Government announces bureaucracy cutbacks in NI

NI Secretary of State, Peter Hain, has today announced that he is to axe needless bureaucracy in Northern Ireland, by cutting the number of unelected quangos and public bodies.

Following his statement last November on a major rationalisation of councils, health and education boards and trusts, the number of public bodies in the province are likely to be cut almost in half, from 154 to 75.

The number of Executive Agencies and other public bodies will also be reduced from 70 to 42 and in addition, the 11 tribunals, which deal with employment disputes and appeals, will transfer to a new Courts and Tribunals Service.

Speaking earlier today in Belfast, the Secretary of State said: “This will cut costs and transfer resources from bureaucracy to the frontline delivery of key public services like health and education.”

He added that most of the current plethora of public organisations had a very narrow remit.

Mr Hain continued: “While this has enabled organisations to focus on specific problems and services, it has resulted in a fragmentation of service delivery and expensive overheads like chief executive positions and management boards. Narrow administrative silos are not a good way to respond to people’s need and we need a more joined-up approach."

He added that in practice there will be fewer public bodies, with wider remits and the ability to deliver better co-ordination of services - the requirement for collaborative working will be built in from the start.

The Secretary of State added that some bodies will be scrapped altogether while others would be merged, and there would also be a number of bodies whose functions would be transferred to local and central government, including functions currently administered by the Arts Council and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.

Mr Hain said: “We believe that housing is essentially a local issue and for that reason we will consider the transfer of housing to local government at a future date, once the new councils are in place, fully operational and bedded in. In the meantime however, while the Northern Ireland Housing Executive will remain, some of its non-core functions will transfer to local government when the new councils are established in 2009.”

It is understood that all remaining public bodies would be required to work in partnership with the seven "super councils" in the community planning process and the Secretary of State added that a better service delivery is the main objective of the Review of Public Administration but it will also lead to savings of around £20 million, which will stay within Northern Ireland and be allocated to priority front line services.

The Secretary of State also announced that following representation from the Northern Ireland Local Government Association and others he had reconsidered the number of councillors, which would be elected to the seven new councils. There would now be approximately 60 councillors per council compared to an average of 50 that had been previously announced. This means a total of about 420 councillors compared to 582 now.

(EF/SP)