Rural Development Programme: Strategic Projects

Agriculture and Rural Development – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 2:45 pm on 26 June 2012.

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Photo of Ian McCrea Ian McCrea DUP 2:45, 26 June 2012

5. asked the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development to outline her Department’s definition of “eligible strategic project”, following her decision that clusters should make open calls for strategic projects to underpin and realise strategic spend. (AQO 2273/11-15)

Photo of Michelle O'Neill Michelle O'Neill Sinn Féin

In December, I announced a refocus for axis 3 that was driven in part by low project spend and high administrative spend. All areas have now examined their progress and have agreed to refocus by reallocating funds both to higher investment measures and larger strategic projects. Indeed, all areas are now open for calls for strategic projects.

Local authorities, NGOs and the community sector, including social economy enterprises, will be eligible to apply for the strategic projects. For a project to be eligible, it must be ready to go; in other words, there must be no impediments to its ability to start before the end of April 2013 and the project must be completed by 2014. There are other elements to the full criteria, which all areas published when they went to the press to open their calls. I am happy to get the Member a copy of those criteria if he so wishes.

The local action groups will make the decisions under the LEADER methodology, and it is up to them, not DARD officials, to determine what fits the strategic criteria.

Photo of Ian McCrea Ian McCrea DUP

Now that the criteria have been set, I hope that they will be kept, because the goalposts for some of these projects have been moved before. How will the Department support clusters that have limited unapproved funding available so that letters of offer for approved strategic projects are issued and viable projects can be moved to implementation quickly?

Photo of Michelle O'Neill Michelle O'Neill Sinn Féin

The principle behind all this is that we do not send money back to Europe, so I am committed to making sure that the money that we have is spent with the best value in support of our rural communities. You talked about a number of initiatives, and I think that strategic projects are very important. Once the criteria are published, the goalposts cannot be changed, so I hope that that reassures you somewhat.

We are doing a number of things. As I said, strategic projects are very important. We have just agreed the implementation plans for clusters for the year ahead, and part of that will look at the measures for which spending is better than for others and at shifting some money around so that it is put into the better-spending measures. I am confident that a lot of hard work is being done. As you know, the JCCs work very hard to get their spend out. There is sometimes a concern that calls are closed and so forth, but that is not the case. If that is ever the case, it is only because there may be a backlog of applications that need to be dealt with. The idea is to get the letters of offer out, get the work started and get the money for the projects spent for the best value for the rural communities. So, we have a lot of work to do over the year ahead, but I think that the JCCs and the Department are up for it. I also think that, collectively, we can make sure that we get all the money spent for the best value for the rural community.

Photo of Dominic Bradley Dominic Bradley Social Democratic and Labour Party

Go raibh míle maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle, agus gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire fosta as ucht a freagra. I thank the Minister for her answer. What examples of eligible projects is her Department considering? By that, I mean projects that might be termed strategic for clusters.

Photo of Michelle O'Neill Michelle O'Neill Sinn Féin

As I said in my initial answer, when the local areas published their call for strategic projects, they also published criteria, and it up to each local area to set its own criteria.

The most important thing to me is that the strategic projects that come forward be projects that can be delivered within the time frame set. Therefore, a lot of them are probably projects that people had already been thinking about or had started to work up. I suppose that the beauty of the strategic call is that, given the nature of the LEADER approach, the strategic projects for the area will be designed to meet the strategic needs identified for it.

The other beauty of it is that the level of funding has increased. Normally it is £250,000, but that has risen to £1 million. That allows projects to come forward that may not have been able to under the normal funding situation. I think that the closing date for applications for five of the cluster groups is on Friday. Therefore, through working in close conjunction with the JCCs, we will be in a better position next week to know the types of projects that will be coming forward.

Photo of Barry McElduff Barry McElduff Sinn Féin

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. Is it true that the Department has stopped clusters from opening new calls?

Photo of Michelle O'Neill Michelle O'Neill Sinn Féin

As I said earlier, it is not a case of closing people down or stopping any spend. As Minister, I have a role in the managing authority. The Department is the managing authority, but the LEADER approach dictates that the local areas will set their own strategic vision for what they want to achieve, and rightly so. They will set the criteria and assess the applications.

The only reason that I would ever get involved would be to say that it is not a good idea to open more calls because there is a pile so high on a table that needs to be assessed. It is very important to me that we get the letters of offer out to groups as quickly as possible so that they can start work and we can get the money spent in good time. That is the only time that we would get involved with the JCCs. The implementation plans that have now been agreed for 2012-13 clearly show that there is no issue with any cluster not being able to open calls.