‘Scandalous secrecy at Stormont’

RHI inquiry told about lack of minutes

THE DUP and Sinn Fein are facing calls to come clean over the “scandalous” level of secrecy in devolved government.

The head of Northern Ireland’s Civil Service David Sterling has said some meetings were not minuted as it was “safer” not to have a record which might be released following a Freedom of Information request.

Appearing at the Renewable ewable Heat Incentive public ublic inquiry at Stormont, he added the two main n parties at Stormont t had been sensitive to o criticism.

S D L P A s s e mb ly member Daniel l Mccrossan said: “This s is a scandalous contorrtion of standard practice ice that was designed to keep the work of ministers secret from the people they are supposed to represent.”

Mr Sterling told the inquiry the practice of taking minutes had lapsed after devolution when engagement between civil servants and ministers became much more regular and the pace of life increased.

He added: “The two main parties have been sensitive to criticism and I think it is in that context that as senior Civil Service we got into the habit of not recording all meetings on the basis it is safer sometimes not to have a record that for example might be released under Freedom of Information.”

The issue was raised over a meeting between Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment official Fiona Hepper and former minister Arlene Foster about whether to proceed with RHI without cost cos controls introduced in Great Britain. B

The There was a difference of opin opinion between the two ab about the meeting and n no minute was taken. Mr St erlin g sai d as a general rule engagement between m ministers and officials h had become more ““fluid”, with more use of emails.

H He added: “One of the cons consequences of that is it become becomes much more difficult to apply th the rigid disciplines of minuting every meeting.” Mr Mccrossan said questions must be answered by each and every minister in that “secretive” Stormont Executive. He added: “This goes to the heart of the character of those two parties. “They negotiate i n secret, they govern in secret, they are terrified of scrutiny.”