Speeches by Kane.

“We would hope you would do that anyway.”

“I was not asking you that; I was asking you how you will measure how many houses have been built. I do not want to change it to be a different measure of success.”

“We have asked you for a number. You have said, “We can give you that number, but we will give it you in future, and it may change.” I absolutely get that, but the bit of information from my line of questioning is, what is a reasonable time for us to get the number?”

“Bringing all these individual contracts together for a forward gaze as to what is working, what evaluation have you got planned for the projects funded by the NHDF to ensure that you understand what is actually working so that you can then disseminate it around other projects?”

“That would be very helpful. Thank you.”

“Thank you for saying you will write to us with information. What is the timescale for getting your evaluation criteria ready to go?”

“It absolutely would not be an appropriate thing to do, but I am saying we need clarification that that cannot happen. You are telling me that you will not do that, but we need to know how you are not going to do it.”

“Thank you.”

“We touched earlier on the reluctance to set a target for the number the fund will deliver, because the spread, quality and quantity of houses are the key things. As a Committee we have been picking up an awful lot and looking to judge the number of units that you deliver, but if I take it that you are actually judging …”

“No, I get it, but what I am hearing from you, Jonathan, is, “Don’t change it. It’s fine, it’s doing its job and there are risks if you change it,” and what I am hearing from you, Nicole, is, “Well, maybe we might want to change it, because then we could use it more.” The answers to my question have almost been conflict…”

“I agree that you should approach this carefully. However, if you are going to say that we need a review, and that we might want to propose legislation, I do not think that it is unreasonable for the Committee to ask, “Will that be this year?” You may choose to say that you will not ask for a change in the legislation, …”

“Do you mind if I push this for a second, Chair? If you lower the bar, and the legislation is purely a deterrent, it does not matter whether you drastically lower that bar; you are still going to use it as a deterrent. If you are looking to lower the bar, I take that to mean that you want to use it, or there are cases w…”

“So you will have done your review this year, and it may recommend no changes or changes.”

“It is great for us in this Committee to have good news on IT projects coming in, so hopefully this will be the next bit of good news.”

“How are you judging the success of your wider comms plan? You are going to write to everybody, and you are doing TikTok, social media and everything else. If you are spending money on that, you obviously have some measurement of success in mind to see that you are getting value for money from any spend that you have wi…”

“I will ask about IT, but first can I take you back to your comments on the special measures changes? You can clarify this if I have got it wrong, but I think you said that generally it is working most of the time as a deterrent, but that you will do a review of whether you need to make changes to legislation. Can you t…”

“I have just heard a reason for the change and then a reason against it, so I am confused. Do you need to change it? It is either that you wanted it as a deterrent, you got a deterrent and it is working 96% of the time, which is really good—I think you said that 4% of cases are not working—or it is not working, you need…”

“What is the timescale for looking at the review and then making any recommendations on what you would require in the legislation?”

“Okay. John-Paul, I think you understand what I was getting at.”

“Chair, I can tell that Lloyd wants to jump in very quickly.”