Northern Ireland Assembly (Visit)
Kenny Gibson, Keith Harding and I went to Northern Ireland with Morag Brown and Irene Fleming from the support staff. There is a full report on our visit, so I shall talk only briefly about it. I found the visit interesting and informative and, as members would expect from the Irish, we were made extremely welcome. However, at times Kenny and I felt that we were experiencing what it is like to be a witness at a committee. In some ways, the tables were turned, because local government in Northern Ireland is not quite what it is here, so people were interested in hearing about our set-up. It made me aware of how good our system of local government is at providing services.
We visited Stormont and I am sure I speak for Kenny and Keith when I say that what came over to us was the fragility of Stormont. Things are still proceeding on a day-to-day basis, although there is an absolute commitment to making the peace process work and to making the governance of Northern Ireland work. It seemed that, at the end of every working day, everybody was relieved to have got through another day without things collapsing. In some ways, that was worrying, but we could feel that in the atmosphere.
Belfast City Council feels strong frustration that it cannot get its hands on the sort of services that local government delivers here in Scotland. We gave its representatives some suggestions about how they might manage to do that.
We also visited the Association of Local Authorities of Northern Ireland, which is the equivalent of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. There are 26 councils in Northern Ireland, 15 of which are in ALANI. I felt quite sorry for ALANI in some ways—it seems not to have the power it might have, because not all 26 councils are committed to it. Even councils that are members of ALANI seemed to feel that it was better to contact the minister directly. The minister has quite a large remit, part of which is local government. It was not deemed necessary to have a minister for local government, as we have.
All in all, it was a fascinating visit. I certainly enjoyed it and got a lot out of it. Would you like to add anything, Kenny?
I would like to say a couple of things, but I will not take up too much time. I found it an absolutely fascinating and, indeed, exhausting visit. We went there to learn, but we found when we got there that they all wanted to learn from us. They seemed almost sponge-like in their need for information and were very enthusiastic about finding out what is happening in Scotland.
During the past 25 to 30 years, there have been great difficulties in local government in Northern Ireland, which the people there are desperate to resolve. Because of the security situation, local government has been greatly neglected. However, it was emphasised on a number of occasions that local government was one of the few democratic institutions to survive throughout that era, even though local authorities were responsible only for such things as refuse collection, public conveniences, cemeteries and crematoriums.
One of the most interesting meetings we attended was a stratagem meeting, where we got information about how things work on the ground from a non-party political point of view. We can learn from the way in which Executive programme funds are dealt with in Northern Ireland. For example, the new targeting social needs programmes—TSNs—have been set up to target need at local level. Their focus appears to be much more local than is the case in Scotland. That is something that we could take on board.
ALANI seemed almost to be on a life-support machine. Who knows? After what has happened with Glasgow City Council's response to the local government settlement, perhaps COSLA is heading in the same direction.
That is nothing to do with our report on Northern Ireland, Kenny.
Moving swiftly on, I found it interesting that, as Trish Godman said, there is a lack of a relationship between ALANI and the minister. I think that that is due to the distraction that the security situation has imposed on most people. However, everybody seems to agree on one thing at least: there are too many councils in Northern Ireland and that situation must be addressed swiftly.
We talked about proportional representation. The only critique of PR appeared to be from Alderman Brown of ALANI, who thought that PR might lead to weak government. However, given the fact that councils have few powers, I do not know how relevant that is. He emphasised that there would be no impact on the relationship between councillors and constituents. In fact, he said that the ward-member link was as solid under the single transferable vote system as it was under the first-past-the-post system.
We met people from all political parties, from the Democratic Unionist party to Sinn Fein and all points in between. They were all fairly reluctant to accept PR, but they have accepted it and believe that it is a positive step. It is no longer a political issue—all parties appear to support it unanimously. In fact, they have gone beyond PR for their electoral system. They also use the d'Hondt system in Belfast City Council to elect committee chairs, for example. There are also plans to introduce that system to outside bodies.
It was a highly productive meeting and I recommend that members read the report of our visit thoroughly, if they have not already done so. We should thank Morag Brown and Irene Fleming, who did a lot of work while we were in Ireland and helped to produce a first-class report on the visit.
There are currently 60 councillors in Stormont. We found it fascinating that they did not see that the role of local government needed to be enhanced. That proved to us that once something gets into the centre it can never come back out again. There was no commitment to moving service delivery to local government control.
Of the 51 councillors in Belfast, 12 are assembly members and three are members of the Westminster Parliament. However, they appear to have gone completely native as far as the Northern Ireland Assembly and Westminster are concerned. They seem to be less keen on relating to local government than those in the assembly who have never been councillors. That is rather bizarre.
For me, one of the memorable moments was when we went to Stormont and sat round the cabinet table. It is an amazing building and one gets an incredible sense of history when one stands outside it. The people who we met were quite keen to come to Scotland, so I think that we should consider inviting them over here next year.
Kenny is right to thank Morag Brown and Irene Fleming—I also record my thanks to them for producing the report and for being very helpful during our extremely busy visit. I was exhausted by the end of it.
All the politicians pretend to hate each other but, according to the officials we met, they all get on pretty well, although they have to take certain public stances. Apparently, we were the first MSPs to visit Stormont.
That is right.
I cannot quite follow all the names, but I think that I am correct in saying that most of the ministers are male. Am I correct? Were there any female representatives?
Yes. The vice-convener of the Environment Committee, which covers local government, is a woman. I cannot remember her name.
She is called Carmel Hanna.
Bairbre de Brún is the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety.
My only other comment is about waste management. I am going off on my sustainable development tack again. I see that Alderman Brown noted concern about recycling. I know that you had a busy schedule, but did you pick up whether the Environment Committee was pursuing that?
Yes. It is very much on the agenda. In fact, sustainable development is probably much more important to that committee than local government is. There are massive problems with sustainable development, so the committee is very interested in that issue.
It might be that the waste management situation will encourage some cross-border co-operation. There is also concern about the Sellafield plant, which was mentioned while we were there.
We no longer need the official reporters. The meeting will continue in public, but the next part does not need to be reported.
Meeting continued in public.
Meeting continued in private until 16:10.