Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Civil Service reform call
‘Stormont working culture’ fear Jan 10
ULSTER civil servants should be sent to work in other legislatures in the UK and Ireland to improve “political working culture at Stormont”, a report has stated.
The recommendation is contained within a Northern Ireland Affairs Committee review of the implementation of the New Decade, New Approach agreement. MPS said the delivery of reforms enshrined in the deal that restored the “fragile” Executive “can only succeed with a change in working cultures at Stormont”.
The report adds there should be “consideration of the facilitation of secondment schemes between the NI Civil Service and civil services of other governments in the UK”. The report “comes as recent events in Northern Ireland have highlighted the fragility of devolved institutions”.
Committee Chairman Simon Hoare said it
“doesn’t take a scandal of the magnitude of RHI to blow devolution off course”. The inquiry into the agreement “heard concerns the £2billion earmarked to meet commitments of the deal falls far short of the sum needed to transform public services in Northern Ireland and that funding will be further stretched by the effect of Covid-19”.
Date this year when the New Decade, New Approach deal was agreed