25 March 2005
District councils in Northern Ireland could be reduced from 26 to seven and given new legal powers under proposals published by the Review of Public Administration.
All five education and library boards would be scrapped under the plans, to be replaced by a single education services support body answering directly to the Department of Education.
Three options are proposed for the future service structure, with seven, 11 or 15 district councils. Smaller council areas, such as Carrickfergus or Castlereagh, could be particularly at risk.
The preferred model will depend on public consultation. Research conducted by the RPA found that people identified more strongly with their community than with their council area and were more interested in service improvement and cost containment than preserving smaller district councils.
Ian Pearson, the minister with responsibility for the review, said the proposals marked the 'return to strong local government' in Northern Ireland.
Under the proposals, district councils would gain responsibilities for planning, regeneration, economic development, tourism promotion and emergency planning, and possibly for libraries, local roads and youth services.
In addition to the education and library boards, all other quangos will be subject to a new review, and some could be privatised.
The current four regional health and social services boards and 18 local health trusts would be replaced by five or seven regional health and social services agencies. Savings from the full package of measures would be in the region of £150m to £235m a year, or 10%–15% of current administrative costs.
But Nipsa, the main trade union in the province, has opposed the changes, claiming that the main objective is cost-cutting rather than service improvement. It called for a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies.
PFmar2005
