The British government took an axe to administrative bureaucracy in Northern Ireland today and announced a major cull of unelected quangoes and public bodies.
Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain
Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said he was delivering on his promise to cut needless bureaucracy.
The cutbacks are the final stage of a review of public administration in the North which already promises to cut the number of local councils from 26 to seven and prune the number of health and education bodies.
The Secretary of State said the end result of the exercise would be a cutting in half of the number of public bodies in the province from 154 to 75. The number of executive agencies and other public bodies will be reduced from 70 to 42, he said.
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 frontline delivery of key public services like health and education."
Peter Hain
Most of the plethora of current public organisations had a very narrow remit, he said. "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 needs and we need a more joined-up approach," said Mr Hain.
In practice, he said, the new planned system would mean fewer public bodies, with wider remits and the ability to deliver better co-ordination of services. The requirement for collaborative working would be built in from the start.
Mr Hain said some bodies would 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. This would include some functions currently administered by the Arts Council and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.