Special reports

It's a new measure - part of beefed up monitoring arrangements following the collapse of the Northern Ireland Events Company.

BBC Newsline has obtained details of a stock take of how one department, the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, handles some of its quangos which get more than 50 million of taxpayers cash. Several problems are highlighted. Julian O'Neill has been investigating.

Julian O'Neill asked the Commissioner for Public Appointments, Felicity Houston, if she was concerned boards did not contain enough experts on finance. You can see the full interview by following the link below.

DCAL's full response to Julian's enquiries:

A DCAL Spokesperson said: "Management within DCAL have embarked upon a programme of work aimed at bringing about specific improvements to the sponsorship arrangements with its Arm's Length Bodies. This will be based on the work undertaken by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and the recent Public Accounts Committee report on sponsorship arrangements of Arm's Length Bodies. DCAL is being assisted in this work by a newly established Arm's Length Bodies Review Team comprising of officials from DFP. The overall aim of this work programme is to promote best practice corporate governance and sponsorship of Arm's Length Bodies across all NI Departments.

"An exercise has been carried out by the Department to ensure it held details of all bank accounts operated by its Arms Length Bodies. The balances in each bank account are reviewed quarterly by the Department.

"The CIPFA report makes a range of recommendations to improve the Department's sponsorship role in respect of its ALBs, one of which relates to annual accountability meetings between the Minister and the ALB Chair. Since devolution DCAL Ministers have met regularly with ALB Chairs on a range of issues. In addition, corporate plans and business cases for the major sponsored bodies are approved by the Minister.

Accountability meetings are already held on a quarterly basis with DCAL ALB's. However, the CIPFA report recommends that, as part of the Departmental governance framework, annual accountability meetings between the Minister and Chair of ALB's should be formalised. The Department accepts the recommendation."