In October 2002, responsibility for the development of investment policy in NI passed to Westminster with the re-imposition of direct rule in, which was to last until May 2007. Perhaps the first substantive act of direct rule ministers in NI was to launch a Strategic Investment Programme, as part of the Budget announcement in December 2002. This set out plans for around £2 billion of investment over the five-year period to 2007-08, including £725 million through PPP and £400 million of direct borrowing, with the remainder funded through the block budget.
It was under direct rule that ministers finalised the policy framework for the use of PPP in NI, and the bureaucratic infrastructure was established to deliver it. This framework was outlined in the document, Working Together in Financing our Future (OFMDFM and DFP 2003) which stated that there would be a "strong preference" for PPP in infrastructure and accommodation projects. This was in contrast to the "limited" role for PPP that had been envisaged in the working group report, suggesting that the role of private finance would be expanded still further under direct rule.
This "strong preference" was reflected in the staffing of the new Strategic Investment Board (SIB), the expert procurement body originally advocated by the CFP and supported in the working group report. The SIB was established as an independent government agency, but was staffed by individuals from the PPP industry, and headed by Andy Carty, a director of Partnerships UK (PUK), the half-public, half private body that is both the UK government's expert body on PPP and the policy's main advocate. The choice of Carty (and his successor David Gavaghan, from David Wylde Project Finance) reflected the centrality of PPP to the investment plans of direct rule ministers.
Long-term plans for investment in NI were published by the SIB In December 2004, in a draft investment Strategy for NI, setting out a potential £16 billion programme of infrastructure investment for the ten years to 2015, with the priority on schools, hospitals, housing and water infrastructure. The finalised "Investment Strategy for Northern Ireland 2005-2015" was published in December 2005, and specified that 23% of the programme - the part of it dealing with large-scale infrastructure and accommodation projects - would come through PPP.
In Working Together, direct rule ministers maintained the rhetoric of "social partnership" that was a core theme in the CFP and working group reports. However, the new "strong preference" for PPP, and the key role now being played by practitioners and advocates of PPP within the SIB, rendered meaningless this commitment.