Northern Secretary Peter Hain has announced the biggest shake-up of the North's public sector in over 30 years. He plans to create seven super councils and radically modernise the administration of health and education.
Instead of 26 councils, by 2009 Northern Ireland will have seven councils with enhanced powers. There will be one education and one health authority, instead of five and four respectively, and five health trusts instead of 18. There will be six other smaller bodies covering areas such as the ambulance service. "The total number of public bodies in health and social services, education and local government will be reduced from 67 to 20," said Mr Hain.
The reform should save £200 million annually, according to the Northern Secretary. It will also lead to an unspecified number of job losses. Mr Hain said that the time for consultation on reform was over and that the proposals would be implemented over the next four years.
This is the biggest rationalisation of the public sector since the McCrory reform of 1973. While unionists complained of a "sectarian carve-up", Mr Hain insisted the overhaul was unavoidable and necessary. "For a place the size of Northern Ireland, 5,400 square miles with a population of 1.7 million people, we are both over-governed and over-administered," he said.
The biggest restructuring affects local government. The seven new councils will have additional powers to deal with planning, local roads, physical regeneration, local economic development and a range of other matters.
It will be for the Boundary Commission ultimately to decide the shape of the councils. The Northern Ireland Office envisages they will be along the lines of three nationalist-dominated councils to the west, three unionist-dominated councils to the east, with Belfast the seventh council where Alliance has the balance of power.
The three nationalist-majority councils are likely to be: Strabane, Derry, Limavady and Magherafelt; Fermanagh, Omagh, Cookstown and Dungannon; and Craigavon, Armagh, Banbridge and Newry and Mourne.
The three unionist-majority councils are expected to be: Coleraine, Moyle, Ballymoney, Ballymena and Larne; Antrim, Newtownabbey, Carrickfergus and Lisburn; and North Down, Castlereagh, Ards and Down. Mr Hain has published a consultation document proposing a range of "checks and balances" designed to prevent, as unionists and the SDLP fear, an orange/green Northern Ireland geographical breakdown with nationalists wielding power in the west and unionists in the east.
Some of these proposals are similar to the safeguards for running the Northern Executive and Assembly. One suggestion is that the 50-member councils would establish smaller executives from their memberships, operating on a basis of collective decision-making and 75/80 per cent weighted majority votes for key decisions.
Each of the seven councils can have a maximum membership of 50 councillors. This would mean at most 350 elected councillors by 2009 instead of 582 at present. Councillors who stand down at the next election in four years' time will be receive severance payments.
At present 69 of the 108 Assembly members are councillors. In future there can be no dual mandate as politicians can either serve on the Assembly or the councils, but not on both.
The restructuring will also mean the sell-off of many town halls and council offices.
There will be one education authority instead of five education and library boards.
