The Strategic Investment Board (SIB) was established as recognition in 2002 that Northern Ireland had a public sector infrastructure with many serious deficiencies. After a period of preparation, the board recently published an investment strategy for the decade 2005-15, as well as its corporate plan for 2005-08.

From small beginnings, the SIB is now an influential organisation right at the heart of the Northern Ireland administration with a critical influence in every department. The board is headed by David Gavaghan and has 17 key staff: it envisages this increasing to 27 in the next few months. Annual operating costs are just over £9m a year.

The original rationale was that the board would help the (then) ministerial Executive. In political terms, the existence of the board, advising the First Ministers, gave more leverage to the 'centre' to be able to influence departments.

The absence of devolved rule has changed the setting for the SIB. During direct rule the board is an attractive institution to the present ministerial team as a mechanism to bring co-ordinated and resolved advice to Ministers, although they are less vulnerable to the party political pressures that existed within the former Executive.

The ambition of the SIB is to have programmes developing on an orderly basis within the capacity of the businesses who will provide the assets (mainly, but not only, in the construction sector), provide the continuing services, provide the funding and, within the capacity of the public sector, to efficiently manage the contracting details, ranging from conventional tenders to build to a specification to PPP contracts for capital provision, services, maintenance and contract review over periods of over 20 years.

One reaction asks whether the SIB was necessary. Could these responsibilities not lie with the Department of Finance (on financing and contracting questions) and the relevant service departments (for example, health) to assess needs and standards?

The SIB quickly put together a draft strategy confirming an ambition to invest about £16bn in ten years. That was published in December 2004.

Rather less quickly, just over a month ago the SIB published a definitive investment strategy and then at the end of December published its corporate plan for 2005-8. Arguably, either this was a path-breaking task completed expeditiously, since the finalisation of projects and priorities the first time round was novel, or the time taken might be seen as a criticism of the state of capital planning in the public sector, since many of the capital needs should have already been prepared.

The board can claim much of the credit for the acceleration in the capital investment programme in Northern Ireland. The public sector had an annual capital budget of only £687m in 2002-3 and this is now expected to nearly double to £1,338m in 2007-8.

What is less clear is how the internal debate in government decided on the content of the programmes and projects that should be included, and then those which have been put at the top of the priority list. Since the projects and the early timetable implications have attracted little or no critical comment, the SIB has the unusual advantage of a near consensus on the merits of its plans.

Much more difficult, as the years evolve, will be an independent appraisal of the efficiency of delivery and the overall value for money. Are so many of the hospitals (acute and psychiatric) all in need of the large sums earmarked? Is the schools estate so inadequate in so many places? The Northern Ireland approach has already attracted interest from other countries. Lessons on efficiency and impact assessment of value for money will be a logical follow-up.

The professional staff of the SIB run the risk that their leverage in developing investment policies will attract suspicion from existing staff within the current system. They must conspicuously answer doubts about 'knowing it all' and (or) bringing a London-orientated finance based set of values that take insufficient account of local 'values'. These risks are, if anything, increasing during direct rule where today's Ministers are potentially vulnerable to the same criticisms.

For these reasons the SIB needs to carefully assess its programmes, embed local expertise and ensure that its work is fully and carefully communicated. Inside the public sector senior officials now work with the SIB and departmental budgets contribute part of the operational costs.

For reasons of principle and practice, the SIB should avoid a temptation to present itself as the new key professional decision-making body with assistance from today's officials. Substantively and presentationally, the reverse would be commended.

Second, the work of the SIB should be conspicuously seen as integrated with wider government planning of public services and explicitly linked to, and serving, economic, environmental and social policies.

Third, SIB publications should be written without any trace of condescension, avoiding over-complimentary generalisations, and with a minimum of technical and financial jargon.

At this early stage the SIB is vulnerable to criticism on each of these themes, which need to be related to the marketing and communications aspects of the SIB corporate plan.

The key audiences are said to include politicians, Civil Service departments and suppliers (such as the construction industry). No direct mention is made of the general public or organisations reflecting civil society.

Possibly the key messages are too SIB centric: "SIB represents the political will to make things happen; SIB represents a different or new way of doing things; SIB is here to make things happen." These might be restated in a style to win more friends and emphasise the benefits of mutually supportive actions.

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