NICVA responds to Programme for Government

NICVA has made a submission on the draft Budget, Programme for Government and Strategic Investment Plan. Here are some of the general comments. If you haven't submitted a response please feel free to use elements from our submission should you so wish.

The closing date is 4 January 2008.

Timescale

We note that the time between the end of the consultation and publication of the final documents is, as usual, very short. This raises some concern about whether there is sufficient time properly to consider submissions and incorporate any of their suggestions into the Northern Ireland Executive’s final plans. As a great deal of effort goes into the preparation of consultation responses of this scale, it is important that respondents have confidence that their views might make some difference. On this note, it would be very useful, as has happened in some past government consultations, if government could respond to the consultation by saying what it has heard, what it has taken on board and what it has not, for whatever reason.

A welcome for the general principles

NICVA welcomes the principles by which the Executive intends to abide:

• providing good leadership and working energetically in the interests of everyone
• working in partnership as an Executive, and across the public, private and voluntary sectors
• raising standards across Government
• delivering fair outcomes and social improvements.

We look forward to working in partnership with the Executive and with other sectors.

Programme for Government

We note that the Programme for Government sets out two cross-cutting themes:

• A better future: fairness, inclusion and equality of opportunity will be watchwords for all of our policies and programmes; and
• Sustainability : building a sustainable future will be a key requirement for our economic, social and environmental policies and programmes.

These are crucial elements in the governance of Northern Ireland, a divided society coming out of conflict which is living at a level of three times its environmental means. However, while we have a strategy for Sustainable Development and associated actions and targets, NICVA is unclear as to what ‘a better future’ means. There are no key goals or actions attached to tackling division. In the absence of the A Shared Future policy, the Executive is currently without any policy on tackling sectarianism and addressing the divisions in our society. This should be a central issue for the Executive and needs to be set out in detail, along with spending plans, not left to general phrases.

Of the five priority areas: Growing a dynamic, innovative economy; Promote tolerance, inclusion and health and well-being; Protect and enhance our environment and natural resources; Invest to build our infrastructure; and Deliver modern, high quality and efficient public services; the document makes clear that the first priority is the top one. NICVA agrees with DETI Minister, Nigel Dodds, who told the NI Economic Conference on 3 October 2007: “The economic development and social welfare agendas need not be viewed as competing priorities. They are complementary to each other. And I would say to the conference today that I’m far from alone in holding these views. I’m hopeful that they will be appropriately reflected in the forthcoming Programme for Government.”

Greater equality?

We believe that the social and economic agendas are intimately connected and that, as the experience of Scandinavian countries has shown, a more equal society can be the basis for a thriving economy. In other places, such as the United States, a thriving economy does not necessarily bring greater equality or fairer outcomes. We need to learn from this that both economic and social development should go hand in hand and that, even with a growing economy, without the right policies being in place, we cannot expect greater wealth to ‘trickle down’ and deliver social benefits as a matter of course. Thus claims in the Programme for Government that “sustainable economic growth and increased prosperity will provide the opportunities and means to enhance quality of life, reduce poverty and disadvantage, increase wealth, health and wellbeing” will only be true if the right policies are in place, as the experience in the Republic of Ireland, where the gap between the rich and poor did not close automatically with increased prosperity, has shown.