Charter NI: Employability Scheme

Oral Answers to Questions — The Executive Office – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 2:30 pm on 21 November 2016.

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Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP 2:30, 21 November 2016

T3. Mr Beggs asked the First Minister and deputy First Minister whether, in relation to the Charter NI employability scheme, the deputy First Minister accepts that fewer people on the ground benefit when there are multiple layers and large administration costs, given that he said that benefits can result from the scheme. (AQT 498/16-21)

Photo of Martin McGuinness Martin McGuinness Sinn Féin

The Member will be aware that we went out to consultation at the beginning of all of this. It is one of the most consulted-on programmes that we have ever been involved in. The process was open and transparent. The whole purpose of the SIF project was that we would have not a top-down approach but a bottom-up one, empowering people in local communities to decide for themselves what communities required as a priority. Putting in place such a process incurs costs. That is unavoidable if it is to be conducted properly. Our civil servants have been meticulous, even to the point of criticism from some that it has taken too long to put this in place.

We are now in a position in which the £80 million has been effectively allocated to projects. As we go forward, we can consistently ask ourselves whether there are ways that we could have improved that during what was a pilot scheme, for want of a better word.

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

The deputy First Minister alluded to the many, many years that it has taken for the funding to reach the ground, and he again says that it is important to get things right. This is language that we have heard before.

Photo of Caitriona Ruane Caitriona Ruane Deputy Speaker

Can the Member come to his question?

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

Will he accept that the process has been fatally flawed and that there are inappropriate processes and a lack of accountability for the decision-making that went along with it?

Photo of Martin McGuinness Martin McGuinness Sinn Féin

No, I will not accept that it was fatally flawed; in fact, practically every party in the Assembly, including the Member's, has been involved in the process from the very beginning. It is interesting to note that, even though people have now seized on what is a very sad situation in east Belfast in an effort to criticise the overall SIF programme, when the First Minister and junior Minister Fearon went to Enniskillen last week for the opening of a £900,000 investment from SIF, the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP were tripping over themselves to get into the photographs.