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Making Progress in Northern Ireland? Evidence from Recent Elections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Colin Knox  and
Paul Carmichael
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Extract

THE ELECTION OF 582 COUNCILLORS TO NORTHERN IRELAND'S 26 local authorities on 21 May 1997 was eclipsed, to a large extent, by the media focus on the General Election earlier that month (1 May). That little attention is paid to the only elected forum with executive powers in Northern Ireland is neither new nor surprising. Councils in the province have relatively few functional responsibilities, confined principally to the delivery of regulatory services (street cleaning, refuse collection, leisure and tourism and a limited role in economic development); representation on area boards which deliver major services such as education; and a consultative role in relation to planning, roads, water and housing which are delivered through ‘Next Steps’ agencies or similar arm's-length organizations. This minor role is reflected in the level of council budgets. In 1997/98, the estimated net expenditure for local government in Northern Ireland amounts to £230 million, approximately three per cent of identifiable public expenditure.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , July 1998 , pp. 372 - 393
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1998

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References

1 Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland, Local Government Division, District Council (NI) Rate Statistics Tables, 1997–98, Belfast, Department of the Environment (NI), 1997.

2 McGarry, J. and O’Leary, B., Explaining Northern Ireland: Broken Images, Oxford, Blackwell, 1995;Google Scholar Whyte, , ‘How much discrimination was there under the Unionist Regime 1921–68?’, in Gallagher, T.J. and O’Connell, J. (eds) Contemporary Irish Studies: 1–35, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1983;Google Scholar Whyte, J., Interpreting Northern Ireland, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990.Google Scholar

3 The Secretary of State, the Rt Hon Dr Marjorie Mowlam MP was appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on 3 May 1997. She has direction and control of the Northern Ireland Office whose responsibilities include political, constitutional, security and criminal justice matters; and of six Northern Ireland departments – agriculture, economic development, education, environment, finance and personnel, and health and social security. The Secretary of State is assisted by four junior ministers (Paul Murphy, Adam Ingram, Tony Worthington and Lord Dubs) who have day‐to‐day responsibility for particular areas of work. The Secretary of State and her colleagues are answerable to Parliament in London for the discharge of their functions.

4 Talks between the main constitutional parties were brokered by the then Secretary of State (Peter Brooke) and commenced in March 1991. They proceeded in three ‘strands’ (British government and main NI parties; relationship between the people of Ireland; and the relationship between the British and Irish governments). The talks closed in November 1992 without agreement but a series of bilateral discussions with constitutional parties began in September 1993.

5 The three principles were: – show a willingness in principle to disarm progressively; – develop a common practical understanding of the modalities, i.e. to say what decommissioning actually entails; – in order to test the practical arrangements, and to demonstrate good faith, decommission some arms as a tangible confidence‐building measure and to signal the start of the process.

6 Connolly, M. and Knox, C., ‘Recent Political Difficulties of Local Government in Northern Ireland’, Policy and Politics, 16:2 (1988) pp. 97–97.Google Scholar Knox, C., ‘Sinn Fein and Local Elections: The Government’s Response in Northern Ireland’, Parliamentary Affairs, 43:4 (1990) pp. 63–63.Google Scholar Knox, C., ‘The 1989 Local Elections in Northern Ireland’, Irish Political Studies, 5 (1990) pp. 77–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 This term evolved in deference to Unionist sensitivities over the use of the words ‘power‐sharing’. Dungannon District Council is credited with leading the way in rotating the council chair between the two main political parties, the SDLP and UUP, although some councils (mainly nationalist‐controlled) claim to have been doing this for years in a less high–profile manner.

8 Local government in Northern Ireland has not been the subject of rates reform experienced by councils in Great Britain in the late 1980s which heralded the much criticized community charge and subsequent council tax. For a detailed description of the comparison between Northern Ireland local government finance and the rest of the United Kingdom see Barnett, R. R. and Knox, C., ‘Accountability and Local Budgetary Policy: Unitary Principles?’, Policy and Politics, 20:4 (1992) pp. 265–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Knox, C., Local Government in Northern Ireland?, Ulster Papers in Public Policy and Management, No. 62, 1996.Google Scholar

10 CCRU is a dedicated unit within the Central Secretariat of the Northern Ireland Office charged with formulating, reviewing and challenging policy throughout the government system with the aim of improving community relations.

11 Hughes, J. and Knox, C., ‘For Better or Worse? Community Relations in Northern Ireland’, Peace and Change, 22:3 (1997) pp. 330–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 This system of voting emerged when the main political parties failed to agree on the type of electoral system to be used for the new Forum. The government therefore decided on a list system (but on a constituency basis) supplemented by NI‐wide party preference. Five representatives were elected from each of the eighteen parliamentary constituencies, but not by PR/STV. Voters cast a single vote for the party of their choice on the ballot paper and party representatives were elected in each constituency in proportion to a party’s vote. In each constituency, parties nominated, in advance, a list of named candidates who would constitute their representatives if elected. The votes cast for each party were also aggregated across Northern Ireland and the ten most successful parties, in addition, secured two elected representatives from candidates nominated for this purpose in advance.

13 Elliott, ‘Changes’, Fortnight, 9–10 06 1997.Google Scholar

14 Carmichael, P., ‘The 1993 Local Government Elections in Northern Ireland’, Irish Political Studies, 9 (1994) pp. 141–7.Google Scholar

15 Belfast City Council has a population (1995) of 296,300 and an estimated net expenditure (1997/98) of $61.5m. This compares with Lisburn Borough Council, the second largest council, whose population is 103,600 and expenditure of $10.5m. Moyle District Council is the smallest local authority with a population of 14,800 and expenditure of $1.95m.

16 Those councils currently (1997/98) engaged in responsibility sharing are: Armagh (SDLP:UU), Belfast (SDLP:UU), Derry (SDLP:DUP), Limavady (SDLP:UU), Lisburn (UU:SDLP), Down (SDLP:UU), Dungannon (SDLP:UU), Fermanagh (Ind.Nat:DUP), Magherafelt (SF:UU), Moyle (SDLP:UU), Newry and Mourne (SDLP:UU) and Omagh (SDLP:UU).

17 Eames, R., ‘Ruthless Loyalists’, Belfast Newsletter, 18 01 1993 .Google Scholar

18 In 1969, the Northern Ireland government commissioned a report by Sir Patrick Macrory to examine the future of local government in the province. Macrory called for a restructuring of Northern Ireland’s system of local government with the introduction of a new single tier of district councils to discharge essentially prosaic functions such as leisure services, civic and environmental services. Whilst the first stage of Macrory was implemented in 1973, with 26 new districts, implementation of the full proposals was quickly overtaken by the deteriorating political situation. The imposition of Direct Rule (from 1972) effectively stymied the bulk of Macrory’s proposals.

19 Sweeney, P., Achieving a More Participative and Inclusive Form of Democracy in Northern Ireland, Review of Northern Ireland Administrative Arrangements, Belfast, Chief Executives Forum/Joseph Rowntree, 1997.Google Scholar