Joint Forum Minutes 18 February 2003

Present

Government: Dave Wall (Joint Chair), Stephen Martin, Lorraine Walls, Seamus Murray, David Lennox, Jenny Black (Secretariat) – VCU, Terry Smyth – DE, Pauline Keegan – DARD, Paul Brunton – DETI, Agnes Killen – DCAL, Sean Mulhern, Patricia McVeigh – DHSSPS, Mary Carnaghan – DRD, Janet Cooper – DOE, Adrianne Brown – DFP, Barbara Swann – DETI, Nuala Kerr – SEUPB, Paul McGreevy (observer) – Inland Revenue.

Voluntary and Community sector: Edwin Graham (Joint Chair) – Lurgan Council for Voluntary Action, Frances McCandless (Secretariat) – NICVA, Maurice Leeson – Barnardo’s; Rosie Dargan – Belfast Carers Groups Forum, Peggy Flanagan (alternate for Judy Seymour) – CWETN, Tony O’Reilly – North West Forum of People with Disabilities, Diane Forbes (alternate for Charlie Mack) – National Trust; Angela Welch – Coleraine and District Citizens Advice Bureau, Stevie Johnston – WEA, Niall Fitzduff – RCN, Seamus McAleavey – NICVA, Victor Robinson – Newtownabbey Community Development Agency, Adrian McCracken – Greater Belfast Community Network, Anne O’Reilly – NICVA.

Apologies

Government: Alex Boyle- DOE, Adrian Arbuthnot – DEL, Tom Clarke – NIO, Chris Stewart – OFMDFM, Robert Breakey – DSD, Charlie Bamford – SSI.

Voluntary and Community Sector: Carol O’Bryan – Simon Community, Judy Seymour – WRDA.

Welcome and introductions

Mr Wall (Joint Chair) welcomed everyone to the meeting. All delegates introduced themselves.

Minutes of the meeting held on 23 October 2002

The minutes had been amended and circulated. The amended version was agreed as an accurate record of the previous meeting.

Matters Arising/Updates

4.1 Joint Forum Consultation Group and OFMDFM Equality Advisory Group

Mr Graham referred to the paper tabled for information. He advised that Dr John Kremer, QUB had presented his final report to the Advisory Group at their last meeting on 4th February.

Members discussed the report’s focus on Section 75 consultation. Mr Fitzduff said it had been suggested that the OFMDFM document on consultation processes should be held back until this issue is dealt with.

Mr Fitzduff and Ms Keegan advised that key issues like consultation overload, resources and future arrangements for consultation had still to be resolved. Ms Keegan highlighted that consultation is an important issue for government which it wants to resolve.

4.2 Funders Forum/Taskforce/Funding database

Funders Forum

Mr Lennox advised that the Terms of Reference had been agreed and signed off by Minister. The Funders Forum Reference Group met on 17 February, it was planned to hold a meeting of the full Forum before Easter. Membership includes: Community Fund, New Opportunities Fund, Lloyds TSB etc, details of membership are available on request. The Forum will be evaluated as it progresses.

A government leaflet detailing funding streams from government to the sector should be published within the next two months. This will give details of relevant contact names etc and will be available on the website. This will help inform the Funders Forum.

Taskforce

Mr Lennox referred to the press release at JF3/03 detailing the Taskforce membership, it will be chaired by John McGrath, Deputy Secretary, DSD and includes Dave Wall, Seamus McAleavey and Anne O’Reilly. The Panel had been consulted and agreed to the appointment process.

Members expressed concern at the lack of representation from the community and rural sectors and DFP. Mr Lennox said there was a necessary balance to be struck between sufficient expertise and experience and keeping the numbers at a manageable level, adding that a number of the members would have experience of the community sector.He advised that the Taskforce would be looking at the structures in place and consider how groups can feed into the process.Following discussion it was agreed the Taskforce could possibly undertake preliminary talks with groups to obtain their views, in addition to the formal consultation process. Mr McAleavey suggested that DFP might be given observer status. He also suggested that consideration be given to how the Republic of Ireland might input to the work of the Taskforce as they are going through the same issues.

Mr Lennox advised that the Taskforce will meet for the first time on Thursday 27 February.He is working on a preliminary timetable. It is hoped an ‘Issues paper’ se will issue for consultation in the autumn and a final report be produced by March 2004.

He thanked the Panel for their position paper. The Taskforce will consider their paper and how they will engage with the Joint Forum at their first meeting. The Joint Forum will receive regular updates on progress.

Funding database

Mr Lennox advised that consultants have been appointed to develop the database. The information from the census of the sector carried out by NICVA will be at the core of the database.It will be piloted in DSD and DHSSPS from April 2003. It is hoped all departments can link into the database by March 2004. VCU are in discussions with DFP about the possibility of downloading information from the Structural Funds database to enable a fuller picture.

Mr Graham asked if the funding database would capture funding by health trusts, boards etc. Mr Lennox said their first priority was to get information from government departments on the database. The possibility of including statutory agencies would then be considered, however, there could be technical issues in terms of IT security. The final stage envisaged, however, would be to bring in independent funders, although there are possible issues regarding information sharing.

Mr Wall noted that funders have indicated that this will not be an easy task and VCU will need to try to achieve this in ‘stepped levels’.

4.3 Peace II

Nuala Kerr updated members on the general position at the end of January, €145million has been committed. There have been nearly 4000 applications, 1342 have been rejected so far and there are 1752 still to be processed. The main reason for rejection is failure to meet the Peace distinctiveness criteria, other reasons are failure to meet measure specific criteria, poor quality applications etc.

A key concern is the ability to meet the financial spend, otherwise money will be de-committed. The spend to date is €43 million which is a significant amount. There will need to be €20 million per month processed to meet the target financial spend by the end of the year.Ms Kerr stated that this is a challenging target. The pattern of spend across the programme is not uniform, with some priorities performing better than others. The question is to see what can be done to avoid de-commitment, there will be a presentation to the monitoring committee regarding reallocations between funds.There is limited scope for manoeuvre until the completion of the mid-term review. SEUPB have no authority to change funds between priorities, as these were agreed by the Executive. It is planned to convene a meeting of the monitoring committee in early March to put forward proposals. The ‘Treatment of advances’ in programmes by member states could make a difference to the situation. Ms Kerr clarified that the term Advance means the commitment to spend.

Peace is not alone in relation to these difficulties and other programmes are finding it difficult to reach spend targets. The ‘Treatment of advances’ and ‘Treatment of switching funds between priorities in advance of mid-term review ‘ are two options for DFP.The Commission had put a proposal to member states regarding the treatment of advances. The UK had rejected this and there is now a revised advances proposal. The UK will support this revised proposal bearing in mind their experience.

N+2 rule

Ms Kerr confirmed that there is no ability to change the N+2 requirement.

Mr Fitzduff said reduction in bureaucracy could lead to real improvements. Ms Kerr advised that DFP have introduced much shorter application forms for grants of £10k and under.

Mr McAleavey asked why groups failed to meet the Peace distinctiveness criteria. Ms Kerr said applicants seemed to find it difficult linking what they did to the Peace Criteria although guidance was available to help them to explain this better. This was a matter of concern and a lot of issues will need to be considered for future rounds.

Mr Johnston asked for clarification of the N+2 situation and whether there is €500m still to be committed or spent. Ms Kerr confirmed that this amount still had to be committed. This is only the first year of N+2 and it will continue in following years. At this stage the programme is running at the level of commitment that matches the spend roughly and there are 10 more months to pick up in the rest. The factor that could make the greatest difference is the outcome regarding the treatment of advances, the other factors are much tougher challenges. She advised that the issue of ‘Treatment of Advances’ is being dealt with by written procedure and this will be processed as a matter of urgency. The outcome should be known within the next few weeks.

Mr Wall provided an update on the other Measures.In relation to Measure 2.11, N+2 is a problem because of the time taken to select the 12 areas and the setting up of structures. Urban 2 is ongoing with difficulties and the procurement process and roadshows are underway for Interreg IIIA. In relation to Building Sustainable Prosperity Measures 3.2 and 3.3, Mr Wall confirmed that there is no N+2 problem and they are on target in terms of spend.

Mr McAleavey advised that he had written to Minister Pearson re the possibility of Peace III to ask what government’s process might be re consultation etc.

Mr Johnston noted that in 8/9 months time when the pressure is on to see that groups have spent money and they are inundated with monitoring pressures, he wants it remembered that it is due to mistakes made at this stage.

4.4 EPF £6m

Ms Brown provided an update on the EPF monies. She gave the background to the funding programme and advised that £19m of applications had been received.

The assessment process, which was carried out by the relevant Departments during December and January, has now been completed. A submission is being sent to the Minister on recommended bids this week and an announcement is expected week commencing 24 February 2003. Letters to both successful and unsuccessful applicants will be issued simultaneously.

In response to Mr McCracken’s query, Mr Wall advised that applications had just been broken into the six categories eg community development and capacity building, they did not have a breakdown on equality groupings. Mr Lennox pointed out that this may be difficult to ascertain as applicants had not been asked to answer equality questions on the form.

Mr McCracken suggested that a small research project on the kinds of application received would show gaps and could be fed into the Taskforce. Mr Wall agreed that this could be potentially useful for the Taskforce, however the information provided on the forms was quite basic. He said he would investigate the issue of equality proofing.

Mr McCracken congratulated departments on the EPF application form, stating that it was one of the easiest to complete and that he would like to see more forms of its kind.

4.5 Charities Review

Mr Murray noted that the consultation in England and Wales had closed in December, no date has yet been given for the final report. Northern Ireland is dependent on the recommendations coming out of England and Wales. Although this is a devolved matter, it would be difficult to see how NI could move away from the rest of the UK.

VCU have appointed consultants to carry out a scoping exercise to look at how theconsultation exercise in England might impact in NI. The consultants will develop an options paper, public consultation will then follow. It is difficult to forecast the timetable for this work as NI cannot move forward until we see what way PIU move.It is hoped that the changes for NI will take place in 12-18 months time.

4.6 Partners for Change

Miss Walls told members the Strategy was at the printers and should issue shortly. She advised that the strategy sub-group had met on 24 January. The monitoring process will commence shortly, a copy of the proforma being used was at paper JF4/03. It was also proposed to commence the evaluation process as early as possible, in this way evaluation would hopefully be completed by March 2004 and ensure minimum delay in proceeding with the next document. Members were referred to the timetable for proposed action.

4.7 Outreach

Mr Wall advised members the application process closed on 31 January. A total of 90 applications were received. The majority of applications came from Health Boards and Trusts, District Councils, Government Departments and Agencies, Local Strategy Partnerships, and Education and Library Boards. The volume of applications was much greater than originally anticipated and, as a result, the selection process will take longer than planned.It is expected that selection will not be completed until the end of February.

Initially, it had been hoped to issue Letters Of Offer by April, it is unlikely that this will be met. VCU has approached the Community Foundation to help with the sift stage and the Steering group have also been appointed.

5.Insurance cover for the voluntary and community sector

Mr Smyth noted that this is a very topical issue. He had proposed this item as he had received representations from education and youth groups outlining substantial increases in insurance costs, particularly Employer’s Liability Insurance. He noted that this is a very difficult area, as it is a free market and Government will be reluctant to interfere. There is an Inter-Departmental Working Group led by DETI which is looking into this issue, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has also set up a group to look at it.

Discussions highlighted that this was a widespread issue, members recounted difficulties in the age, children and disability sectors.Mr Smyth pointed out that groups might not be aware of these problems yet, as they may still be in the middle of a 3-year policy.

Members supported Mr Smyths’s suggestion that Forum members express their collective concern and that this is fed back to the DETI working group. Mr Fitzduff stated that if a delegation is to be arranged, the Community Halls Advisory forum in RCN should be represented. Mr McAleavey said NICVA would look at this issue in terms of cost and will complete a survey on this.

Mr Wall stated that this issue is of mutual interest; government will not simply increase grants to cover these insurance premiums and groups will not be able to deliver services if not they are not insured.

6.Children’s Fund

Mr Mulhern noted that he had not provided paper JF6/03, as no Ministerial announcement had been made yet. It is expected that the Ministerial announcement will be made by the end of this week/early next week.He advised that the voluntary and community sector representatives who had participated in the assessment of the Children’s Fund had generally welcomed the outcome.

7. Social Economy

Barbara Swann, DETI gave a presentation, members received a copy of her slides.

Mr Wall said the development of a shared vision and the establishment of a Social Economy Forum were extremely important as they provided organisations in this sector with a mechanism to have their voice heard, which they previously did not have. He agreed it would therefore not be appropriate to link the Social Economy IDG with the IDGVACD as Social Economy Strategy was at an early stage in development and would need focussed attention.Mrs Swann suggested that any members who were on both IDG’s could highlight any areas where there were linkages.

Mr Fitzduff expressed concern at any proposal to merge networks as this might create another layer. Mrs Swann said there would be some areas which could work together and others which would need to remain separate, and agreed there could be some difficulties, she promised to come back to the Forum on this issue.

Mr McAleavey commented at the overlap between the social economy sector and the voluntary and community sector. The social economy sector could in fact be seen as a discrete part of their sector and it was important to promote the value of social economy activity. He said there is always conflict between hard economic outputs and soft social outputs, he referred to Credit Unions which are driven by social objectives and yet are totally financially independent.He suggested the review might look at ways of widening community activities by Credit Unions.

Mr Wall said that given the current climate, the social economy sector offered voluntary and community organisations the opportunity to develop new skills and move in a new direction.

Mrs Swann agreed to come back to the forum in about 6 months.

8. Performance Indicators – Evaluating Voluntary and Community Activity Based Activity

Mr Lennox advised that a template of indicators had been developed by ceni and piloted in four organisations. The four pilot organisations were each quite different and chosen because of their diversity. The indicators and findings from the pilot had been presented to the IDGVACD. Rather than present them to the Joint Forum, it was thought best to provide a presentation to the wider sector in March or April.Details would be circulated when a date was confirmed.

There were two key issues arising from the report: 1. how to measure/ social capital and the softer outcomes of voluntary and community activity, ie how to measure the added value of the sector; and 2. how government interacts with funded voluntary and community groups. Mr Lennox said comments on the report would be very welcome.

9. Four Nations meeting

Mr McAleavey advised that NICVA and their equivalents in England, Scotland and Wales meet twice yearly to discuss issues of common interest. On occasion they invite the lead government department from the host country. At their last meeting they invited all four lead government departments, this proved to be successful and it is intended to continue with this arrangement twice yearly.

These meetings help to ensure all concerned are kept up to speed with what is happening in other areas. At their last meeting they discussed the possible merger between the Community Fund and NOF, the voluntary groups agreed to write to their relevant ministers voicing their concerns, NICVA has already done this. They also discussed the Treasury Cross Cutting Review of the Voluntary and Community Sector and its relevance to the NI Task Force on Resourcing the Voluntary and Community Sector and the allocation of the £125 Future Builders Fund.NICVA had written to the Finance Minister for clarification on whether any of this was coming to Northern Ireland, the Scottish and Welsh voluntary groups were also going to write to their Finance Ministers.

Mr Wall said this new forum had been very useful.Their next meeting was in June; they would report back again.

10.Training Sub-Group

Miss Walls advised that BDS had offered 20 days consultancy to the sector. She referred members to paper JF7/03 which suggested that this service might be offered to organisations in the District Council areas which had not applied for Measure 3.3. Mr Graham expressed concern that the process might be programme driven as opposed to needs driven and that the service should not just be limited to these areas.

There were a number of suggestions as to how this might be taken forward,

Mr Lennox suggested that the NIAO report had highlighted the importance of financial accountability and that perhaps training could be offered in this area. Mr McAleavey suggested groups could be invited to bid for the consultancy service or it could be a combination of training and bids.Mr McCracken suggested a series of half days every month providing advice/answering queries for new projects. Ms McCandless suggested the work might be linked with the Task Force and work with projects to develop best practice.

11.Community Support Plans

Mr Martin advised that he had engaged consultants to identify what a good Community Support Plan would look like and the process necessary to develop such a Plan.Members agreed with his suggestion to set up a tripartite advisory group comprising VCU, district councils and the sector. Ms McCandless said she would forward names after the panel meeting on 7 March. There was some concern that district councils may not take consultants’ views on board, Mr Martin said this was a three-way process and asked members to wait and see how it progresses.

Members asked that this be used as an opportunity to sell Partners for Change to councils, to clarify/investigate district council policy of not funding people with disabilities and look at the issue of under spend by councils.

Mr Graham referred to Mr Wright’s promise in May 2001 that the sector would play a major role in drawing up plans, he advised however, that in reality this had not happened in many councils. Mr Wall said they would ‘police ‘ the programme, however, they could not do this until they had developed a good practice guide. Members said that councils need to be reminded about the Compact and that Plans need to be signed off locally, the sector/marginalised communities need to be involved.

12. Access to Government Information

Ms McCandless advised that it had become more difficult to access information since government had reverted back to Direct Rule, particularly in relation to the Order in Council process. Mr Wall said he would look into this issue. Ms Browne advised members of the site www//ofmdfmni.gov.uk/legislation.htm

13. Any Other Business

VCU Staffing

Mr Wall advised members that Mr Wright was off on long term sick. He wished to thank Maeve Walls for all her hard work, she had moved on to the Victoria Square Project.

Consultation

Mr McCracken asked if the consultation website had been developed. Lorraine Walls said she would contact him with the address. Mr O’Reilly said consultation had been flagged up in the Panel’s paper to the Taskforce. Mr Lennox advised that he had copied the Panel’s paper to the Taskforce. Ms McCandless highlighted that this was just a first attempt and would be teasing out the issues in due course.

Presentations

Mr Fitzduff asked if it was intended to draw up a list of presentations which would be included in the annual programme.

14. Next Meeting

29 May 2003 at NICVA.