OFFICIAL REPORT (Hansard)
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Concurrent Committee of the Committee for the Executive Office, Committee for Finance and Committee for the Economy OFFICIAL REPORT (Hansard) COVID-19 Recovery: Ms Jenny Pyper, Interim Head of the Civil Service 16 June 2021 NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY Concurrent Committee of the Committee for the Executive Office, Committee for Finance and Committee for the Economy COVID-19 Recovery: Ms Jenny Pyper, Interim Head of the Civil Service 16 June 2021 Members present for all or part of the proceedings: Mr Colin McGrath (Chairperson) Dr Steve Aiken (Deputy Chairperson) Dr Caoimhe Archibald (Deputy Chairperson) Ms Martina Anderson Mr Keith Buchanan Mr Pat Catney Ms Jemma Dolan Mr Trevor Lunn Mr Maolíosa McHugh Ms Sinead McLaughlin Mr Mike Nesbitt Mr John O'Dowd Mr Matthew O'Toole Mr George Robinson Mr Pat Sheehan Ms Emma Sheerin Mr Jim Wells Witnesses: Mr Paul Grocott Department for the Economy Ms Karen Pearson The Executive Office Ms Jenny Pyper The Executive Office The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): With us is Jenny Pyper, the interim head of the Civil Service (HOCS). She is joined by two of her colleagues: Karen Pearson, the director of COVID strategy and recovery; and Mr Paul Grocott from the Department for the Economy. Jenny, we will pass over to you. When I was chatting to you yesterday, I told you that I would see you eight times in the Chamber. It will be only six, because I can see only six screens. I will pass over to you to give your presentation, and then we can move to questions. Ms Jenny Pyper (The Executive Office): Thank you very much, Chair. As I said to you yesterday, over the past eight months I would have welcomed having the ability to clone myself six or eight times to deal with the scale of the challenges. I am grateful for the opportunity to brief the members of the Committee for the Executive Office, the Committee for the Economy and the Committee for Finance on the work of the COVID task force. As you mentioned, my colleagues Karen Pearson from TEO and 1 Paul Grocott from DFE are here in support of me. Paul has the detailed expertise on the economic recovery, and Karen has been the lead official in TEO for longer than me on all aspects of COVID and the pandemic. I hope that Members will understand that I will probably defer to them for a fair amount of the detail during the Q&A. As an introduction, I want to say a little about the work that we have done. Chair, you indicated that I had hoped at one stage to give you a full presentation on the COVID recovery plan. We are not quite there yet, but I hope to be able to give you a flavour of the work that we have done. No one doubts the scale of the challenges that the pandemic has presented and the fact that we are still operating in an ever-evolving situation. We have made great progress with our vaccination programme, but we know that some of the new variants that have emerged continue to pose a significant threat and, in planning for the recovery, we need to be able to flex and change, as some of those external factors may change around us. The emergency response to the pandemic has taught us in the Civil Service and all of our stakeholders beyond a lot about collaborative working, agility and how we can demonstrate success when we get it right. A lot of the lessons from COVID will be really important as we move through recovery. Ministers and elected representatives will know that, on 2 December, the day that I was appointed interim head of the Civil Service, the First Minister and the deputy First Minister announced the creation of the Executive COVID task force. Three months later, on 2 March, we published our document on the pathway out of restrictions. Essentially, that pathway document set out three steps. The first was all about lifting the restrictions — relaxing many of the restrictions that we have all come to live with. The idea was that lifting the restrictions was really the first step in building the foundations for any recovery. The second step was on short- to medium-term interventions that would help to jump-start longer-term renewal. The third big step in our pathway was moving to longer-term aspirations through the Programme for Government and its focus on outcomes. We have moved progressively through phase 1, the lifting of restrictions, in line with the public health advice. There are further tranches of restrictions that, we hope, the Executive will be able to agree on and lift over the coming weeks if the public health advice supports it. The second stage was about those short- to medium-term interventions to jump-start recovery. That is where our recovery strategy is now focusing, and I very much hope that it will go to the Executive tomorrow. We have a plan. I cannot give you the presentation on it as yet, because I hope that we will be giving it to the Executive tomorrow. However, I can take you through the key aspects of it and give you a flavour of the work that we have done and how it is emerging. Throughout the pandemic, the Executive have been consistent in their approach to the three guiding criteria as we have worked through the pathway. The first was about taking account of the most up-to- date scientific evidence. The second big issue has been around the ability of our health service to cope with the pandemic. The third area has been about those wider and longer-term impacts on health, our society and our economy. The draft recovery plan that we are now looking at is designed to focus on those big areas again and to implement action over the coming months and through a two- year period to focus attention on short-term, immediate priorities, as well as the longer-term interventions that need some planning and some initiation right now. It is worth saying that the current one-year funding window does not allow us the certainty that all of us would like in our planning for the future. You will be aware of the extent to which the Finance Minister has been pressing to secure a multi-year Budget agreement. The plan really focuses on four big areas for the next 24 months: economic growth, tackling inequalities, the health of the population and then wider green growth and sustainability on a cross- cutting basis. In focusing on those four areas, we are very cognisant of the emerging long-term strategic Programme for Government. We are working to build a recovery plan that, over the coming months, will dovetail into that Programme for Government with its outcome focus that we have already started consultation on. Recovery is not about getting us back to where we were pre-pandemic; rather, it is about providing a foundation for wider economic, health and societal renewal by prioritising actions and areas of intervention but also by doing things differently and learning the lessons around collaboration, agile working and working with stakeholders. Those are all things that helped to see us through the past 15 to 18 months or so. The plan focuses on three of what we are calling "accelerators" — things that will accelerate recovery. The first of those, not surprisingly, is economic growth, because the economy is such a central aspect of citizen well-being through its provision of job opportunities and financial stability. It can also make positive contributions to other areas, including mental health. We need to shift away from the emergency income packages that have been put in place and towards facilitating a return to work for 2 displaced and furloughed workers. It is also an opportunity to refocus on the critical skill needs and the unique opportunities in the economy, particularly around green growth and the sustainable ambitions of our population. Some of the indicators are encouraging. We know that the economy has taken a hit. Our chief economist in Northern Ireland tells us that gross valued added (GVA) growth in Northern Ireland has contracted by around 11% in the past year or so, with forecasts saying that we cannot expect any return to pre-pandemic levels until around 2023. Hence, the Department for the Economy's economic recovery action plan, with its £287 million commitment for 2021-22, is absolutely critical. Having said that economic activity has been dampened, the chief economist also reports encouraging signs. Today's announcement from PricewaterhouseCoopers, which members will be aware of, is a further encouraging sign. We see increased mobility, we see high street footfall showing an improvement, and job vacancy and furlough numbers are more promising than they were a few months ago. However, there is a long way to go. Therefore, in looking at economic growth and that aspect of recovery acceleration, we are focusing on job creation and growth, enhancing skills and stimulating the economy through green growth. The second accelerator is around tackling inequalities. Although we have made great strides socially and culturally over recent years, many of the systemic challenges and inequalities have deepened as a result of the pandemic, and many people from disadvantaged backgrounds have been hit hardest. The evidence tells us that the job sustainability of women, in particular, has been disproportionately impacted. It is also clear that recent disruptions have worsened some of our community relations problem areas and put a strain on our justice system and preventative crime measures.