New strategy body to tackle fiscal imprudence?

As ever James Murray Brown brings probably the most telling long term NI story of the last few weeks. The members of the new Strategic Partnership Board, set up to bring fiscal discipline to government spending, and long term return for public investment, have been announced. He details why it has been set up:

The aim is to restore the authority of the centre in Northern Ireland’s power-sharing executive, which, unlike conventional cabinet government, has allowed considerable autonomy for ministers to run departments as fiefdoms. “There is good reason for a new structure. Under the existing system, money was allocated but there was no control over it. It was dysfunctional,” said Andy Carty, another Partnerships UK official, who is interim chief executive of the board.

He goes on to quote specific cases it was set up to tackle.

The culprits – and now the big losers under the reforms – are Sinn F�in and Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists, which both ran important spending ministries until devolution was suspended in October.

He cites the huge resentment felt by many Unionists over the resiting of all maternity facilities away from a loyalist area to the Nationalist Falls Road – a decision taken by Sinn F�in minister Bairbre de Brun in defiance of the advice given to her by the Assembly’s health committee. However, he says:

…there was even greater resentment at the DUP, given it refused to sit in cabinet – because of Sinn F�in’s presence – and yet was only too quick to take electoral credit with big spending decisions by its two ministers of regional affairs and social development.

The jury is still out on whether such a measure can impact the sectionalist politics of Northern Ireland on its own.

Mick Fealty

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty