NATIONALISTS HAVE warned Finance Minister Nigel Dodds not to reduce the number of government departments to pre-devolution levels as part of efforts to find £122 million (€137 million) in efficiency savings next year.
Wednesday’s British budget signalled a tougher approach to the treasury’s block grant to Northern Ireland. Referring yesterday to a long-standing DUP aim to cut the number of Ministers and the size of the Assembly, Mr Dodds said tens of millions could be saved and redirected to protect front-line services.
Speaking after yesterday’s meeting of the Executive which discussed the budget and the global downturn, Mr Dodds said: “If we were to cut the number of departments in half I believe we could save £40 to £50 million a year in terms of duplicated services. Take that over five years, that’s a substantial amount of money.”
There are 11 departments at Stormont and this is scheduled to rise to 12 with the planned devolution of policing and justice powers. There are also 108 Assembly members with six members representing each of Northern Ireland’s 18 constituencies.
This number was chosen to enable the election of smaller parties, making the Assembly as broadly representative as possible.
However, the DUP has promoted a smaller Assembly, perhaps with just 72 members or four per constituency. On the basis of the last election this would severely deplete the ranks of the SDLP and Ulster Unionists and effectively wipe out some smaller parties such as the Progressive Unionists and the Greens which have just one member each.
The SDLP said last night that an Executive of about six members would not be effective.
Deputy leader Alasdair McDonnell said: “We’re very happy to look at anything that increases efficiency, but six departments didn’t work for us in the past and they won’t work for us now.”
Referring to the model of departments before power was devolved to Stormont, he said: “We have had that in the past, it won’t work any better now. Many Ministers were struggling with the large portfolios that they had.”
He also warned Mr Dodds not to think of cross-Border bodies as an unnecessary financial burden.
Sinn Féin’s Assembly leader John O’Down also criticised the DUP minister. “Nigel Dodds should not use British Government cuts as a smokescreen for DUP attempts at removing equality . . . from government in the six counties,” he warned.
“Mechanisms are already in place to review the number of government departments and MLAs etc, which are based on equality and fairness. This is the only mechanism that could be acceptable to Sinn Féin.”
Mr Dodds also dismissed what he said were Sinn Féin calls to assume more finance powers.