Background to the Research

• In February 1991, Peter Brooke, then Secretary of State for NI, announced a new policy known as TSN. He acknowledged that there are problems of disadvantage and need within both sides of the community and that the impact of existing policies and programmes must be examined carefully. Brooke made it clear that TSN was more than simply continuing with the government's existing role of meeting needs in society. The main aims of the policy were (a) to pursue the scope for targeting these policies and programmes even more sharply on areas and people in greatest need and (b) to achieve a reduction in community differentials.

Research Approach

• A report by NICVA in May 1994 reviewed progress in the first three years of TSN, inviting the five service Departments to outline how they had implemented it. Four of them said TSN was addressed by all their existing objectives, thus negating the purpose of TSN, which was to target policies and programmes more sharply than before on disadvantaged areas.
• NICVA commissioned this study by Paul McGill to update its 1994 report by examining actual patterns of expenditure by Departments in the 1996/97 financial year. This stemmed from the belief that it was essential to track policy announcements through the decision-making process to the point where they result in concrete help for the many groups which benefit from public spending.
• For reasons of manageability, it was decided to focus on a few departments. Agriculture was included as a Department that seemed entirely untouched by TSN. Economic Development was chosen because of the emphasis in the Donnison report on the need to tackle long-term unemployment. Education was selected because of the powerful part played by qualifications in determining who finds jobs and the vital role of the high levels of education and training in promoting economic growth.
  

Main Findings

Agriculture

• Spending by DANI may be meeting some of the purposes of CAP. From a TSN perspective, however, the agricultural budget is not well spent.
• Large farm businesses received eight times more in subsidies than did their colleagues on small farms, bringing their total incomes to more than £36,000 compared with slightly more than £7,000 on small farms.
• DANI failed to monitor how Catholics and Protestants are affected by changing programmes and policies, even though this could be done without great difficulty through the annual farm census.

Economic Development

• Within DED and its agencies, there was an absence of an agreed definition of TSN areas and of an agreed profile in terms of population, employment, and educational standards.
• The T&EA has gone furthest in implementing TSN, including monitoring religious take-up of services, but its hasty cuts in the Action for Community Employment programme have lent credence to fears that its commitment does not run deep.
• The NI Tourist Board has virtually ignored TSN. Its corporate plan has token comments on the issue but TSN does not feature in its aims or objectives and there are no firm proposals to make it a reality.

Education

• There is a sharp social class bias in the education system, exacerbated by the 11-plus. One result is that spending is skewed predominately towards middle-class children whereas TSN demands that it should be the other way around.
• In terms of the amount of funding to allocate to social deprivation (or TSN) and how it should be distributed, DENI has not explained why it chose 5% as the amount it should top-slice from the budget for social need. Nor has it documented publicly how much it spent on this area before February1991.

Recommendations

• The Government should renew its commitment to TSN as one of its top priorities and Ministers should ensure it is taken on board by Departments.
• The Government should set up a task force, representing government and the voluntary and community sectors, with academic support to: (a) establish agreed baseline information on how much was spent on TSN in 1991/92, (b) estimate how much is being spent this year and (c) agree a definition of TSN areas and profiles of their populations.
• Departments should set progressively more ambitious targets for future spending and achievements in TSN areas, along with programmes to meet them, amended to take account of the report from the task force proposed in recommendation 2.
• There should be a central body responsible for overseeing and monitoring progress on the programmes and targets by Departments.
• The role and functioning of CCRU should be examined urgently with a view to determining whether, with extended powers, staffing and community participation, it is capable of carrying out the role envisaged in recommendation 4.
• The Government should initiate a review of all existing primary and secondary legislation to see to what extent it impedes progress on TSN.
• A mechanism should be created to ensure that the NI perspective on TSN is fully taken into account in United Kingdom-wide legislation and decision-making, possibly through the House of Commons NI Affairs Committee. The principle of parity should be openly debated if divergence would be advantageous to NI, and if local-determined solutions would be superior.
• DANI and government generally should seek a review of the Common Agricultural Policy to ensure a more equitable distribution of funding.
• Departments and agencies should work towards the adoption of good practice on TSN.