Northern Ireland Office

Secretary of State Peter Hain, MP has delivered on his promise to cut needless bureaucracy in Northern Ireland. Taken together with his announcement in November on a major rationalisation of councils, health and education boards and trusts, the number of public bodies in Northern Ireland will be cut in half, from 154 to 75.

The final decisions on the range of Executive Agencies and other public bodies here will see them reduced from 70 to 42. In addition, the 11 Tribunals which deal with employment disputes and appeals will transfer to a new Courts and Tribunals Service.

Speaking in Belfast, Mr Hain 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:

“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.

“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,” he added.

The Secretary of State said some bodies will be scrapped altogether while others would be merged. There would also be a number of bodies whose functions would be transferred to local and central government. He said this would include some functions currently administered by the Arts Council and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.

“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.” said Mr Hain.

The Secretary of State said all the remaining public bodies would be required to work in partnership with the seven councils in the community planning process:

“Better service delivery is the main objective of the Review of Public Administration but it will also lead to savings. Those savings will stay within Northern Ireland and be allocated to priority front line services,” he added.

Addressing the future accountability arrangements of public bodies, Peter Hain said: “Public bodies are accountable to their sponsoring Minister and through that Minister to the Assembly or Parliament. All appointments are to be made on merit and no-one should be appointed to any position solely because they hold a particular position in another organisation. For the future, all Board members will be appointed under guidelines laid down by the Commissioner for Public Appointments.”

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.

Notes to Editors:

1. A booklet outlining all the decisions taken in relation to the Review of Public Administration has been published and is available on the RPA website.
2. A Written Ministerial Statement notifying Parliament about the decisions is also available on the RPA website.
3. Media Enquiries to Áine Gaughran Tel: 028 90277606/07717732079
4. Summary of changes to public bodies