantic version of British history: one which emphasised liberty as opposed to oppression. I had three co-chairmen from the Commons, first the brilliant historian and Labour MP Tristam Hunt. Tristam had to resign when he was promoted to the Shadow Cabinet. Then there was the very able Tory MP Sir Peter Luff and finally, after Sir Peter’s retirement from the House of Commons, there was Kwasi Kwateng, now the Business Secretary.

Paul Bew, Chair of the Northern Ireland Office’s Historical Advisory Panel

All of them prioritised giving a platform to the widest possible debate and the widest possible range of historical meanings.

Not everyone loved our work. Westminster Hall was for several months employed to display artwork celebrating various popular struggles and key moments of democratic reform. Some complained it had been transformed into an agitprop chamber. I don’t think anyone felt, however, that we had sponsored a sentimental or chauvinist view of the British past. I knew, therefore, it is both possible and essential to do this type of work. It is important to respect our history — otherwise the price is a loss of self-knowledge. But it is also important not to be afraid of illuminating its controversial aspects.

But I knew Northern Ireland as well. I knew the passions connected with the issue of partition. No matter how much we wanted to be historically objective — would anyone accept our committee’s good faith?

I was very lucky in that I was able to win the support of both of some long-established scholars and also a number of young historians who brought with them a wide range of differing perspectives. They were united only by the excellence and professionalism of their published work. Marie Coleman of Queen’s University Belfast and Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid of Sheffield University were already well known to me because of their important books on twentieth century Irish history.

Niamh Gallagher, now a don at St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, was the author of a prize-winning book on Ireland and the First World War. Brian Barton, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, had published much important work on twentieth century Ireland but more recently was most celebrated for his book on the blitz in Belfast. Henry Patterson had written many important works, including The Politics of Illusion, his analysis of modern republicanism, but was most important to us for

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the original and pathbreaking in 1980 on the sectarian conflict which accompanied the establishment of Northern Ireland, establishing the mass expulsion of Catholic workers from the shipyards in 1920. Professor Graham Walker’s books display an unequalled understanding of the historic devolution experiment in Northern Ireland. Like myself, Margaret O’Callaghan began her doctoral work in Cambridge on the Irish agrarian problems of the 1880s. But, also like myself, she has moved to the twentieth century for many of her subsequent publications. She has particularly scholarly interests in commemoration and the Boundary Commission.

On the eve of the century of Northern Ireland on 4 May 2021, we published our manifesto in the Belfast News Letter, Irish News and Irish Times:

“The centenary of Northern Ireland is contested. In December 1920 when the Government of Ireland Act partitioned the island of Ireland into two separate entities, few could have imagined that partition would continue to shape northern political identities into the twenty-first century. Whether one marks, acknowledges, remembers, celebrates or boycotts the centenary, Northern Ireland has had a turbulent history from which no single narrative can be drawn.

The purpose of the Historical Advisory Panel is to consider the history of Northern Ireland in all its complexity. It has been appointed by the British Government as part of the Northern Ireland centenary project to deal with the ‘historic elements’ surrounding its creation. The panelists are drawn from diverse backgrounds and their recommendations are strictly independent from governmental influence. At an individual level they have divergent views on explaining aspects of Northern Ireland’s history, but they all agree that the Panel’s responsibility is to encourage an inclusive, holistic, and ‘messy’ history of Northern Ireland in order to aid understanding of the lived experiences of a wide variety of groups and individuals who lived through the tumultuous events of 100 years ago.

The Panel will engage with both familiar and less familiar events pertinent to the early years of the region’s history.

From the foundation of labour and rise of trade unionism to the campaign for suffrage — particularly the enfranchisement of women —– several forms of politics exercised its inhabitants in the decades before and after 1921, many of which complemented divides over the constitutional question but also created allegiances on other bases.

Questions regarding society, the economy and culture are also part of the holistic way in which the Panel is exploring the centenary, which is being considered in wider contexts and longer chronologies both within the island of Ireland and UK but also within other important frameworks including the former British Empire and European Union.”

The committee has thrown itself into a mass of activities, engaging with local councils, schools and academics. There have been numerous public lectures, delivered online due to Covid, numerous engagements in public conversations, notably at Belfast City Hall and, involving the entire committee of the Ulster Museum. We have been on everything from the Aspen Institute to the History Ireland Hedge school webinar, with a slew of BBC interventions in between. We have projects for an exhibition later in the year and, possibly, public health requirements permitting, more public gatherings. We very much hope to leave as the legacy, thanks to our engagements with the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland – a fuller archival record of Northern Ireland.

In this respect, we want to illuminate economic realities as well as political debate. Above all, when we have finished our work, we hope that anyone who is curious about the Northern Irish past will have access to new and challenging theories and opinions.

In my own personal blog on the creative centenaries website I have tried to explore sympathetically the qualities, often unexpected, and defects of Ulster’s two great political leaders in 1921: James Craig and Joe Devlin. Stormont’s iconography has a key place for James Craig who took great personal risks for peace in 1921/1922. It should now include a place for Joe Devlin, always a man of peace and great friend of the working people of the city. This would be in the spirit of the new Northern Ireland which has been the reality since the Agreement of 1998.

Paul Bew is a historian and Emeritus Professor at Queen’s University Belfast. He is a cross-bench life peer and Chairman of the House of Lords Appointments Commission.

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A CONTESTED CENTENARY

The failure of partition When Ireland was divided in 1921, few people thought that partition would last 100 years. Not that there is much reason to celebrate, writes Kieran Allen, senior lecturer in sociology at University College Dublin, and author of 32 Counties:The Failure of Partition and the Case for a United Ireland.

Consider only the strangeness of Irish politics. Where else in Western Europe would the first move to depose a political leader arise because she abstained on a vote on conversion therapy?

Where else would a primary school system be 94 per cent owned by the Catholic Church, there being no public education at this level in the South? In neither part of Ireland did a substantial labour or social democratic party emerge. There was simply no left-right divide.

Why? The conventional answer is that there are two cultures or two identities on the island. A Protestant British one versus a Catholic Irish one.

But let’s deconstruct. The South can hardly be labelled a Papist, priest-ridden state when it was the first country in the world to vote for marriage equality by popular suffrage. If it is defined by its Catholic identity, why did it vote by 66 per cent to legalise abortion? And if a Protestant identity in the North is so strong, why do only 43 per cent attend church regularly?

Religious identity was supposed to be the foundation stone for partition, but it makes little sense today. Instead, there is talk about a fundamental difference between ‘Britishness’ and ‘Irishness’.

Yet these concepts are extremely vague. The ‘Britishness’ of a member of the Orange Order differs fundamentally from a multi-cultural Londoner. As one not unsympathetic writer on unionism put it, the allegiance of the former is ‘to a form of national imperial Britishness whose origins remain associated with a bygone empire nostalgia’.

We should, therefore, be more precise. The dominant strain of unionism is not just based on a ‘cultural’ disposition rooted in deep psychic identity. We are really talking about right wing political views.

Far from partition being the ‘logical outcome’ of two cultures, it locked the population of Ireland into spurious identities that sustained conservative regimes. The northern and southern states were mirror images of each other. The supposed threats that one posed to the other were used to discipline their respective populations.

The origins of partition can be traced to an alliance that the Tory party forged with a Unionist movement to undermine British democracy. In 1911, the Liberal Party introduced a Parliament Act which removed the veto of the House of Lords. This infuriated the Tory backwoods and they focused on opposing Home Rule as a war cry to unite their divided party. Home Rule, it should be added, was an extremely mild measure for devolution within the empire.

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Their principal ally was Edward Carson, a spokesperson for aristocracy and a conservative politician. Known as ‘Coercion Carson’ for prosecuting tenants, he was a vigorous opponent of trade unionism, denouncing the 1906 Trade Union Disputes Act which allowed workers to strike without incurring massive penalties. Famously he helped jail Oscar Wilde for his homosexuality.

When the Tory leader Bonar Law reviewed the mass ranks of the Ulster Volunteers in Balmoral in 1912, he told them explicitly that “you hold the pass for the Empire”. In words not heard since the English Civil War, he denounced his government as “a revolutionary committee which has seized power by fraud upon despotic power. In our opposition to them, we shall not be guided by considerations which would influence us in ordinary political struggle. We shall use any means to deprive them of the power they usurped”.

Given this disdain for democracy, it is no surprise that a Tory dominated cabinet later rejected the results of an all-island election in 1918 which gave an overwhelming majority for those who wanted a united independent Ireland. This same attitude of contempt will again be shown when Boris Johnson will not allow the Scots to hold a referendum on independence.

32 Counties: The Failure of Partition and the Case for a United Ireland

If partition arose from a right wing, pro-imperial outlook, its effect was to fossilise identities. In most other situations, identities are fluid, hybrid and subject to change. Today, for example the past, division between Catholics and Protestants in Glasgow finds its legacy in a rivalry between Celtic and Rangers, but both can unite in opposition to a poll tax or in wider political outlooks.

The Northern state, however, has organised its politics around a supposed clash and rewards those who are the hardest champion of ‘their side’. While the Belfast Agreement was welcomed because it brought peace, it only updates and modernises the management of this sectarian division.

“Far from partition being the ‘logical outcome’ of two cultures, it locked the population of Ireland into spurious identities that sustained conservative regimes. The North and southern state were mirror images of each other. The supposed threats that one posed to the other were used to discipline their respective populations.”

Ironically, behind the communal disagreements between the DUP and Sinn Féin lays a shared economic agenda, namely running down the public sector and providing generous grants to multinationals to benefit from low wages. The figures show that the median wage for both Catholic and Protestant workers was a mere £10.58 an hour in 2017. The scandalous offer of a 1 per cent pay rise for nurses from the Stormont Executive sums it up.

The winds of change are blowing across Ireland.Yet the ending of partition will not come through a stitching together of two dysfunctional states. Shifting sovereignty from London to Dublin but continuing a ‘consociational regime’ in Stormont is a recipe for continued sectarian conflict.

Joining the North to a southern tax haven, as advocated by the Hubner report that is frequently quoted by Sinn Féin, will mean a lack of basic public services. In Dublin today, for example, applicants for a council house wait an average of 12 years!

Irish unity can only be realised through radical change that involves a challenge to both Irish states. Instead of seeing the southern state as the agent to begin the ending partition, we need radical social movements from below that forces change. The movement for abortion rights which won a Repeal referendum in the South and then turned its attention to the North, is precisely the model.

We need a different, alternative Ireland that can show real benefits to working people. One that guarantees the right to housing, decent wages, a free health care system, free creche facilities. The prospect of such an Ireland is the only one that can answer the cries of insecurity that comes with the ending of partition.

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A CONTESTED CENTENARY

The creation of Northern Ireland: Home rule for unionists Current debates over the future of the union, which focus on the question of Scottish independence, and what format it might take, display a noticeable ignorance of the history of the last occasion upon which the union was sundered, writes historian Marie Coleman.

The transfer of devolved powers to the newly created Northern Ireland 100 years ago, on 3 May 1921, represents one of the greatest ironies of modern Irish history. Ulster unionists, initially implacable opponents of home rule for Ireland, became the first political grouping on the island to be granted this form of self-government within the United Kingdom.

Ireland, Ulster and the United Kingdom were partitioned under legislation passed at Westminster in December 1920 and officially entitled, unduly optimistically as an ‘Act to Provide for the Better Government of Ireland’. This was the fourth effort by successive British governments to introduce home rule to Ireland. William Gladstone’s first home rule bill was defeated in the House of Commons in 1886 by the first serious manifestation of Irish political unionism, supported by Conservatives and a unionist faction within Gladstone’s own Liberal Party. His second effort passed the first hurdle of the Commons in 1893 to be defeated by what then seemed a permanent and unassailable pro-union majority in the House of Lords.

Former Irish unionist leader Walter Long’s committee recommended a partitionist solution in 1919

It was not until 1912, after the truncation of the Lords’ veto power under the 1910 Parliament Act, enacted in response to the upper house’s attempt to block the socially reforming aspects of David Lloyd George’s 1909 budget, that the question of Irish home rule returned to the political agenda at Westminster. The abolition of the Lords’ permanent veto, and the political arithmetic in the Commons, where HH Asquith’s Liberal government relied on the support of John Redmond’s Irish Parliamentary (i.e. home rule) Party, made the introduction of home rule in Ireland by 1914 a realistic prospect.

A tripartite campaign of parliamentary, populist and paramilitary opposition by Ulster unionists could not prevent the third home rule bill becoming law on 18 September 1914, but did succeed in extracting a promise in principle of excluding Ulster from its provisions. The nature of such exclusion, in terms of territory and duration, were not specified as the outbreak of the First World had necessitated the postponement of the act’s practical application.

Further attempts to introduce home rule in the summer of 1916, to quell popular unrest in nationalist Ireland after the Easter Rising, and a suggestion of sweetening the pill of abortive conscription in 1918 with a simultaneous introduction of home rule, failed, largely due to Irish nationalist distrust of the chief protagonist in both cases, David Lloyd George. When the war ended in 1918 the British Government returned to the prospect of legislating for Irish home rule. Too much had changed in Ireland during the preceding four years to simply resort to a delayed enactment of the 1914 legislation and a committee was formed under the chairmanship of the former Irish unionist leader, Walter Long, to advise the Government on how to proceed.

The report of the Long committee, presented to the Government in November 1919, recommended scrapping the 1914

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home rule act and replacing it with a new one. Unlike the three previous home rule bills, this one recommended a partitionist solution to the entrenched ethno-political cleavage in Ireland. Long envisaged two home rule parliaments for Northern and Southern Ireland, the first with jurisdiction over the entire nine counties of the province of Ulster and the second over the remaining 23.

The partitionist solution to the Irish question reflected the extent to which this option had gained ground since 1914. When the idea was first mooted in 1912 by the Liberal back-bench MP for St Austell in Cornwall, TG Agar-Robartes, it was rejected out of hand by both nationalists and unionists. To nationalists, Ireland was a single and indivisible entity, while unionists sought the preservation of the status quo, with Ireland remaining as integral a part of the United Kingdom which was created in 1801, as were Scotland and Wales.

The unionist U-turn on home rule between 1912 and 1920 was a pragmatic acceptance that circumstances had changed and the status quo could not be maintained. The Easter Rising and War of Independence deepened unionist distrust of and the desire to distance themselves from southern nationalism, while the determination of successive British governments to legislate for home rule convinced unionists that they could no longer trust the national government to be the best guarantor of unionist interests. The best solution was to take control of their own destiny.

“Almost 80 years before the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly a region of the UK established its own parliament, government and bureaucracy, which it ruled largely free of Westminster interference for fifty years.”

This situation was summed up effectively by the Unionist MP for Antrim South, Captain Charles Curtis Craig, whose brother, James, would later serve as Northern Ireland’s first Prime Minister. In the Westminster parliamentary debate on the provisions of the Government of Ireland bill, CC Craig admitted that unionists “would much prefer to remain part and parcel of the United Kingdom … but we have many enemies in this country, and we feel that an Ulster without a Parliament of its own would not be in nearly as strong a position as one in which a Parliament had been set up”. Effectively, Ulster unionists had appropriated the logic of Irish nationalism and applied it to their own situation.

The legislation which evolved from the Long committee’s report differed from the original proposal in one significant way; the suggested 23-nine county partition was replaced with the division between 26 and six counties which endures to the present day. The delineation of Northern Ireland in this way was the most beneficial to ensure Ulster unionist political and electoral dominance. In 1911, the census showed that the population of the entire province of Ulster was 43.7 per cent Catholic, uncomfortably large for unionist security. Even within the six counties, Fermanagh and Tyrone each had Catholic majorities of around 55 per cent. A four-county Northern Ireland, while copper-fastening unionist control, with an even safer Protestant

“The unionist U-turn on home rule between 1912 and 1920 was a pragmatic acceptance that circumstances had changed and the status quo could not be maintained.” majority, might be too small to be viable. The perceived treachery of British politicians made unionists wary of the northern rump remaining fully within the legislative union while southern Ireland went its own way.

As such partition was not just the division of the island but also of the province of Ulster. In adopting a utilitarian approach of achieving the greatest good for the greatest number, Ulster unionists effectively cut adrift substantial unionist populations in the ‘border counties’ of Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, in addition to a smaller cohort of southern unionism in the three southern provinces.

Sinn Féin leader Arthur Griffith said of the third home rule bill “if this is liberty the lexicographers have deceived us”.

Furthermore, the 1920 Act represented the partition of the United Kingdom. Later in 1921 when the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed in December, coming into full effect in December 1922 and establishing the 26-county Irish Free State as a dominion of the commonwealth, the geographical 4

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boundaries and the name of the United Kingdom were altered after 120 years. What would henceforth be the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland lost 25 per cent of its land mass and 7 per cent of its population.

This wider British dimension to partition is not well understood and there appears to be either a failure or unwillingness to recognise the impact of southern Irish independence on the United Kingdom. Current debates over the future of the union, which focus on the question of Scottish independence, and what format it might take, display a noticeable ignorance of the history of the last occasion upon which the union was sundered.

Another British dimension, that receives similarly less attention, is how the 1920 Government of Ireland Act introduced a significant innovation within the British constitutional sphere; the creation of Northern Ireland was the first initiative in devolved government within UK governmental structures. Almost 80 years before the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly a region of the UK established its own parliament, government and bureaucracy, which it ruled largely free of Westminster interference for 50 years.

Northern Ireland’s experience of devolution exhibited the flaws inherent in many previous plans for Irish home rule.

“It seems unlikely that many of those who oversaw the creation of Northern Ireland in 1921 would have expected it to reach its centenary.”

Commenting in 1912 on the legislative limitations of the third home rule bill, the then Sinn Féin leader, Arthur Griffith, declared that “if this is liberty the lexicographers have deceived us”. In marked contrast to the measure of independence which dominion status conferred on the Irish Free State, a significant range of services were reserved to Westminster, including the crown, foreign affairs and foreign trade, the armed forces, postal services, trademarks, lighthouses and coinage.

The limitations of home rule were most obvious in regard to finance. While Northern Ireland had expenditure powers, it did not have commensurate revenue-raising abilities. In practice, this meant that the government did not know how much income it would have to spend. Frequently, throughout the 1920s Sir James Craig’s government relied on subventions from the London Exchequer. The situation was exacerbated by a post-war economic downturn, hastened by decreasing market for Northern Ireland’s heavy industrial product, and consequently the highest unemployment rates in the UK during much of the inter-war period.

In practice, while Northern Ireland legislated separately from Great Britain, many measures were simply adopted as Northern Ireland-specific versions of the original British legislation. This was most notable in regard to the post-Second World War social reforms in areas such as health and education, which allowed Northern Ireland to keep pace with the rest of the United Kingdom and benefit from the most significant social reforms introduced there in the twentieth century. While the socialistic ideology underpinning many welfare state provisions sat uncomfortably with the conservatism of unionism, strengthening the connection with Britain and further distancing Northern Ireland from the Republic were benefits which far out-weighed such concerns.

The largely distant relationship between London and Belfast allowed for sufficient flexibility to respond to local circumstances; for example, conscription was never extended to Northern Ireland during the Second World War due to nationalist and Éire sensitivities. Conversely, the hands-off approach also applied when the unionist government unilaterally altered a key provision of the Government of Ireland Act in 1929 by abolishing proportional representation for parliamentary elections. Arguably the non-intervention of the British government enabled what many nationalists interpreted as the discriminatory excesses of the Stormont government between 1921 and 1972.

It seems unlikely that many of those who oversaw the creation of Northern Ireland in 1921 would have expected it to reach its centenary. The period of greatest threat to its survival was between 1921 and 1925 during which it endured a period of intense communal sectarian violence and the threat from the irridentist Free State that was only quenched when the 1925 boundary commission report finalised the existing 26-six county divide. Commentary during the current centenary has questioned whether the region will survive in its current form to mark another significant chronological milestone. The answer to that question may lie elsewhere as the dynamics of the wider union remain in flux in response to Brexit and the rise of nationalist sentiment within Scotland, England and even Wales. Perhaps to question to ask now is not about the survival of Northern Ireland but of the United Kingdom.

Marie Coleman

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Dr Marie Coleman is a Reader in modern Irish history at Queen’s University Belfast and a member of the historical panel advising the Northern Ireland Office on the centenary of the creation of Northern Ireland.

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A FISCAL COUNCIL AND FISCAL COMMISSION In March, Finance Minister Conor Murphy MLA announced the establishment of a Fiscal Council and Fiscal Commission in Northern Ireland. Council Chair Robert Chote and Commission Chair Paul Johnson discuss the future work of these groups.

Northern Ireland Fiscal Council Over recent decades more than 40 national and regional governments around the world have created permanent fiscal watchdogs to bring greater transparency and independent scrutiny to their public finances. Northern Ireland is now the latest to do so, writes Fiscal Council Chair Robert Chote.

The creation of the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council was mandated by the New Decade, New Approach (NDNA) agreement between London and Dublin last year and formally launched by the Executive in April. I am delighted to have been asked to be its first Chair and to be joined by three distinguished fellow members with a wide range of experience and expertise: the independent economist Maureen O’Reilly, Esmond Birnie of Ulster University, and Alan Barrett of the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin.

Fiscal Councils are tasked with providing non-partisan analysis of the current health and future prospects for governments’ finances and the impact that policy changes may have on them. But there is no one-size-fits-all model for bodies of this type and they vary a good deal from country to country. A Fiscal Council’s remit and structure has to reflect local circumstances and local needs and then adapt to changes in them.

The Fiscal Council will be a sub-national council, like its counterparts in Scotland, Ontario (Canada) and Victoria (Australia), scrutinising the finances of an Executive whose taxraising and spending powers are currently relatively limited. It is not for the council to say whether or how these powers should be increased, the new Fiscal Commission will advise on that, as Paul Johnson describes [page 97]. But if the Executive does secure greater fiscal powers, the council will need to adapt just as the Scottish Fiscal Commission has done.

Our overarching mission is to inform public debate and policy decisions by shedding light on where the Executive gets its money from, where it goes and how these decisions are managed and legislated for. That includes looking at the influences and pressures that will come to bear over time, for example, because of the spending decisions taken by the UK

Government or because of the cost pressures on health, the Executive’s biggest budget item. We are determined to do so independently and without fear or favour.

Based on the NDNA agreement, the terms of reference we have been given require us to report every year on “the Executive’s revenue streams and spending proposals and how these allow the Executive to balance their budget” and on “the sustainability of the Executive’s public finances, including the implications of spending policy and the effectiveness of longterm efficiency measures”. Alongside these and other publications, we hope to make our upcoming website a go-to destination for anyone looking for data and analysis on Northern Ireland’s finances.

But it is very early days. Our first task is to talk to the widest range of stakeholders who take an interest in these issues and ask them how best we can flesh out the mission and tasks we have been given to make a positive difference. We would be delighted to hear from anyone with suggestions. Our resources will of course be limited and we won’t be able to tick every item on everyone’s to-do-list.

I come to the Fiscal Council having spent 10 years as a journalist seeking information on government finances and more recently from chairing the UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility, the advisory panel of the Irish Parliamentary Budget Office and the OECD’s international network of fiscal watchdogs. I have seen first-hand the contribution such bodies can make, but each is a fresh experiment and we must learn and listen as we go along. I hope you will support us as we do.

Robert Chote is a former Chair of the UK Office for Budget Responsibility and Chair of the external advisory group of the Irish Parliamentary Budget Office.

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A FISCAL COUNC I L AN D F I S CAL CO M M I S S I O N

Fiscal Council Robert Chote Chair Robert is a visiting Professor at Kings College London and Chair of the external advisory group of the Irish Parliamentary Budget Office.

He was Chairman of the UK Office for Budget Responsibility from 2010 to 2020 and of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) network of parliamentary budget officials and independent fiscal institutions from 2017 to 2020.

He was previously Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies from 2002 to 2010, adviser to senior management at the International Monetary Fund and was also economics editor of the Independent and Financial Times newspapers.

Maureen O’Reilly Maureen is an independent economist and current advisor to a number of private sector and public bodies including NI Chamber of Commerce and the Centre for Cross Border Studies.

She was previously a Senior Research Economist with the Economic Research Institute for Northern Ireland and Head of the Policy Evaluation Unit at the Northern Ireland Economic Research Centre.

She was also Associate Lecturer in Economics with the Open University. Maureen is a member of Barnardos UK Economic and Corporate Strategy Panel and an Economic Associate with Pro Bono Economics.

Alan Barrett Alan is the Chief Executive Officer of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) having joined the ESRI in 1994.

He served as a member of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council from 2011–2015 and is also an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin.

He is a Research Fellow with the Institute for Labour Economics in Bonn, Germany, an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Actuaries in Ireland and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.

Esmond Birnie Esmond is currently a Senior Economist at Ulster University with significant research experience in budgetary and fiscal matters.

Prior to that, he was Chief Economist for PwC in Northern Ireland and Scotland during 2010–16.

He was also a Special Advisor to the Employment and Learning Minister (2007-10), a MLA (1998–2007) and an economics Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at Queen’s University (1989–98).

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Fiscal Commission Paul Johnson Chair Paul has been Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) since January 2011. He is also currently visiting professor in the Department of Economics at University College London and is a member of the Climate Change Committee.

Paul has worked and published extensively on the economics of public policy, particularly on the areas of income distribution, public finances and tax. He has previously worked in Treasury as Director of Public Services and between 2004–2007 he was the Deputy Head of the Government Economic Service.

Cathy Gormley-Heenan Cathy is the former Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and External Affairs) and Professor of Politics at Ulster University with research expertise and interests in political elites, peace processes, the politics of divided societies, public policy and governance.

She has been a Trustee, Director, Board Member or Advisor on a range of external bodies including Innovation Ulster Ltd; Catalyst Inc; Matrix - the Northern Ireland Science Industry Panel; the ESRC's UK in a Changing Europe Advisory Panel; the UK's Political Studies Association (PSA); Universities UK's International Research Development Network; and the UK government’s advisory body on EU Exit, Universities, Research and Innovation.

Iain McLean Iain is an Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford University and a Senior Research Fellow of Nuffield College. He is a Fellow (former Vice-President) of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

His research interests include UK public policy; devolution, including related issues in taxation and public expenditure such as the Barnett Formula; electoral systems and constitutional reform.

He was a member of the Independent Expert Group of the Calman Commission (Scotland) and gave evidence to the Holtham Commission (Wales). He has given evidence to Stormont committees.

Lisa Wilson Lisa is Senior Economist at the Nevin Economic Research Institute (NERI) and is based in the Belfast office. Her main research interests lie in the areas of labour markets, income distribution, poverty, public expenditure, living standards and well-being.

Lisa is a graduate of both Ulster University and Queen’s University and holds a PhD from Queen’s University, Belfast which focused on income inequality and well-being. Lisa currently also serves as a member of the Northern Ireland Productivity Forum, Northern Ireland’s Women’s Budget Group and ReWage, an expert advisory group on work, employment and labour markets.

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A F I S CA L C O U N C I L A N D F I S CA L C O MMI SSIO N

The independent Fiscal Commission Northern Ireland Devolved government can take many shapes and sizes. There is no one size fits all. Northern Ireland’s devolved government is firmly rooted in the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which outlines the powers of the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, operating within a wider UK framework, writes Fiscal Commission Chair Paul Johnson.

But it is also true that devolved government can evolve over time, assuming more or differing powers, if that is the will of devolved and national politicians and, by extension, those they represent.

The independent Fiscal Commission has been established to consider the case for increasing the fiscal powers of the Northern Ireland Assembly. That is, to consider the case for increasing those powers which the Assembly currently has to raise revenues to support local public services; to reduce or reform taxes to increase net incomes of selected groups; or to improve incentives to work or invest. Ultimately, however, the decision on whether any additional powers are actually devolved, and indeed exercised, must be for political representatives both local and national.

I am delighted to have been asked to lead this important task by the Finance Minister, Conor Murphy MLA, and to be expertly supported by Cathy Gormley-Heenan, former deputy Vice Chancellor of the Ulster University; Iain McLean, Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford University; and Lisa Wilson, Senior Economist at the Nevin Economic Research Institute.

It will be the Fiscal Commission’s job to provide evidencebased and wholly independent advice on options for the possible devolution of taxes from Westminster. Which taxes are most appropriate for devolution? What would be the costs and benefits of doing so? As part of this, we will also consider the need for additional budgetary tools to manage any increased financial powers and indeed risks.

Devolving taxes and gaining greater financial control comes with added responsibility. It is essential that the institutions which deploy those powers are able to do so effectively and that they are accountable for their choices. That is why it is important that organisations such as the Fiscal Council, established alongside the Fiscal Commission and led by Robert Chote, is able to perform its role in assessing where the Executive gets its taxpayer funding and how well it spends it.

The Fiscal Commission will put forward proposals that are realistically implementable within the context of Northern Ireland. We will draw from the experience of Scotland and Wales, what has worked well, and where challenges have been encountered in those administrations, as they embarked on their own fiscal devolution journeys.

We will be looking at the potential costs and realistic timescales of any new powers proposed. We will also be considering whether and how the spending power of the Northern Ireland block grant could be insulated from volatilities in tax revenues if more powers were to be devolved.

Over the next year, my fellow commissioners and I will be actively engaging with stakeholders, carrying out research and digging deeper into specific issues. We want to hear what stakeholders have to say and we want to have honest and frank conversations about what the options are and any constraints that there may be. You can get more information and indeed provide us with your valuable views and insights via our website at: www.FiscalCommissionNI.org Once we have completed our work, we will provide the Finance Minister with a detailed report including recommendations. It will be for a new Executive to decide on next steps.

This is an important opportunity to really help shape local policy moving forward and I am looking forward to engaging with as wide a range of people as possible to develop meaningful recommendations that will be of benefit to Northern Ireland. I hope the Fiscal Commission can count on your contribution.

Further information can be found at: www.fiscalcommissionni.org and evidence can be submitted to the Fiscal Commission via: info@fiscalcommissionni.org Paul Johnson is the Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and is visiting professor in the Department of Economics at University College London.

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Political Platform Mike Nesbitt MLA Former news broadcaster Mike Nesbitt is the MLA for Strangford, having previously served as the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party.

Outline your background/career to date I was born just in time to grow up through what we so euphemistically called ‘our Troubles’. I have a MA from Cambridge and a MBA from Queen’s University Belfast. I was a broadcast journalist at BBC NI for 10 years (sport, then presenter of Good Morning Ulster), before becoming Managing Director of Anderson Kenny Public Relations. After that, I returned to broadcasting with Ulster Television, before becoming a Commissioner for the Victims and Survivors of our Troubles.

I stood for election to the Northern

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Ireland Assembly in 2011, representing Strangford. In 2012, I began a five-year stint as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. Currently, I represent the party on the Policing Board of Northern Ireland and Stormont’s Ad Hoc Committee on a Bill of Rights.

What inspired you to get into politics?

It’s complicated. On 25 January 1973, the IRA blew up my family’s linen business. My father was 49 years-old and in that instant every certainty in his life disappeared, while every responsibility remained (wife, children,

car, house). It’s what first got a young me interested in the human cost of conflict.

My days as a news broadcaster saw me cover many of the major atrocities of the Troubles (Enniskillen to Omagh) and the landmark political developments (AngloIrish to Belfast/Good Friday Agreements). Of all that body of work, what I think most worthwhile was giving a voice to victims and survivors.

Who do you admire in politics or public life?

Locally, I was inspired by two members from both the Ulster Unionist and Social Democratic and Labour parties. Harold

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What are your key priorities for your constituency?

I have many priorities for the Strangford constituency. I believe the Ards Peninsula is perfect as a destination to be promoted by Tourism NI; it has natural and built heritage (think only of the Lough and Mount Stewart and its gardens). Additionally, our agri-food is world class. We need to encourage further inward investment in other sectors; not least hospitality, already critical within the council area.

Mike Nesbitt MLA with Health Minister Robin Swann.

“I could not countenance the DUP, a party I regarded as reactionary, fundamentalist and created as a party of opposition.

Opposition is easy when you do not have practical alternatives.”

McCusker of the UUP made one the greatest Westminster speeches of the modern era in opposition to the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. David Trimble was the ultimate example of both (i) taking risks for peace in supporting the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement and (ii) living our party credo of “country first, party second, individual third”.

For the SDLP, John Hume also lived that credo, addressing the borders in people’s minds and promoting the fundamental importance of relationships to political progress. Seamus Mallon was a favourite interviewee, because he was sparky and formidable, but also because he understood the need to embrace his unionist brothers and sisters to make everyone comfortable in our “shared homeplace”.

position of others, not least Irish nationalists and republicans. Those studies and reflections led me to believe the union of the United Kingdom was the best constitutional framework to deliver a fair, equitable, peaceful Northern Ireland, with a focus on the prosperity of all our people.

I could not countenance the DUP, a party I regarded as reactionary, fundamentalist and created as a party of opposition.

Opposition is easy when you do not have practical alternatives.

I chair the board of Movilla High School, Newtownards’ the only non-selective post-primary school and have led a successful five-year campaign against closure. Education and the economy are the two priorities in building better.

I am a member of the Ards Suicide Awareness Group, working to promote better mental health. I also serve on the Ards Peninsula Coastal Erosion Group, an amalgamation of public, private and community sector groups taking a longer-term view of our responsibility to preserve our environment for future generations.

What are your interests outside work?

At my age, staying alive is an interest. I like walking and talking with family and friends. Golf is the sport I play, rugby the game I watch. I like reading. I am also working on my autobiography/memoirs, but find it very unhealthy. “Me, me, me” is not where anyone should be focused!

As a student, working as a binman for Ards Council, a great man called Benny Campbell called me to order anytime I boasted with the admonition “Self praise? No recommendation!” If I ever finish it, that will be the title of my book.

What drew you to UUP? I was brought up in a pro-union environment, but as a broadcast journalist, felt I had to understand the

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Fair employment for teachers Chair of the Northern Ireland Assembly Education Committee, Chris Lyttle MLA, writes on his proposal for a Private Members’ Bill to include teachers in fair employment legislation. supplemented by the Fair Employment (NI) Act 1989 which introduced provisions relating to indirect discrimination and employment monitoring and review requirements but still the teachers’ exception remained.

It is difficult to comprehend but despite employment discrimination on the grounds of religious belief being outlawed in Northern Ireland by the Fair Employment (NI) Act (FEA) in 1976, the Fair Employment and Treatment (NI) Order (FETO) 1998 continues to permit discrimination on the grounds of religious belief in the recruitment of teachers.

There is increasing support for the inclusion of teachers in fair employment protection and that’s why I have issued a public consultation on a proposed Private Member’s Bill to remove the exception of teachers from FETO. The FEA outlawed discrimination on the grounds of religious belief or political opinion in employment, however, section 37 set out a number of exceptions, including clergy or ministers of religion, employment for the purposes of a private household and employment as a teacher in a school.

It also contained provision for exceptions where ‘the essential nature of the job requires it be done by a person holding, or not holding, a particular religious belief’. This Act was amended and

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FETO consolidated earlier Acts, continuing the prohibition of discrimination in employment and extending it to the provision of goods, facilities and services and to the selling and leasing of premises. In 2003, this provision was narrowed to recruitment and promotion as a teacher to meet the requirements of an EU Directive on equal treatment in employment. Other aspects of employment, terms and conditions and access to training are now covered by fair employment legislation.

from a Protestant background, and in primary schools with mainly Protestant pupils, only seven per cent of teachers are from a Catholic background.

The Equality Commission of Northern Ireland has recommended the removal of this exception at secondary level and that early consideration be given to removing it at primary level, as it considers it is no longer acceptable to exclude the entire teaching workforce from Fair Employment legislation covering all other occupations.

It has also recommended teachers should be included in monitoring and review requirements and noted if the exception is removed, schools may still

The consequence of the teacher exception from FETO is schools can use religious belief as grounds on which to discriminate between candidates for teaching posts. Almost all workers can rely on legislation to protect them from discrimination on grounds of their faith, however, this protection is denied to teachers and whilst employers in Northern Ireland must register with the Equality Commission and monitor the composition of their workforce if they employ 11 or more employees, this does not apply to the teaching workforce.

be able to rely on the exception where

Recent research carried out by the UNESCO Education Centre at Ulster University suggests only two per cent of teachers in Catholic primary schools are

Chris Lyttle is an Alliance MLA for

the essential nature of the job requires it to be done by a person holding a particular religious belief.

I am therefore asking if people agree teachers should be included in the FETO and propose to make this change by way of a Private Member’s Bill at the Assembly before the end of this mandate if possible. The consultation is at www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DRMZZ78 and the closing date is June 10, 2021.

East Belfast and Chairperson of the Northern Ireland Assembly Education Committee.

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