Councils demand more powers to fill political void left by Assembly
THE Northern Ireland Local Government Association (NILGA) has called for greater powers to be given to councillors in the absence of a power-sharing Executive at Stormont.
NILGA, which represents our 11 councils, called on the government to review the role of local authorities here.
It urged London to increase decision making powers for councils in order to address the democratic deficit caused by devolution’s collapse.
NILGA said the government should “wake up to the facts that local people and local councils possess the entrepreneurial ability and solutions we need to address our economic, social and legislative deficits”.
The association is proposing that an independent panel is set up to take forward how devolution is progressed and funded below Stormont, to councils and communities.
NILGA is also calling for a Brexit Support Fund, which has been offered to local authorities in Britain to the tune of more than £60m, to be provided to Northern Ireland councils.
NILGA president Dermot Curran said: “Councils in 2019 are faced with huge expectations on their time and expenditure, in part due to the suspension of the Assembly, Brexit, transfer of responsibilities like event traffic management — costing around £900,000 this year alone to ratepayers — without being offered budgets to deliver.”
He added: “During the continued political impasse, councils are delivering more with less, taking on major infrastructure work as well as substantial, community led, preventative health work.
“Coupled with the burden of meeting arbitrary targets, councils, the smallest part of the public sector, are being asked to take on more responsibility as the only functioning level of government in Northern Ireland, without the offer of additional re- sources required.”
Since the Assembly and the Executive collapsed two years ago, councils remain the only fully functioning democratically elected government in Northern Ireland.
NILGA’s council team recently met Minister of State for Northern Ireland John Penrose in order to examine how councils’
additional pressures to deliver are funded, as well as examining how Northern Ireland’s £21bn public purse is given scrutiny until the Assembly returns.
NILGA chief executive Derek McCallan said: “Due to the current situation, members and chief executives across the 11 councils are becoming increasingly concerned about their ability
to deliver on targets, with the threat of tick box bureaucracy in the background. Enough is enough.
“This is why NILGA is calling for devolved political scrutiny of how we as councils are funded, what the deficits are, and enabling a piece of legislation to get us on a proper democratic and value for money footing.
These aren’t political or ideological matters, so we can get them sorted.”
With council elections taking place in under three months, Mr McCallan said local government should not have to “enter a new mandate over-burdened and under-resourced, trying diligently to deliver on many more expectations from a deserving public”.