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. Therefore, interventions that look at tackling inequalities seek to address all of those thorny issues and other areas that seek to widen inequality and leave some aspects of our society behind. There are three priorities when we look at tackling inequalities: addressing vulnerabilities; looking at learning recovery, enhancement and skills development; and looking at equitable access to our health services.

That brings me to the third big accelerator: the health of the population. COVID-19 has affected our health in many fundamental ways over the course of the pandemic and on an ongoing basis. Sadly, there are still people dying from the virus, and there are longer-term impacts on our population, such as people waiting for treatment and the as yet unquantified impact on mental health. COVID remains the central priority for our healthcare system through the vaccination programme, but focus is shifting to the reform of services to overcome the long waiting lists and backlogs there and to rebuild a resilient health and social care system. Members will not be surprised to hear me say that the healthcare system will need very significant and ongoing support for some time to deal with not only COVID but the significant investment that is required as a priority for recovery in Northern Ireland. Many of the challenges faced by the healthcare system pre-pandemic — the ageing population, the increased demand for services, long waiting lists, workforce pressures and the emergence of new and more expensive treatments, coupled with budget constraints — have not gone away. They persist, and many of them have been exacerbated by the pandemic. More than half of patients in Northern Ireland are waiting for more than 52 weeks for treatment. The health system in Northern Ireland faces significant financial challenges as a result of non-recurrent investment over the past number of years, cumulating with the provision of less than 1% additional recurrent funding in 2021-22. We estimate that an additional £400 million will be needed in 2022-23 just to avoid cutting existing services. That is before any future service delivery to take account of population growth or recovery strategies is considered. The health accelerator is really critical in the recovery plan. It will look at vulnerability, protecting and improving the health of the population and promoting health and well-being.

As I have mentioned, funding will be a critical issue for us, and consideration will need to be given to retaining an element of support for some of the sectors that have been adversely affected by the pandemic. We will be looking at avoiding a cliff edge for the withdrawal of any funding there. I think, for example, about some of the job retention schemes and the universal credit increase. We are not unique in that; other devolved Administrations are in the same position as us. However, as I have mentioned, the current one-year funding arrangements are not sustainable, so we face critical engagement now on the UK spending review. That will be key to the successful delivery of our recovery plan. Recovery is a chance to emerge stronger from the pandemic and to get focus and prioritisation on the key areas that really matter to citizens here: to transform the economy, create jobs and reshape lives.

Work has been ongoing for months to develop that integrated and cross-cutting recovery plan, which has involved all of the Departments here. There has been intense collaboration and focus. Everybody has been galvanised by the need to prioritise and focus on a significant number of interventions to accelerate the recovery over the next 24 months and ensure that citizens are in a better place in the

3 short term as well as putting in place the building blocks for the longer term. The Executive's Budget for 2021-22 allocated £1·148 billion for COVID support and recovery. A further £316 million was agreed on 20 May. The funding for 2022-23 and beyond will not be known until the outcome of the spending review later this year, but the recovery plan has been consciously designed to look at interventions over a two-year period and not just be confined by the short-term funding limitations. That is to help to focus attention on both the immediate priorities and the longer-term interventions. The plan is at an advanced stage, and, hopefully, we will be able to bring it to Ministers imminently for consideration.

I hope that that gives the Committee members an overview of the priorities in the recovery plan. We are happy to try to deal with your questions.

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): Thank you very much indeed for that, Jenny. I appreciate the constraints that you are under in updating us and providing us with information.

Normally, when asking questions, Chairs and Deputy Chairs get a bit of latitude, but I suggest that we forgo that today because we have only 30 or 40 minutes for questions. I will ask each member to ask just one question and get a reply and, if they need to follow up anything, they can do so by email, so that we can get round as many members as possible.

At the end, you touched on the financing of the plan. It is quite broad, and it will touch many Departments and many elements of their work, yet I suggest that the funding that will be required to deliver the full programme is evidently not there. Decisions will have to be taken about work that would have been delivered had there not been a COVID recovery plan and projects that will be diverted into delivering COVID recovery instead. How will those decisions be taken? What will we do about the projects that Departments would have been delivering but will not be able to deliver because their resources will be diverted to the COVID recovery programme?

Ms Pyper: All of the Departments have been mindful of budget constraints as they have worked with the task force to develop the recovery strategy. They have been mindful of the budgets that they have. Committee members will be aware that, while there has been additional money to help the various sectors of society through the pandemic, there is a lot of uncertainty about the funding that will be available. It was not a generous Budget settlement for the "business as usual" work that you may be referring to. One of the purposes of the recovery strategy has been to encourage Departments to prioritise. Maybe there are things that they will not be able to take forward because we are in this recovery phase. Of course, the Executive have significant ambitions for the Programme for Government and for New Decade, New Approach (NDNA).

It has been an iterative process to agree with Departments what the priorities should be. I cannot give you the granularity that I might have hoped. The purpose of going to the Executive is to get Executive agreement that, "These are the priority areas, these are the priority interventions, and it will simply not be possible to do absolutely everything that Ministers and Departments might have been doing before or might want to do now". The recovery plan is aimed at focusing Ministers and Departments on the things that will make an impact in the areas that I described. Work continues to get a multi-year Budget, which would give us greater confidence about what we could deliver. However, it is not rocket science to say that it will not be possible to do everything that Departments and Ministers might have wanted to do pre-pandemic. The intention through the recovery plan is that, hopefully, we will get a balanced package of the things that will address the short-term needs but also start to lay the longer- term foundations for the Programme for Government, which will go through a full Budget assessment process in due course.

I do not know if Karen or Paul want to add anything to that or if I have fairly represented the extent to which Departments have been realistic about what they can really do as part of the recovery plan.

Mr Paul Grocott (Department for the Economy): Just to add, from the Department for the Economy's perspective, the Department's input into the Executive-wide recovery plan is fully funded. The Department presented its economic recovery action plan, and there are 147 actions within that. Of those, £287 million are costed and funded and are being rolled out.

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): OK, thank you for that.

Dr Archibald: Thanks very much, Jenny, for laying that out for us. We look forward to seeing the recovery plan.

4 I had two questions, but I will roll them together. It will be a big task to coordinate all the work that will be required to deliver on all those priorities. Do you see the task force itself as a model that needs to be continued to do that? Reaching the various areas and supporting families, job creation and businesses to get back on their feet will be a big task.

Ms Pyper: It is the task force that has led this work thus far, and we see it continuing for some time to help to coordinate and get momentum into the recovery. Of course, we are still in the position where we have not lifted all the restrictions, so there is a glide path. If you think of that three-step model that I outlined, we are still in a process of lifting restrictions. We are still not through all of those. We heard the announcement from the Prime Minister earlier in the week that there will be a pause even in GB in lifting the final tranche of restrictions. We are still in a process of COVID restriction and management, yet we need to make a start on the recovery plan. There is a lot of optimism around trying to get momentum into that recovery plan, so we see the task force continuing for some time.

Of course, we have a Programme for Government machinery and a Programme for Government team. I hope that, as we move through the autumn, we see momentum in the recovery plan, see the final restrictions being lifted and start to move from recovery towards the Programme for Government team. TEO will maintain a lead on the overall recovery plan, but, as Paul, I think, indicated, there is a well- worked-through economic recovery plan that the Department for the Economy will continue to lead. The Department for Communities has its five-year strategy, Building Inclusive Communities, and elements of its recovery plan will be moving to deliver against its bigger strategy. All the Departments are in a similar position with their strategies. It is not so much a top slice but the recovery work really kick-starting and driving their broader, wider strategy plans. TEO will continue to provide that coordination and central impetus for some time.

Dr Aiken: Thanks very much indeed. My question will be fairly short, and, obviously, coming from a Finance Committee perspective, it will be more related to the area of finance. A lot of the Budget for this year was placed in headroom, but it has come out of headroom now because more money has been made available from HM Treasury. One of the questions that we have relates to the outcomes of the in-year monitoring rounds. Those should have been reported to the Committees already. We have not seen that from the other Committees, and the Finance Committee does not have a view yet of in- year monitoring. Does TEO have a view of in-year monitoring and how that will work, particularly around support for recovery? We need to bear it in mind that the Health Minister has quite rightly pointed out that he needs £700 million to get us out of the waiting lists, which combines recovery, your number three on the list and the significant impact of NDNA. What progress has been made by the other Departments in your coordinating role to get a move on?

Ms Pyper: We have not been party to those in-year monitoring discussions. That work is obviously ongoing with Department of Finance officials, and there is bilateral work going on with the Departments to work through that in-year monitoring round. Again, that is an issue that will need to come back to the Executive. I see us getting more involved in the coming weeks if we can get consensus from the Executive around a recovery plan, but I cannot report to you any more progress on that. It is still in that iterative process between the Department of Finance and the individual Departments.

Ms Sheerin: Thanks to Jenny, Karen and Paul for the presentation. I noticed that, during Jenny's commentary, she referred to the fact that women have been the worst affected throughout the pandemic, and the feminist recovery plan that was published by the women's sector went into that in great detail and into the financial packages of support. There were a lot of heavily focused financial support packages to the sectors that were worst impacted by the pandemic. However, people in key worker roles — I think particularly of our lowest-paid people, who were working in food production, in the food service industry and in essential retail — were not offered that sort of financial support, particularly anybody who had to go through a period of self-isolation and was forced to take statutory sick pay. If someone had four or five periods of self-isolation over the past year, that effectively meant that they were living on £200 for that fortnight four or five times in a year. I wrote to the previous Economy Minister about that. Has there been any attempt to look at that? As we move out of lockdown, people will still get COVID-19, and, when they have symptoms, they will still be advised to self-isolate and to follow the procedure. Has any support been looked at for those lowest-paid workers, who are predominantly women, in those sectors, who are basically being told to live on half or a third of what they would ordinarily earn?

Ms Pyper: As I indicated in the presentation, a significant focus under a number of the strands of the recovery strategy is around looking at inequalities, particularly how we support the most vulnerable

5 and the most disadvantaged as we move through recovery. I will ask Karen about some of the work, particularly from the Department for Communities. She can give a bit more granularity around how we envisage doing that as we move into recovery.

Ms Karen Pearson (The Executive Office): Thanks, Jenny. Thanks for the question, Emma. It is a really important one. From the start of the response phase in March through to May last year, there were financial support arrangements put in place for lowest-paid workers, but there was an earning cap on that, so we were aware that it did not look after everybody who found themselves in difficulties. As we move out of the current restrictions and into recovery, you are absolutely right, there will still be some people who face periods of self-isolation, and it may not be their first. In England, they are doing some thinking about whether there are more innovative ways of looking after people. We are getting alongside them to see whether there is anything or any learning that we can bring back here and introduce. It is a difficult area, given the whole set of rules on benefits, caps and earning limits. It is a really important point.

We want to start to think about things from a citizen's perspective. We have to try not to swipe at people's lives and only help in one set of difficult circumstances; we have to look at the total situation that our citizens find themselves in. Are they being asked to self-isolate? Does that create additional problems for their family? What is the knock-on effect for learning and so on? We have to look at those issues end to end. That is why we think that a society-wide recovery strategy is better than having individual departmental plans. We have to look at everything from the citizen's perspective as we move through the remaining stages of the pandemic. I cannot give you a perfect answer, Emma, but we are acutely aware of the problems that people face, and we want to see what more we can do.

Ms McLaughlin: Thank you very much, Jenny, for your briefing. I am delighted to see that tackling inequalities is central to the COVID recovery plan. However, there is a piece missing that needs to have greater impetus, and that is the issue of childcare. That is central to recovery. We need affordable childcare, but we also need a childcare strategy that faces into the economy. Lack of childcare is driving our economic inactivity, low employment figures and low productivity figures. Yet, it is not really central in any of our recovery plans. I would really like Jenny to give me some insight into the work that will be done. It is a central theme that must be worked on jointly by the Department of Education and the Department for the Economy, and more priority should be given to it. We have an awful lot of vacancies in the economy that are not being filled, and business organisations are desperately looking for interventions. One of the main interventions that they are asking for is a coherent childcare policy and strategy that will address the needs of the economy and children's outcomes.

Ms Pyper: That is another one of those great questions that shows why we need an integrated cross- cutting recovery plan, not just something that looks at things in the traditional silos. It is absolutely cross-cutting between DFE, the Department for Communities and the Department of Education. There is not a specific issue that looks at childcare in isolation. We are, however, looking at the barriers to getting people back into the workplace and getting access to skills. There are things that we have learned from our stakeholders, particularly in the community and voluntary sector. There is a lot that stakeholders tell us about, such as what people have been unable to do through the pandemic but also what they have been able to do. The fact that we have been able to connect, communicate, do meetings and learn online as never before presents opportunities, particularly in those difficult areas where there are problems with affordable childcare.

It is a bit like Karen's answer to the member who spoke previously: we are looking to see what lessons there are, and we are looking to the other parts of the UK to see what they are prioritising and looking at. We are also looking, on a cross-cutting basis, at what we have learned. A key part of this is listening to those on the ground who have been dealing with some of the problems. The pandemic has presented a new suite of childcare problems for many people, including those who had to deal with homeschooling while trying to continue to work. Some mothers and fathers had their children appear on Zoom or demand that they get involved. There is a lot of learning that we need to do. In looking at getting people back to work, we are not focusing specifically on a childcare strategy but on what the barriers are and what opportunities exist to get people back into work and to get the skill levels up to match the job opportunities. I may not have mentioned it specifically, but it is in there as part of the cross-cutting work that we are doing to try to enable people to take advantage of the recovery.

The wider issues of the impact on children and young people are very much in all of our minds at the moment. Some people are still living through the aftermath of the selection process, and there is a

6 major concern now about the well-being and mental health of children and young people. That will have significant emphasis in the health recovery priorities as we work through this.

Mr Catney: Thanks for the presentation. In Lisburn, I have been lobbied by lots of small and unique businesses that will be a key driver in where our towns and city centres want to be. Those businesses are not rateable premises, and they are not eligible for any of the support schemes. Is the new Executive COVID task force considering other kinds of support schemes that might help those businesses? Bear it in mind that our town centres need to be unique and welcoming. That all goes into that.

I had premises next door to Churchill House, IDB House and the passport office. That was in Victoria Square. We were able to operate because the civil servants had moved into the town. You are able to share the vast workforce that is at your disposal in order to increase the flow of traffic, and we will mark the brief that you have been given on how you increase that footfall. It is difficult outside the pandemic, but when we bring the pandemic into it, it is all about getting footfall into our towns and cities and, with that, comes increased night footfall. It is not an eight- or nine-hour economy; we need to be operating on a 15- or 16-hour economy.

Ms Pyper: I will start and then, maybe, turn to Paul to say a little bit about the wider economic development priorities. This may stray into the subsequent briefing from the high street task force, but I will address a couple of aspects.

Particularly during the latter stages of the pandemic, as we have started to lift some of the restrictions, we have seen the creativity of many of our local businesses, particularly in trying to build that longer economy. As you say, it is not a nine-to-five economy any more. We need to stretch the duration and offer different things. Many of us will know about the street cafe culture from travelling around areas where the weather is more predictable and warmer. We have seen real creativity from many small business owners, cafes and shops, as well as from bars and restaurants, in providing outdoor offerings. We would really like a lot of that to continue. We would like to encourage it. Again, the high street task force will say a little bit more about that in the subsequent briefing.

On the issue of civil servants returning to their offices, particularly in the larger city centres, there is a real challenge because the Civil Service has shown itself to be capable of being agile and delivering. Think of the benefit services, for example. There was no loss in continuity when civil servants were unable to deliver benefits face to face. We have been able to use technology to allow continuity of service right across the Civil Service, and that has been really good in many ways. Going forward, with the work that the Department of Finance is leading on new ways of working, we will see civil servants coming back into their offices, perhaps working different hours and different work patterns. We will, maybe, see more blended working, with some working from home and some working back in the office. All of that, I think, will come and will have to go hand in hand with the lifting of the remaining restrictions, which will really help to kick-start the economy in our local towns and cities.

Paul might want to say a little about some of the other, wider, economic plans around the entire economy getting a boost and an uplift. Obviously, if people have more spending power and if they have jobs rather than the uncertainty of furlough, there is more opportunity for spending power on our high streets.

Mr Catney: Thank you. Is it all right to come in on that point before you go to Paul? I am interested in trying to find out how we will support small businesses that were not eligible for support simply because they were not paying rates. Does the COVID task force have a scheme to address that?

Ms Pyper: There is not a specific scheme there, but I think that the wider activities on lifting restrictions and energising through that high street task force is how we and Ministers see those smaller businesses getting back into operation.

Mr Catney: They need looking after [Inaudible.]

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): I am conscious, Jenny, that we have about eight minutes left and another five or six members who are looking to come in. We will have to breach the 3.00 pm deadline, but we will try to keep it as short as possible.

Ms Anderson: Thank you, Jenny, Karen and Paul. Chair, I will try to keep it to one question.

7 Jenny, I will focus primarily on what you said about tackling inequality being a priority in the COVID recovery plan. As you rightly stated, inequalities have been made worse by COVID. I would like to ask you about the plans that had been in place before COVID to tackle inequality in areas such as my constituency in Derry. Where do matters that were in 'New Decade, New Approach', such as the expansion of Magee university to have 10,000 students, fit into "building back better", which is the phrase that is being used in the context of tackling inequalities? I say that as the regional inequalities spokesperson for Sinn Féin, and, obviously, I am quite focused on the 10,000 students for Derry.

Ms Pyper: There are many initiatives that Departments are taking forward that will continue and are not a specific part of the recovery plan. The recovery plan is designed on prioritising the things that, we believe, are needed to address many of the challenges that have come specifically because of the pandemic. Obviously, there are ongoing issues and ongoing work on Magee campus and Ulster University, indeed with Ulster University and all of its campuses. That work is ongoing and will continue. In the recovery strategy, we are focusing on the things that will try to get to some of the specific issues that have arisen as a result of COVID. It will not stop ongoing work that Departments are already taking forward in other areas.

There is not a specific proposal in relation to Magee, because that work already has a momentum around it. I understand your concerns, and I think that a key thing will be the lifting of restrictions and getting students back. I think that Ulster University has indicated that it would like to get back to having students on the campus and not doing remote teaching and remote learning but getting that buzz and those numbers of students coming back in. That is true for the Belfast, Coleraine and Magee campuses. That is just one example. The lifting of restrictions will be the catalyst for getting universities back up and running.

Ms Anderson: We are trying to stop the brain drain of people going elsewhere. We are trying both to attract people into the city and to keep students in the city. I have listened to you, and of course I understand that we have to address the implications of COVID, but we also have to make sure that the inequalities and matters that had been identified before COVID are not pushed to the back of the queue. Those of us who represent Derry were frustrated with the lack of progress at Magee. I would like you and the officials to take that on board, Jenny.

Mr O'Dowd: Hello. Thank you for your presentation and answers thus far. Jenny, you talked about an integrated recovery plan and the need for priorities to be set. Yesterday, the Health Minister introduced his plan to cut waiting lists. The estimated cost of that plan is around £700 million over five years. I think that that is achievable, but it will require Executive colleagues to set priorities and say to their Departments and to the public that there are things that will not happen because we are prioritising health. Was Minister Swann's plan part of that integrated recovery plan? Was it discussed at Executive level to achieve the Executive support that will be required?

Ms Pyper: You will know from the Department for Communities' building inclusive communities strategy 2020-2025 and DFE's 10X Economy strategy that all the Departments are not just thinking about the short-term recovery over the next couple of years; they are thinking about longer-term strategic plans. Minister Swann presented his plan in that longer-term context. With the integrated recovery plan, we are trying to make sure that we start some things now that will address some of the problems coming from COVID, but we will also initiate things over the next 12 to 24 months that will feed in to those bigger strategic plans. It is not a case of either/or; I suppose that it is a glide path. Sorry if that sounds like Civil Service-ese, but I cannot think of another way to put it.

We have a Programme for Government, and Departments and Ministers have their individual longer- term strategies. For the recovery plan, we are looking for something that will help to bridge between recovery from the pandemic to more business-as-usual thinking about the big underlying systemic issues that still need to be addressed. It is a bridging strategy to help to kick-start bigger strategies such as Minister Swann's more ambitious, longer-term plan.

Mr O'Dowd: When I was a Minister, if I was looking for my Executive colleagues to prioritise my Department, I would go first to my Executive colleagues to say, "Here is my plan, and this is why you need to prioritise my plan".

Ms Pyper: It is fair to say that the Executive have been focused on three big areas: recovery of the economy, wider societal recovery and health sector recovery. There is no doubt in the minds of Ministers that there are massive challenges for the recovery of the health service and that those must be a priority when we come to negotiations with Treasury about funding. I know that those points were

8 made firmly by both the former First Minister and the former deputy First Minister at the British-Irish Council (BIC). Recovery of the health service and the significant funding implications involved with that were front and centre at the discussions at BIC.

I think that you are asking whether the specific details of Minister Swann's plan went to the Executive. No, they did not. However, I am confident that the Executive have given a clear signal, from the start of the pandemic, that we must focus on the health service and its recovery.

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): Thank you. I will have to move on.

Mr O'Toole: Thank you to those giving evidence. Jenny, I will follow on from the last question. When the Executive go to the Treasury ahead of spending review discussions later this year, what will be the key strategic document that you will use to ask for a Budget settlement? Will it be the recovery strategy or the draft Programme for Government?

Ms Pyper: I am sorry that I cannot answer with any certainty as to what the Executive might do. I hope that the Executive will use the priorities that have been identified through the very iterative process to develop the recovery document. I hope that will form the basis of the ask. Referring to Mr O'Dowd's point, undoubtedly, some of the significant asks around dealing with waiting lists in the health service will be very high on the list of priorities. I do not know what the recovery package that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is considering might look like.

The sorts of problems that we face here with the big funding challenges are not unique. Some of them may be more pointy, and we may have more of a challenge with some of those issues, such as the waiting lists in particular. However, all of the devolved Administrations want to understand how the UK Government will help everyone and, on a cross-sectoral basis, how they will put together a package to help kick-start that recovery. Therefore, I hope that the work we have done, if we can get that agreed by the Executive, starting tomorrow, will be the basis for their decisions. I cannot pre-empt where they might go or the process that the Finance Minister will bring forward.

Mr O'Toole: Your replacement will have a slightly different functional role, as she will not be responsible for managing the Executive Office. Shorn of that responsibility, will she have the political leverage to coordinate in the way in which she must to drive through that agreed set of priorities?

Ms Pyper: Part of the reason for splitting the role and the reason I recommended that to the First and deputy First Ministers was to make sure that the head of Civil Service has the freedom and ability to use their convening power to bring together a more joined-up integrated Civil Service and a more joined-up, integrated support and offering to the Ministers. The date when Jane Brady will start is yet to be finalised, but it will be around the end of August or the start of September.

I will use the time between now and then to work alongside the new permanent secretary for TEO, Denis McMahon, who is currently in the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, and he will start within the next couple of weeks. We will carve up the responsibilities that I have now and make sure that TEO is a fully functional stand-alone Department that can deliver the Programme for Government and all the other support programmes, leaving Jane, as the new HOCS, much freer to do the job of supporting the Executive and managing the overall Civil Service in a much more holistic way. "I am hopeful" is the answer to your question.

Dr Aiken: Jenny, it is the Chair of the Finance Committee speaking. Would you just explain again who will be the new head of TEO? This is news to us, and it is news to the Chair of the Executive Committee.

Ms Pyper: The First and deputy First Minister were consulted. All Ministers were consulted, and permanent secretaries were invited to offer expressions of interest. Denis McMahon was one of those who indicated that they were interested. I advised departmental Ministers this morning that he is to take over — no, he will not take over, because there is nothing to take over — that he will be the new permanent secretary of TEO.

A note should have gone to the Chair of the Executive Committee. I am not sure what happened there. I can only apologise. A note went this morning to departmental Ministers to advise them, so I am glad of the opportunity to at least clarify that for the Committees. Denis's start date has not been agreed because there is no ready-made job sitting there. That will be something to be worked through on the basis of the job descriptions for the new head of the service and the new TEO role.

9 The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): It has probably fallen down behind the sofa, where all the other updates that should have come to the Executive Office Committee fall. We are often the last to be informed of anything. Denis will take over a split role that we were not informed about either, so I suppose that makes no difference.

I ask for Pat Sheehan to be brought into the spotlight, as long as Pat has not been made First Minister or something else that we have not been told about. Pat, are you still just a member?

Mr Sheehan: Thanks, Colin. I was going to spring that on you, but maybe you have already heard a whisper about it.

Jenny, I will ask about COVID recovery. One of the areas where there will have to be a serious focus is on our children and young people. In the Education Committee this morning, we received evidence from the Children's Commissioner and the Children's Law Centre. It was interesting that both talked about a tsunami of emotional and well-being issues and mental health problems arising out of the pandemic among our young people. It is interesting because that is the same term that the mental health champion, Siobhán O'Neill, used when she presented to the Committee a few months back.

Despite having asked the now former Education Minister about putting in place a comprehensive, integrated and cross-departmental plan to tackle the problems that will result from the pandemic, nothing serious or comprehensive has so far been done. If our young people cannot recover from what has happened, we will face serious problems for many years to come. Why has there been no mention of that in the plan?

Ms Pyper: In response to one of the other members, I talked about the concerns that there are around mental health, particularly of our young people. That is part of the overall recovery plan. I have looked at it in the context, primarily, of the health of the population. We do not yet know the full implications of the pandemic for our young people. We can see some of the immediate impacts that it has had on their schooling, but the longer-term health impacts are still to be worked through.

I invite Karen to say a little more about the dialogue that we have had with the Department of Education around some of the specific issues that it has prioritised as part of the recovery plan. The wider issue, the ongoing health of our children and young people, is covered by that health recovery piece.

Ms Pearson: Thanks Jenny. That is absolutely right. The Department of Education has been involved with us in the development of the plan. You will see a piece for children, probably across all four of the accelerators. On what Sinead said earlier, if we think about working women with children, we see two owners of the story. It is about tackling inequalities plus jobs plus future skills plus the health of the population — we are all desperately worried about what is coming; we completely agree on that — and about what the future is for younger people in terms of green growth and sustainability.

I assure you that, in the conversations that we have at official level throughout this, we constantly remind ourselves that, in a Programme for Government time frame, which is normally about 10 years, the eight-year-olds who are going to school today will become adults. We really have to think about that long-term bit, Pat, as well as the short-term recovery bit. There are issues in the plan for children. The Executive were always concerned about this. A couple of updates on issues for vulnerable children were worked on jointly by the Department of Health and the Department of Education. It has been a regular discussion at the Executive, so it will not be lost in this. If we have to raise the profile a bit higher, we will do so.

Mr Sheehan: Thanks for that.

An issue that has been flagged up to us — at the Education Committee but also at the Health Committee when I was on it — is continued difficulty in cross-departmental working and inter-agency cooperation and collaboration. What will be done to rectify that?

Ms Pearson: That is why we need this plan; otherwise, we will only have a series of departmental plans that are really good at tackling specific issues. Our core brief was to produce a plan that would drive collaboration. As Jenny said at the outset, one thing that we have learned from COVID is that we are better when we work together. That is also how we will deliver best on a future Programme for Government, so my driving motivation is to get Departments together.

10 Thus far in the development of the plan, we have seen people talking across departmental boundaries and thinking about outcomes for citizens. If it is not about that, we have lost the point somewhere. We completely agree on the importance of what you have just said.

Ms Pyper: Part of the reason for splitting the roles of head of the Civil Service and permanent secretary in TEO is to give greater emphasis to cross-cutting working and breaking down the silos. It is challenging, given the five-party mandatory coalition structure that we have, with Ministers having their own agendas. However, as Karen says, working together through the pandemic has shown the necessity of joined-up decisions and joined-up working. The ways of working in the Civil Service that I have referred to, facilitated through Zoom, Teams or some of the other remote platforms, have shown that we can collaborate much more effectively and that we can engage much more effectively and much more frequently with our stakeholders.

The feedback that I get consistently is that all the stakeholders in the business community or the voluntary and community sector — it does not matter what sector — have had more access to and dialogue with civil servants than they have ever had. I cannot see any going back from that. We want to continue to make sure that we work much more closely not only across Departments but with the wider sectors that have such a critical role to play, particularly on issues for children and young people. Splitting the roles will help to give greater impetus to that.

Mr Sheehan: OK. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): I am again at pains to say that it is good to hear the rationale for splitting the roles after that has happened and appointments have been made. It would have been nice to hear about it beforehand, but we are not able to go over that again.

Mr Nesbitt: Jenny, on the theme of "never waste a crisis", have you identified the opportunity?

Ms Pyper: That is a great question. We are now trying to make some time to do a bit of reflection on what has worked and what has not worked. I have referred to a couple of the opportunities that we are seeing across the Civil Service to work in different and more agile ways. The same is true right across the economy and society. Take, for example, some of the work that we and, in particular, the Department for Communities have done working alongside third sector partners. Seamus McAleavey talks about how easy it has been to get together quickly to solve problems and identify issues. If I look at some of the challenges that we have seen at interface areas, I think about how quickly we have been able to pool together all of the people whom we think are needed to help to solve the problems. We have proved to ourselves and our stakeholders that we can be more agile.

We are beginning to do a lessons-learned exercise. Departments and departmental permanent secretaries are doing that individually, but we have an opportunity to bring that together. Your point is well made. There is learning and positivity coming out of how we have worked through the pandemic. We do not want to lose that. I hope that you understand that we are seriously multitasking at the moment. We are still dealing with restrictions and all of the support schemes. We are liaising with businesses and wider society. We are also dealing with the ongoing challenges that are still being presented by coronavirus and the delta variant. We are working through the recovery strategy and working to ensure that the Executive are working as effectively as possible. It is hard to find the bandwidth to look back, reflect and see the opportunities, but it is a great point. We have some really good lessons. We want to make sure that we land those and do not lose the benefits.

Mr Nesbitt: Lessons learned and opportunities identified are separate things, but they are on a continuum. I wish you well. Thanks, Jenny.

Mr McHugh: Tá fáilte romhat, Jenny. You are very welcome, Jenny. I now recognise you; I have never met you before, so this is a good opportunity. You talked about inequalities. One of the accelerators of inequality is the health service. It is often easy to identify inequalities if we talk about background, women and things of that nature, but I, as a representative for the most westerly part of West Tyrone, refer to geographical inequality. We are confronted with exactly the same waiting lists as everyone else in the North of Ireland, but inequality also exists in the delivery of other basic services. I think of an accident in my area a number of years ago. The ambulance had to come all the way from Ballyshannon — almost 40 miles — to deal with the person involved in that very serious accident. That is an example of the geographical inequality that exists. To what extent is addressing those inequalities about embracing all of the other services and about integration with provision in the Republic of Ireland? That case just highlights how much we depend on each other.

11 Ms Pyper: As I said, the recovery strategy will not be able to deal with everything. Some of the inequality issues that you referred to are, clearly, long-standing and systemic. You will be aware that the funding model within which the Department of Health currently operates is widely recognised as not being fit for purpose, particularly when we think about the critical importance of long-term investment. Some of the challenges that you referred to have perhaps been exacerbated by the pandemic, but they will need to be dealt with in the longer term, primarily through the Programme for Government.

On other inequality issues, one of the interesting pieces of work that has come out of the Department of Finance looking at new ways of working is the establishment of Civil Service hubs outside of the main population centres to try to facilitate people's working at home and close to home, with the intention that those centres or hubs will be operational on an ongoing basis so that people do not necessarily have to travel long distances from home to work, say, in the centre of Belfast or on the Stormont Estate. Those Connect2 regional hubs are being developed to try and help to bridge that gap.

I know that that does not answer the specific question about health inequalities, and I understand the example that you gave of the Ambulance Service, but those are longer-term systemic problems that the Programme for Government will address in the wider context of long-term recovery. In the shorter term, there are some things that we can do, particularly on how public services have been delivered, to perhaps rebalance the location of some folk who deliver critical public services.

Mr McHugh: I understand the position on hubs and so on. However, unfortunately, it is often the fact that people are travelling to Belfast that justifies the development of a hub. I do not think that it should just be based on that kind of travel. I make the point again that other services should be located in rural areas and that it should not be dependent on servicing the greatest number of people. That is often what underpins the location of services in more urban areas or in cities.

Dr Archibald: I want to return to the childcare issue. The childcare strategy is this nebulous thing that has been in development for a long time, and there is a fair bit of frustration about that. It sits primarily with Education, and, obviously, there are child development and early years education considerations, so that is understandable in some ways. However, affordable and accessible childcare is very much an economic issue, particularly in removing barriers and particularly for women. Do you think that we are looking at childcare in the right way? Is it now time, as part of the recovery, to take a different approach to the development of the childcare strategy?

Ms Pyper: I am not sure that there is anything more that I can say at this stage on the work that we have been doing on recovery. It is very much aimed at looking at new ways of working and the benefits that we can get from technology, many of which we have learned through the course of the pandemic. There is also the focus and emphasis, which Paul and I mentioned, on skills and preparing people for the workforce.

I am afraid that I am not in a position to comment in any more detail about the specific childcare strategy and strategies that are with the Department for Communities and so on, because those are ongoing strategies. In the recovery strategy, we will try to prioritise things that are barriers to people fully participating in the workforce but also opportunities and enablers to get people back, particularly those who have family and caring responsibilities. I do not know whether Paul can add anything more about women in the economy that would perhaps help to address some of Caoimhe's concerns.

Mr Grocott: Thanks, Jenny. I will highlight three areas that directly engage with this and will, hopefully, give you an illustration of the collaboration that Jenny mentioned and that came up in earlier questions. The skills strategy, which is out for consultation, has diversity inclusion as a real core pillar. There is a specific group that is targeting and looking at that issue, and women in the economy will be a key part of that.

There is a programme of work that is looking at women in STEM, which you will be familiar with, Caoimhe. That is bringing in colleagues from the Department of Education on how we get more women into the economy, and particularly working in those STEM areas. There also is a separate collaboration with partners in Belfast City Council on new beginnings, which includes women but also neurodiversity. Again, it is specifically looking at how we get women who have either fallen out of the labour market or are in different jobs into the 10X types of jobs that we have talked about in previous Economy Committee sessions. There is a lot of work happening in Economy. All of that is highly integrated with colleagues from across different Departments.

12 Mr K Buchanan: Thanks, Jenny, Karen and Paul, for your information so far. My question relates to the Executive and the effectiveness of the COVID recovery interventions to date, such as the localised restrictions support scheme (LRSS). There is also the business rates holiday, which is going on for a second year, so there will have been two years of no rates for businesses. What has been the effectiveness of that? We all know the effect on the ground, but what is your assessment of it?

Ms Pyper: I am not in a position to talk in a lot of detail about the LRSS. Paul might be able to say a little bit about the numbers of businesses that have been helped. It is easy to think about the counterfactual: how much worse the economy would be if we had not had LRSS and those support measures in place. I do not know to what extent the chief economist or the Department for the Economy have made an assessment at this stage other than of the numbers and the money that has been provided. I hope that I am not giving you a hospital pass, Paul, but I know that some work will have been done by Shane and the team in DFE on the impact of the schemes.

Mr Grocott: LRSS was delivered by our colleagues in Finance. It might be too early for them to have done any post-project evaluation. DFE rolled out seven schemes, and close to 50,000 individual businesses were supported with interventions totalling in the region of £500 million. That is on top of, and in collaboration with, the Treasury's furlough scheme and self-employment income support scheme (SEISS). We have not done any detailed post-project evaluation to assess the counterfactual — the what might have been — but, through any engagement that we have had at official or ministerial level, the feedback from trade bodies and individual businesses is overwhelmingly positive. The feedback is that it was game-changing for them: they would not be here, in business or able to bounce back and move into the recovery phase, if it were not for that unprecedented support.

Mr O'Dowd: Jenny, in your introductory remarks, you referred to the fact that other jurisdictions have had to revise their dates and plans for full reopening of society as a result of the spread of the new delta variant. I sincerely hope that the Executive are in a position to meet tomorrow, or certainly this week, to continue their work and endorse the plan, if that is their will. Have you been able to take into account, in the plan, the spread of the new delta variant and what impact that will have on plans for the earlier reopening that we all hope for?

Ms Pyper: Throughout the pandemic, everything that we and the task force have done and all of the Executive's decisions have been informed by the latest public health advice. I have literally just seen an email flash across my screen to say that Minister Swann, along with the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and the Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA), hopes to be able to provide an update tomorrow on the delta variant. We expected an update this week anyway, because all the in-principle decisions taken by the Executive on 10 June were dependent on a further week of data and, in particular, a further look at the spread of the delta variant. I am not in a position to second-guess what that briefing from the Chief Medical Officer and the Health Minister will say. However, I know that it will be critical in informing whether or not the Executive ratify the package that was agreed in principle last week.

It is concerning. We are watching to see what happens in other jurisdictions. Boris Johnson's decision not to proceed with the final lifting of restrictions was clearly very significant. There is a sense of uncertainty about the spread of the delta variant here. I have no doubt that it will impact on the ability to lift the remaining restrictions. The public health advice and the evidence has informed all the decision-making. Irrespective of what has happened in other jurisdictions, the Executive have been very much guided by the advice coming from the CMO and the CSA.

Mr O'Dowd: OK, thank you.

Mr Wells: Jenny, it would be remiss of me not to say that, occasionally, Departments get things absolutely right. We tend to be rather critical, but the LRSS team has been absolutely magnificent. Just this morning, I concluded my last LRSS case in South Down. Every one of them was resolved to the satisfaction of the company or business concerned. Maybe the Civil Service generally should try to find out what the LRSS team has been doing to have that success in terribly difficult circumstances. I do not think that I have ever been able to write to a Department and say, "That's the last case, folks. They're all solved, and everybody's happy." I do not think that has ever happened in my 40 years in politics. That was more an assertion than a question.

This is a more difficult one: what happens if we hit a political crisis and there is no Executive meeting to sign off on the recovery plan? What level of discretion do you and your team have to implement this, or does everything stop dead in its tracks?

13 Ms Pyper: I will take that positive feedback to the LRSS team in the Department of Finance. It is great to hear a good reflection on a team that was previously not delivering a grant scheme at all. Thank you for that, Jim. It is much appreciated.

The reality is that decisions on the regulations, restrictions and, indeed, the recovery plan and its priorities and funding must be taken by the Executive as a whole. That has always been the position, and it remains the position. Without an Executive in place, we do not have a means of moving forward to lift further restrictions or implement the recovery strategy.

Mr Wells: Have you or your team not been given any Executive discretion to carry out even the most basic aspects of the recovery plan?

Ms Pyper: Nothing has been presented to the Executive yet. That was due to happen this week. I have to work on the basis that I am planning for the resumption of normal business. We are still within the seven-day period for nominations, and there is a duty on parties to nominate. As far as I am concerned, we are still within that window of proceeding with normal business. If that proves not to be the case, we will need to look at what the options might be. Clearly, those are potentially much more significant options.

The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): Jenny, I thank you and your team for coming along. It was a mammoth session of an hour and a half for you as you were giving us the majority of the answers. We appreciate the information that you provided. We understand that there was a lot of information that you would have liked to provide but were not able to and probably some that you wish that you had not told us or at least that we had found out in another way. We appreciate your coming along and giving us that update. We wish you well with your work. I was going to ask you to give us an update on your successor, but I think that you gave that answer earlier. You have given the time scale for when the new head of the Civil Service will come on board. We wish you all the best with your work.

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