Debate contribution: RHI Inquiry Recommendations: Implementation

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on 5 November 2024.

MLA

Mr Paul Frew

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

5 November 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

RHI Inquiry Recommendations: Implementation

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4632068

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The following point has been missing from this debate so far. It is important to note that there are many hard-working individuals in the Northern Ireland Civil Service who contribute daily and substantially to society, but they, just like everyone else, are being failed, and the Northern Ireland Civil Service is in serious need of reform and modernisation. When we get an Audit Office report such as this one, the Assembly needs to sit up and take notice. Although the Finance Minister has had a difficult job since she took up her post, not taking notice is one of her biggest weaknesses. I believe that her Department is letting her down badly in that regard. We therefore need strong leadership in ministerial positions in order to get a grip on the situation. The Audit Office report is damning, and there is a fear that its findings will not get covered adequately in the debate. I will therefore place on record what the Audit Office report states.

In paragraph 19, the Audit Office states:

"The position has regressed for the Record Keeping theme - this relates to Inquiry Recommendation 28, which required regular audits of record keeping to be undertaken."

Paragraph 20 states:

"In the case of 10 of the Inquiry’s recommendations ... we do not concur with the degree of progress reported in the DoF assessment published in March 2024."

The Audit Office is challenging the Department of Finance's own findings, The Audit Office assessed:

"that the actions taken or planned will not result in the ... recommendations being fully implemented".

In paragraph 21, the Audit Office wishes to draw attention to the fact that the:

"Audit Team encountered difficulty in securing timely access to adequate records in support of"

the Department of Finance report in March 2024. Here is a report that the Department of Finance produced in March, yet the Audit Office, mere months later, cannot get access to those details and records. That is damning. Paragraph 22 states:

"Despite DoF having placed its report on its latest assessment outcomes ... in the public domain during March 2024, we found that a complete and readily accessible audit trail of the relevant documentation was largely absent when ... requested ... in April 2024."

One month later, the information and data is absent. Where is the information?

Thank you, Principal Deputy Speaker. Yes, I concur that there are failings here, and the failures continue. This is not just something that happened in the past where failure was identified and we have drawn a line under it. We continue every day to see failure in this place. Every day. I will go to two of the recommendations. Recommendation 39 states:

"Any Minister presenting the Assembly with legislation for approval should sufficiently read and familiarise themselves with that legislation and ensure an adequate evidence base is publicly available to demonstrate that the benefits justify any attendant costs."

Only a matter of weeks ago, we saw the Economy Minister introducing RHI regulations, and the cry from every other party in this place was that they did not have enough detail or enough of the evidence required to make the decisions and vote positively for that legislation. We have had the Justice Minister bring half a Bill to the scrutiny Committee and the Assembly. The Minister has not given the Committee all the clauses that she intends to put in the Bill, yet she expects the scrutiny Committee to scrutinise the Bill — half a Bill. It seems that we have learnt nothing from the inquiry, and the Audit Office report proves that succinctly. Also in the Department of Finance, an interim transformation board is advising the Minister on how it allocates £235 million of available funds over a five-year period. The board has already stripped away 18 of those projects, yet, when the Committee for Finance asks for letters and correspondence from Jayne Brady, head of that transformation board, to the Minister, the scrutiny Committee is denied access to and sight of that correspondence.

That sums it up perfectly.

676 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:31 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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