Gardiner says polls show people want local decisions, not big remote Councils
Ulster Unionist Local Government spokesman, Sam Gardiner MLA, today questioned the wisdom of creating very large units of local government which would remove decision making further and further away from the people.
The Upper Bann MLA’s comments come after it emerged that in a YouGov poll, 80% want elected councillors setting local priorities and 73% of people supported giving neighbourhoods greater control of some services and budgets.
“This poll demonstrates that there is a real desire at a very local level for people to have a real involvement in and input into the issues that affect their neighbourhoods.
My concern about 7 big super-councils in Northern Ireland is that they will remove decision making too far away from local people. That is bad for democracy.”
“The whole process of public administration reform has been driven by government efficiency savings and by civil service thinking on the optimum size of administrative units for those efficiency savings. This has outweighed the principle of democracy and, in particular, local democracy.”
“It is hard to accept that, at a time when the Government in England is trying to push decisions further and further down the line to local parish councils for example that we in Northern Ireland are having big remote councils foisted on us.”
“At the very least these new findings should make us take another look at Civic Councils – to operate under the umbrella of the new big councils. These must be civic councils with real teeth and real budgets so that local people can take decisions through local elected representatives which affect their locality and neighbourhood.”