MINUTES OF THE TWENTY-SECOND meeting

 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FORUM, 8 DECEMBER 2004

QUEENS UNIVERSITY, BELFAST

 

Present:            See attached list (Annex 1)

 

Apologies:         John Spellar, Lord Rana, Peter Bunting, Seamus McAleavey, Roy Crawford, Anne O’Reilly, Frances McCandless, Lawrence Smyth

 

1.                  Welcome and Apologies / Minutes of Last Meeting                             EDF 22/1

 

1.1               Mr Robinson welcomed members and advised that he would chair the meeting until the Minister’s arrival.  In the absence of Roy Crawford, Professor Ken Brown, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Academic Planning welcomed members of the Forum to Queens University.

 

1.2               Mr Robinson noted a number of apologies and welcomed Clark Black, Michael Maguire, Bernie Hannigan, Frank Hewitt and Ian Humes.

 

1.3               The minutes of the meeting held on 1 September 2004 were agreed, without amendment.  Mr Robinson reminded members of the request, at the June 2004 Forum meeting, for a presentation on Careers provision and advised that the DEL progress report included an update on Careers.  During discussion, members raised the issue of a forthcoming inspection by the Education and Training Inspectorate.  Mr Haire agreed that this was an important issue and that he would discuss this with Gerry McGinn, Permanent Secretary, Department of Education.  It was agreed that the Departments of Education and Employment and Learning would be invited to give a joint presentation at a future EDF meeting.

 

ACTION:           Secretariat to arrange a joint presentation on Careers by DE and DEL at a future EDF meeting.

 

2.         Role of the Bank of England in NI                                                      EDF 22/2

 

2.1       Mr Robinson welcomed Phil Eckersley, the Bank of England’s Agent in Northern Ireland.  He explained that Mr Eckersley had been invited to address the Forum in order to enhance members’ understanding of the role of the Bank of England in NI and so that Mr Eckersley could gain an insight into the work of EDF in shaping economic development policy.

 

2.2       Mr Eckersley advised that the Bank of England had divided the UK into twelve regions for the purposes of obtaining feedback on economic activity and that he represented the NI region.  He explained that Bank Agents hold around 8000 meetings with business contacts each year and then reported back to the Bank of England Committee to inform its analysis of the economy.  Mr Eckersley provided members with a geographical summary of his contacts in NI and explained that, in the main, these correlated with the sectoral and GDP breakdown of the NI region.  Members thanked Mr Eckersley for his insight into the workings of the Bank of England.

 

3.         Role of the Central Procurement Directorate                                     EDF 22/5

 

3.1       Mr Robinson reminded members that, at the June 2004 Forum meeting, a presentation on the role of the Central Procurement Directorate (CPD) had been requested and invited John McMillen, Director of CPD, to give his presentation.

 

3.2       Mr McMillen explained that the Central Procurement Directorate, an amalgamation of the Construction Service and Government Purchasing Agency, had been established as a result of a NI Review of Public Procurement in 2002 and provided support for a NI Policy Procurement Board.  He advised that it was now policy that all public procurement will be executed through Service Level Agreements with centres of procurement expertise by 31 March 2005.  CPD’s aim was to integrate procurement policy through other Government policies e.g. DEL’s Essential Skills strategy, DoE’s Environmental Purchasing.

 

3.3       Mr McMillen explained that the Procurement Board’s strategic priorities for 2005-08 aimed to deliver £250m Value for Money (VFM) improvement; deliver best VFM from all procurement; develop Government client and supply side capabilities; and provide leadership in identification and adoption of best practice.  Mr McMillen referred members to a number of publications produced by CPD as part of its Outreach policy.  It was agreed that a copy of the guide for social economy enterprises should be issued to members for information.

 

3.4       Members raised the issues of equality and social inclusion throughout the procurement process.  It was agreed that consideration of these issues within the procurement process was constructive but more work was required.  In response to a query on the issue of de-briefing for unsuccessful applicants, Mr McMillen advised that, as CPD wanted the procurement process to be as open and transparent as possible, all bidders were offered a de-brief and guidance on de-briefing had been issued.  Other issues raised included clustering work, measuring effectiveness of expertise centres and target setting for the level of local supply.

 

3.5       In view of the number of issues raised during discussion, it was agreed that CPD would be invited to present an update at a future meeting of the Forum.

 

ACTION:           CPD, via the Secretariat to arrange for members to receive a copy of the procurement guide for social economy enterprises.

 

ACTION:           Secretariat to arrange for public procurement to be included on the agenda for a future meeting of the Forum.

 

4.         Economic Vision                                                                                EDF 22/3

 

4.1               The Minister joined the meeting at this point and invited Wilfie Hamilton to open discussion on the Vision document, consultation on which had ended on 7 December.  Mr Hamilton advised that the overall response to the development of a Vision had been positive and a number of suggestions had been put forward.  He explained that some of the local political parties had responded and that it had been agreed the Minister would consult the parties once again before any final document was published.  Mr Hamilton thanked members for their input to the development of the Vision and asked them to consider how the final Vision document might best be overseen / monitored and the implications this might have on the role and future operation of EDF.

 

4.2               During discussion, members agreed that, although Vision contained the correct level of detail and had a crispness and sharpness, it might be beneficial to also produce a more concise version, which set out key headlines.  In general, members were supportive of the Vision but emphasised that it should not be seen as a Government document and that EDF would have a role to play in driving it forward.  To do this, the Forum would need to work with DETI to turn the Vision into action and appropriate monitoring arrangements would need to be put in place.  Members agreed that alignment between strategic intent and action was required and that realistic targets needed to be put in place.  It was agreed that further time would be required to: consider the Sub-group’s review of the MTSPs framework; consider the work undertaken by Regional Forecasts; identify the links to the Vision; and debate and agree respective roles for the stakeholders (all relevant NI Departments, NDBPs and EDF) who would feed into the delivery of the Vision.

 

4.3               Although members agreed that the current linking of the Vision to the budget was appropriate, it was agreed that the budget now had the economy as one of the priorities and that the publication of the Vision would provide an opportune time to separate the two and focus on the development of the economy.  Members also emphasised the importance of ensuring buy-in from the local political parties who, it was hoped, would inherit the Vision agenda.

 

4.4               In summing up, the Minister urged members to consider how best the Forum could set out their aspirations for the NI economy and set targets to achieve these aspirations - not predictions based on historic performance.

 

ACTION:           Secretariat to arrange an Away-Day to discuss the role of EDF in relation to the Vision and to review work undertaken to date by the MTSPs Sub-group.

 

ACTION:           Secretariat to advise members of the publication date for the Strategic Investment Board’s Investment Strategy.

 

5.         Report from MTSPs Sub-group                                                           EDF 22/4

 

5.1               In the absence of Seamus McAleavey, the Minister invited Raymond Mullan to present the Sub-group report.

 

5.2               Mr Mullan provided an overview of work by the Sub-group in relation to the review of the MTSPs framework.  He informed members that the findings from the Regional Forecast project were still under consideration and that while progress had been made some further work would be necessary before the Forum would be in a position to publicise the revised framework.  The planned media brief would, therefore, be postponed until after the necessary additional work was completed.

 

5.3               Members noted Annexes A and B of the Sub-group report which set out Regional Forecasts’ initial findings and described the forecasting model and noted that it was the Sub-group’s intention to consider these in more detail in the New Year.  Members also accepted that discussions on the Economic Vision had overtaken the work of the Sub-group but that their report would inform discussion at the Away-Day.  It was also agreed that further consideration of the drafting of the Forum’s 2^nd Annual Statement should be put on hold until the Away-Day.

 

5.4               Members endorsed the Sub-group’s proposal to publish a progress report on implementation of the EDF Action Plan to the Forum’s website.

 

ACTION:           Secretariat to arrange publication of the EDF Action Plan progress report to the Forum’s website.

 

6.                  Food Strategy Report                                                                        EDF 22/6

 

6.1               The Minister welcomed Dan Flinter, Chairman of the Food Strategy Implementation Partnership (FSIP) and Graham Davis and Peter Scott from Invest NI and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) respectively.

 

6.2               Mr Flinter outlined the background to the publication of the Fit for Market report and gave an overview of key conclusions highlighted in the report.  These included the continuing changes to the agri-food sector, the fact that the potential of the sector was not recognised and that a strategy was key if the sector was to gain a competitive advantage.  Mr Flinter advised members that there were a number of issues which needed consideration and action.  These included how food was sourced and how to increase the flow of young people into the industry, particularly young graduates to encourage innovation as a means of gaining competitive advantage.  He advised that the first meeting of the Food Strategy Implementation Partnership had already taken place and an Invest NI / DARD project team had been established.  The FSIP would meet again in January 2005 to consider time-related deliverables.

 

6.3               In response to a query about cohesion within the agri-food industry, Mr Flinter acknowledged that there were tensions between buyers and sellers and part of the FSIP work would be to take action to encourage a more cohesive approach within the industry.  On the issue of innovation, it was acknowledged that a large portion of near-market research was carried out by only a few companies in NI and that stimulating innovation needed further consideration.

 

ACTION:           Secretariat to arrange for Dan Flinter to attend a meeting of the Forum during 2005 to update members on implementation of the Fit for Market Report.

 

7.                  Progress Reports                                                                               EDF 22/7

 

7.1               Members noted written progress reports in relation to the DRD Regional Transportation Strategy (RTS), DEL Employability Taskforce work and DETI Key Issues.  In relation to the Enterprise Sub-group’s Residual Issues paper, members agreed the actions proposed in Annex A in relation to the Forum’s work on shadow economy activity in NI.

 

ACTION:           Secretariat to support members in taking forward the agreed actions in relation to the shadow economy.

 

8.                  Any Other Business

 

Freedom of Information (FOI)

 

8.1               The Minister drew members’ attention to a paper about the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act, with effect 1 January 2005, and the implications of this for EDF.  The Minister advised that, in the spirit of openness and transparency on which the Act was premised, it was proposed that minutes of the quarterly meetings during the past 12 months should be posted to the Forum’s website.  Minutes of future meetings would be posted to the website as soon as they had been cleared by members.  Copies of earlier papers / minutes would be made available, on request, after these had been examined in line with FOI exemptions.  It was agreed that members would be advised in the event that the redaction of material was necessary.  It was noted that all EDF publications and press releases were already available via the website.

 

ACTION:           Secretariat to post the minutes of quarterly meetings during the last 12 months to the EDF website and make earlier minutes / papers available on request.

 

ACTION:           Secretariat to post minutes of future quarterly and Sub-group meetings to the Forum website once cleared by members.

 

ACTION:           Secretariat to advise members in the event of any redaction of material in advance of publication or release under a FOI request.

 

Dates for 2005 Forum Meetings

 

8.2       Members noted that the dates for Forum meetings in 2005 would be:

 

            2 March;

15 June;

14 September; and

7 December.

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ANNEX 1

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FORUM MEETING – 8 DECEMBER 2004

 

ATTENDEES