Support Package For Councils Announced As DUP Seeks Stormont Cuts

While on one hand NI's largest political party is calling for cost-saving cuts in the Stormont Assembly - by seeking a reduction in the number of Government departments - a DUP Minister has today pledged a multi-million pound support package for local councils.

NI Finance Minister Nigel Dodds has announced that councils in Northern Ireland are to benefit from an £8 million support package, a move that follows numerous local authorities indicating they could be forced to increase rates bills due to overall financial constraints.

Many were said to be considering a hike of 10% with one - North Down - indicating a probable rise as high as 15%.

Councils blamed the increases on Land and Property Services, the agency responsible for collecting the rates on their behalf.

Today, the DUP's Minister Dodds made the announcement following discussions with council representatives and Assembly members.

"This package is a proportionate, necessary and affordable response to the difficulties faced by councils next year," he said.

He has proposed councils repay rates owed over five years, rather than one lump sump to ease financial pressures.

"It is not a bail out but is a response to the fact that councils faced a number of exceptional one off items next year that would have hit them just at the same time as they seek to manage the wider impacts of the economic downturn," he said.

The 26 councils must set a regional rate by February 14 for the distribution of bills in April.

Meanwhile party colleagues Simon Hamilton, Peter Weir and Ian Paisley Jnr have today tabled a motion to cull the number of departments that are needed to run Northern Ireland - but not just to save money.

The motion reads: "That this Assembly recognises the importance of ensuring that the maximum amount of public spending is directed at front line services; and calls on the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to bring forward proposals to reduce the number of Government departments."

According to Mr Hamilton, it "underpins the party's commitment to achieving good value for taxpayers' money".

He said yesterday that it would be interesting to see if other parties "believe like we do in streamlining Government resources away from paying for Government bureaucracy and red tape and into front line services which actually bring benefit to the community".

The Strangford MLA added that he believed the reduction would also increase efficiency.

"Sometimes there are extremely similar policy priorities which could easily be dealt with by one department actually being handled by two, three or even four different Government departments," he said.

However, Ulster Unionist leader, Sir Reg Empey argued that the cost issue lay not with the number of departments, but the quantity of civil servants.

And he claimed that a reduction in departments would constitute only a "re-badging exercise".

(BMcC/JM)