Debate contribution: Core Grant Scheme

Debate contribution by Mr Mike Nesbitt on 7 April 2025.

MLA

Mr Mike Nesbitt

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

7 April 2025

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Committee Business

Heading

Core Grant Scheme

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4891277

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. From the get-go, let us consider the irony klaxon to have been sounded. It is exhausted. As Mr Robinson pointed out, we were here relatively recently. The amended motion that was passed that day is interesting. It reads:

"That this Assembly commends the work of the community and voluntary sector, which provides vital mental health services for the most vulnerable in society; recognises the immense challenges that will be faced by the health service as a result of a 50% cut to its core grant funding; and calls on the Minister of Finance to identify funding, as a matter of urgency, to allow the Minister of Health to reinstate this funding." — [Official Report (Hansard), 30 September 2024, p59, col 2].

Mr Robinson said that nothing had changed. However, the name of the Minister has changed, because the call is no longer on the Minister of Finance: the call is on me. I suppose that is fair enough. My Department continues to support and rely heavily on the sector, as it has done for many years. What I found interesting was the fact that not one speaker in the debate made reference not to the core grant but to the commissioned contracts that are paid to the voluntary and community sector every year. I will certainly give way to any Member who knows what that figure was for the financial year 2024-25. Nobody?

I am not putting anything back on the voluntary and community sector. You are entirely disingenuous to say that. I simply asked members of the Committee whether they knew what we paid in commissioned services last year. The answer is £53 million. I want to be clear: the core grant is not the beginning and end of the financial transactions between the Department of Health and the voluntary and community sector. The first time that I read today's motion, I was a bit taken aback, because it begins by expressing "disappointment" at the number of groups that were successful in their application. That reads to me that Members are expressing disappointment with the voluntary and community sector, which drew up the six criteria for the new scheme. The Department did not do that; the voluntary and community sector did. When I took up the post in late May, the core grant came up in the first-day briefs in early June, and it was clear to me that it was moribund. It was also clear to me that the Department's advice was that I should let it die off because such were the financial pressures that I would have to consider endorsing catastrophic cuts in my health budget; for example, closing an intensive care unit bed in an acute hospital, which could have cost somebody their life. Like Robin Swann before me, I said that I would not sign off on catastrophic cuts. However, I was advised, "Let the core grant scheme go. There's no budget against it — nothing — so just let it go and concentrate on other things." I said, "I'm not prepared to do that. At a minimum, find me the £1·8 million that it had last year and the year before that." I was then shocked to be told that the scheme had been in place for 20 years and was therefore a closed shop to the organisations in receipt of the funds. Any charity that had been established in the 20 years since the core grant scheme began could not even apply for money. I said, "That's not good enough", and I contacted Celine McStravick and asked her if NICVA would facilitate the workshops that would lead to a redesign of the scheme. That is how we got to where we are today. I take exception to some of the language that I have heard about the exclusion of groups, the defunding of groups and funding being pulled from groups. We had six new criteria drawn up by the voluntary and community sector. Some applicants were successful, and some were not. I was surprised that so few groups were successful. I was particularly surprised to hear that it was some of the smaller charities who said, "Do not exclude the bigger charities. If they are best placed to deliver services, let them apply". It has skewed the outcome, and I want to review it. Since the scheme was announced and completed, I have spoken to NICVA and the Coalition of Carers. We have decided that we will look again at the scheme for next year. In the meantime, everybody will get feedback on why they were unsuccessful and what they might have done to enhance their chances. However, if we are going to tweak the scheme — we may, at least, tweak it — they need to have that information as well about what more it means. The motion goes on to urge the Minister of Health "to engage meaningfully with stakeholders". Does that imply that, previously, I have not engaged meaningfully? That is how I read it. In the context that self-praise is no recommendation, I have been engaging meaningfully with the community and voluntary sector for decades. One of the privileges of having a high profile because you are on TV a lot is that charities come to you and ask, "Will you help us?". I have helped many charities, big and small. I have been patron of Action Cancer for many years. I was also patron of a much smaller charity that I was very fond of called Shine A Light. I worked with Children with Cancer, organising trips and treats for the children. I have raised thousands of pounds personally for charities. I engaged meaningfully during my time on television and then as a victims' commissioner. It was voluntary and community sector groups that, on a daily basis, delivered positive differences to the thousands of victims and survivors of the conflict that we so euphemistically call "our Troubles". As a victims' commissioner, I developed a deep appreciation and admiration for the work of the community and voluntary sector. The motion calls for me to "engage meaningfully with stakeholders", when the first thing that I did when I was told about the core grant was meaningfully engage with NICVA to say, "We have got to make this scheme fit for purpose. It has been going for 20 years. We have got to open it up so that everybody can apply". By the way, there is an idea that £1·8 million is not enough: the £1·8 million was announced before we reviewed the scheme, not at the end. I am puzzled that people are coming at the end of the scheme and saying that £1·8 million is not enough, because they could have gone to the first workshop about the redesign of the scheme and said, "I do not want to participate in this. We must shout louder that £1·8 million is not enough". I agree that it is not great; it really is not great. As Mrs Dodds said, it has real and serious consequences, but what in healthcare provision does not have real and serious consequences, up to and including life-threatening consequences? I heard the Finance Minister say that this should be the last single-year Budget. I very much hope that that is the case. He says that it is a game changer. I believe that it is as well. It could be a game changer for the core grant if we were able to provide it on a guaranteed basis for, maybe, three years. My final point is that the motion calls on me

"to urgently review the amount of funding allocated to ensure that the sector is adequately supported."

Again, I will give way. How much? What is the quantum? Anybody? Can I remind you that section 29(1)(a)(ii) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 gives you a statutory obligation to "advise and assist" me. Quantum, anybody?

With respect to the Chair, that does not answer the question. The motion:

"calls on the Minister to urgently review the amount of funding allocated to ensure that the sector is adequately supported."

I do not think that £3·6 million will cut it, and I do not think that the Member does either. We should really be on the same page here. The voluntary and community sector is absolutely essential to healthcare delivery, but I do not think that the motion is appropriate. I do not think that it does justice to my views and my desire to help the voluntary and community sector.

1,429 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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