Latest news with #NorthernIrelandExecutive
The Independent
2 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
Value of Stormont Executive's office in Beijing questioned
The value for money of the Northern Ireland Executive's office in the Chinese capital has been questioned. The chair of the Assembly's scrutiny committee for the Executive Office suggested it cost around a quarter of a million pounds a year to run the office in Beijing. The Executive also has offices in Washington DC and Brussels. It has had a presence in Beijing since 2014, before then-first minister Arlene Foster opened an Executive bureau in December 2016. Executive Committee chair Paula Bradshaw said she had concerns around its value for money, after the committee heard from the three bureaux during a meeting last month. Executive Office official Brenda Henderson said she appreciated there is frustration around transparency and accounting for what they do. ' One of the things that I want to do is to get that coherency across all three bureaux and with the international relations team in Belfast to make sure that we have a clear narrative, that our communications plans can let you see, and let our ministers see, exactly who we're meeting, what is the outcome of that, what does it mean, the 'so what' question in terms of the Programme For Government,' she told MLAs. 'Work is already under way on that.' Ms Bradshaw followed up by asking at what point would they conclude it is not value for money, and that they could be doing other things with that money. Ms Henderson said there are different ways to measure value for money. 'One of the things that I know that the overseas offices do is that they build relationships, you have to build those relationships before you utilise them, but there are things about companies, investment, increased student places they bring,' she said. 'I think what we need to do is be more absolutely transparent about that and be clear about the metrics, what we can measure and that we stand in front of those.' Permanent Secretary David Malcolm said he can 'see behind the curtain', and knows what the Beijing office is doing, He expressed frustration it was not communicated. He said last month the vice minister for education in China visited Northern Ireland and signed an agreement with the Confucious Institute in Belfast and the Department for the Economy for a £34 million programme over the next 10 years. He also said in Beijing this St Patrick's Day, there were two community organisations led by Chris Hazzard, including young people who had never left Ireland before. 'There is significant work we're doing,' he said. 'We are also talking to the Chinese Consul about a mini conference here later on,' he said. 'The Chinese have agreed to fund three placements in Beijing through the Arts Council to give people the opportunity to break into the Chinese market. There is a tremendous amount we're doing.' He added: 'Not just in Beijing, in Washington, we punch miles above our weight in the representational role we get, and indeed in Brussels.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Value of Stormont Executive's office in Beijing questioned
The value for money of the Northern Ireland Executive's office in the Chinese capital has been questioned. The chair of the Assembly's scrutiny committee for the Executive Office suggested it cost around a quarter of a million pounds a year to run the office in Beijing. The Executive also has offices in Washington DC and Brussels. It has had a presence in Beijing since 2014, before then-first minister Arlene Foster opened an Executive bureau in December 2016. Executive Committee chair Paula Bradshaw said she had concerns around its value for money, after the committee heard from the three bureaux during a meeting last month. Executive Office official Brenda Henderson said she appreciated there is frustration around transparency and accounting for what they do. 'One of the things that I want to do is to get that coherency across all three bureaux and with the international relations team in Belfast to make sure that we have a clear narrative, that our communications plans can let you see, and let our ministers see, exactly who we're meeting, what is the outcome of that, what does it mean, the 'so what' question in terms of the Programme For Government,' she told MLAs. 'Work is already under way on that.' Ms Bradshaw followed up by asking at what point would they conclude it is not value for money, and that they could be doing other things with that money. Ms Henderson said there are different ways to measure value for money. 'One of the things that I know that the overseas offices do is that they build relationships, you have to build those relationships before you utilise them, but there are things about companies, investment, increased student places they bring,' she said. 'I think what we need to do is be more absolutely transparent about that and be clear about the metrics, what we can measure and that we stand in front of those.' Permanent Secretary David Malcolm said he can 'see behind the curtain', and knows what the Beijing office is doing, He expressed frustration it was not communicated. He said last month the vice minister for education in China visited Northern Ireland and signed an agreement with the Confucious Institute in Belfast and the Department for the Economy for a £34 million programme over the next 10 years. He also said in Beijing this St Patrick's Day, there were two community organisations led by Chris Hazzard, including young people who had never left Ireland before. 'There is significant work we're doing,' he said. 'We are also talking to the Chinese Consul about a mini conference here later on,' he said. 'The Chinese have agreed to fund three placements in Beijing through the Arts Council to give people the opportunity to break into the Chinese market. There is a tremendous amount we're doing.' He added: 'Not just in Beijing, in Washington, we punch miles above our weight in the representational role we get, and indeed in Brussels.'
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Stormont target for social housing falls short by 1,000 homes
Stormont's budget will only fund work on about 1,000 new social houses this year, far short of the Northern Ireland Executive's target. The Programme for Government committed to starting work on at least 5,850 new build social homes by 2027. That equates to about 2,000 new starts per year which would be a big step up compared to the delivery rate of recent years. However, on the basis of the current budget the number of homes started this year will be lower than the 1,504 started last year. Speaking in the Northern Ireland Assembly on Monday, Communities Minister Gordon Lyons, who is responsible for housing, said he was operating in a "continually constrained" budget environment. "The assembly last year declared a housing crisis in Northern Ireland, yet we are left in a position where we're funding less the 50% of the Programme for Government housing target," he said. Lyons has committed 80% of his available capital spending to housing. He also raised the possibility that more money would be forthcoming, pointing out that last year's initial budget only contained enough for 400 housing starts. He said his department will "put the same effort into driving up these figures this year as we did last year". Lyons said it was also necessary to consider "how to do more with the money we have to build more homes", adding that he will bring some proposals to the executive. He pointed to medium term policies, such as getting borrowing powers for the Housing Executive, which should help to increase housing supply. Lyons described social housing as "crucial", providing "affordable, stable housing options for those who might otherwise struggle in the private rental market". He added that its inclusion in the Programme for Government "shows the widespread support to deliver affordable, sustainable and quality housing". Caoimhe Austin, from Londonderry, has been on the housing waiting list for three years and said she feels "despair" following Monday's announcement. Ms Austin, who has mobility issues, said she would like politicians "to find out a bit more about the people who are waiting for houses and the type of situations that they are in. "People are in really dire situations," she added She said having a permanent home "would make a serious difference to my physical and mental well-being. "There would be a huge improvement, because I would be able then to have or make the adaptations that I require that would make daily living a lot easier. "I would have peace of mind and the potential for the ability to plan for the future depending on what happens with my health." What will the programme for government mean for you? Homeless single father wants home for his children Christmas wish comes true after six-year social home wait Figures published last month show that in the first quarter of this year 49,083 households in Northern Ireland were on a social housing waiting list. The Department for Communities, which is the main funder for social housing, has allocated £63m to social housing. It has a total capital budget of about £270m but most of that is already committed to existing projects. The department can bid for additional money through the year in budget reallocation exercises, known as monitoring rounds. A monitoring round is due to be held this month but there is no certainty about how much money will be available or how it will be prioritised. The department would need an additional £62m to keep it on track to hit the Programme for Government target. Seamus Leheny, the chief executive of the Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations, said the country "is in the grip of a deepening housing crisis". "The social housing waiting list grows every year - yet once again, the budget for new social homes falls woefully short. "It's less than half of what's needed to even begin reducing that list," he said. "While the minister's talk of new approaches is welcome, we need to see concrete plans now - not another year of delay. "We can't afford to be in the same position this time next year, still waiting for action, with uncertainty for social housing builders and a growing waiting list." Northern Ireland 'needs to build 100,000 homes by 2039' 'Unsustainable financial pressure' on homeless services - report £6.7m allocated to tackle homelessness
BBC News
23-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
UK-EU deal: Uncertain future for £200m NI port infrastructure
Almost £200m worth of recently-built port infrastructure in Northern Ireland faces partial redundancy when this week's EU-UK deal is eventually products and plants being shipped from Great Britain currently have to pass through government-operated border control posts (BCPs) at Northern Ireland will no longer be necessary when an agrifood deal is April, a government minister said new BCPs at Belfast, Larne, Foyle and Warrenpoint would be "operationally ready" by July. Baroness Hayman said the government had committed to "a maximum funding envelope of £192.3m" for the facilities, of which £71m had been spent by February this BCPs are being paid for by the UK government but will be handed over to the Northern Ireland Executive when Brexit, Northern Ireland effectively stayed inside the EU's single market for goods while the rest of the UK EU has strict rules on food, plants and animals entering its single market including the stipulation that they must pass through a BCP where they can be checked and paperwork Ireland's ports already had limited BCPs for inspecting animals from Great Britain and food products from outside the the terms of the UK's 2019 deal with the EU, the BCPs needed to be hugely expanded to deal with the volume of trade from Great Britain - for example the Larne BCP is being expanded to cover a 10-acre was controversial among unionists as it was the most obvious physical manifestation of the "Irish Sea border" created by the 2019 deal. How does the UK-EU deal affect NI's ports? When the new deal is implemented, all of the UK will return to following EU agrifood means checks will no longer be required on Great British goods entering Northern Ireland, drastically reducing the volume of goods passing through facilities will not be entirely redundant as a small volume of non-EU goods being shipped directly to Northern Ireland will still require inspections and Larne will continue its pre-Brexit role in livestock inspections. On Tuesday, DUP MP Sammy Wilson asked the prime minister if construction could now stop at the Larne BCP, which is in his Keir Starmer said: "I want to ensure that we have real improvement in the situation on the ground and do not go to unnecessary expense. "I genuinely believe that, for Northern Ireland, this was a big step in the right direction."The new deal also raises questions about the BCP at Holyhead in north Wales which is being built to inspect food products from the Republic of Ireland arriving into Great Britain. Regulatory inspections of EU food products arriving into Great Britain will also be scrapped when the deal is implemented. Last week the Welsh government said the majority of building work on the Holyhead site is '"now nearing completion" and is due to be finished by the end of the UK government is reportedly considering selling at least one of the BCP sites in Great Britain. It's understood Stormont's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) is at an early stage of assessing the future of the Northern Ireland BCPs.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Anti-poverty strategy to be signed off after 18 years
Stormont ministers are expected to agree the Northern Ireland Executive's first-ever draft strategy to tackle poverty later on Thursday, BBC News NI understands. In March, Stormont's Executive Committee was found in breach of its legal obligation to adopt the strategy by a court ruling. The anti-poverty strategy was first committed to 18 years ago with the aim of reducing social exclusion and deprivation. Communities Minister Gordon Lyons submitted a draft paper to ministers for consideration about six weeks ago. The minister previously described the document as a "realistic" but long-term plan to tackle poverty. It must be signed off by ministers before it can go out for public consultation. It will then return to the executive for any final changes to be considered before Stormont departments can begin to implement it. Recent figures from the Department for Communities (DfC) suggest about 22% of children in Northern Ireland are growing up in poverty. The figures also indicate that about 23% of children are in relative poverty and about 20% are in absolute poverty. The anti-poverty strategy is a requirement inserted into the Northern Ireland Act, following the St Andrews Agreement in 2006. There have been multiple court orders and legal challenges made as no strategy has ever been implemented in Northern Ireland. In January, judgment was reserved in a recent legal challenge brought against Stormont for "failing to adopt" an anti-poverty strategy for Northern Ireland. Two months later at the High Court in Belfast, Stormont's Executive Committee was found in breach of its legal obligation to adopt a strategy. Trása Canavan from Barnados and a member of the Anti-Poverty Strategy Group said: "Unfortunately we haven't had any sight of this document." "We haven't had any engagement with, either as individual organisations or as the anti-poverty strategy group, the minister or his officials on the development of the draft strategy," she told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme. "You know this group did a huge amount of work throughout the course of the 2021, 2022 and subsequent years to input into a co-design process and then develop our own paper recommendations, which was nearly 100 pages. "So there is a huge amount of work that has gone on and that we shared with the department. "We really hoped that would have informed the draft but I can't tell you what's in it because we haven't been engaged in the process of the development of this paper." There are two main measurements of low income used by the government, absolute poverty and relative poverty. Income is counted as the money a household has to spend after housing costs are taken into account. Absolute poverty measures how many people this year cannot afford a set standard of living. The Department for Work and Pensions at Westminster currently defines it based on the living standard an average income could buy in the year ending in March 2011. If your income is 40% below this, after adjusting for rising prices since then, you are classed as living in absolute poverty. Relative poverty is the number of people whose income is 40% below the average income today. An individual is considered to be in relative poverty if they are living in a household with an income below 60% of the typical UK income. This is a measure of whether those in the lowest income households are keeping pace with the growth of incomes in the population as a whole. Anti-poverty strategy to be considered by ministers Stormont found in breach of duty on anti-poverty Long term plan needed to tackle child poverty - minister
