Background

The Ulster-Scots Agency currently employs four members of staff - reflecting the fact that the Agency is in a start-up phase. In order to be in a position to deliver the programme of work contained in this Corporate Plan, the Agency will need to recruit new members of staff. An Organisation Chart setting out the revised staffing structure of the Ulster-Scots Agency is shown at Annex 1.

The Ulster-Scots Agency is funded by grants from the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure in Northern Ireland and the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands in the Republic of Ireland.

In the calendar year 2000, this funding amounts to £0.67 million to cover programme costs, staff salaries and running costs. For the period 2001/02 to 2003/04, the Ulster-Scots Agency has calculated the costs of the programme at £4.20 million. The figure for the start-up year, 2001/02 is estimated at £1.3 million.

Staff Salaries and Running Costs.

Of the total funding requirement of £1.45 million, £0.555 million is to cover staff salaries and running costs. A breakdown of salary and running costs is shown in Table 1 below:

Programme Expenditure

The remaining £0.895 million is for programme expenditure. A breakdown of programme expenditure across the four main areas of operation (strategic objectives) of the Agency is shown in Table 2 below:

Funding by Theme/Objective

After the allocation of all direct costs and apportionment of central support costs, the Agency's total funding requirement of £1.45 million is broken down as follows across its four main areas of operation: