Agenda item

            The Committee was reminded that it was intended that the five Education and Library Boards would be replaced with an Education and Skills Authority.  However, that required legislative agreement between the Parties and in the period prior to the establishment of the new Body streamlined Education and Library Boards were being put in place.  The Head of Committee and Members’ Services reminded the Committee further that, at its meeting on 11th December, 2009, it had considered a request from the Minister for Education to put forward, in line with the guidelines published by the Commissioner for Public Appointments, at least eight Councillors who would be willing to sit on the transitional Board.  The Committee had agreed to nominate only four Members with representatives being selected using a one-off d’Hondt process.  That had resulted in the nominations falling to the Sinn Féin, Democratic Unionist, Ulster Unionist and Social Democratic and Labour Party Groupings, with Councillors Convery, Hartley, Rodgers and Rodway having been put forward for selection.

            He reported that further correspondence had been received from the Minister on 17th February reiterating the need for the Council to nominate at least two persons for each vacancy and requesting that an additional four names be forwarded to her.  That had been drawn to the Committee’s attention at its meeting on 19th February, when it had been decided to affirm the decision of 11th December to nominate only four Members to the four places to which the Council was entitled under the legislation.

            The Minister for Education had now written again asking the Council to review its position with a view to providing a total of eight nominees in order to comply with the guidelines of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.  In her letter, the Minister explained that she was required to follow the procedures laid down by the Commissioner and that twenty-four out of the twenty-six Councils in Northern Ireland had complied with the request to provide multiple nominees. 

            The Head of Committee and Members’ Services pointed out that, while that request was essentially no different from that which the Minister had made in February, there was little doubt that the impasse which had arisen was doing nothing to progress and enhance the administration, oversight and management of education in Belfast.  He felt that the Committee might take the view that, in the interests of ensuring that the Council had the opportunity to play a positive and constructive role in overseeing and contributing to educational decisions and policy in the City, it would be better to find a way to accommodate the Minister’s wishes while at the same time preserving and protecting the basis on which the Committee made appointments to Outside Bodies, that is, through the use of the d’Hondt process.

            He indicated that the Committee could do so by simply giving each of the Party Groupings two nominees under each choice rather than the normal one.  That would preserve the principle of proportionality yet satisfy the Minister’s wish to be able to make choices from a pool of eight nominees.  The one rider which would have to be added would be that, in the interests of fairness, equality and justice, the final selections made by the Minister would have to entail one appointment from each of the four largest Party Groupings on the Council, that is, the Sinn Féin, the Democratic Unionist, the Ulster Unionist and the Social Democratic and Labour Party Groupings.

            After discussion, it was

            Moved by Councillor McCann,

            Seconded by the Deputy Lord Mayor (Councillor Lavery),

      That the Committee agrees to an additional four nominees, to be provided by the Sinn Féin, Democratic Unionist, Ulster Unionist and Social Democratic and Labour Party Groupings, being forwarded to the Minister for Education for consideration for appointment to the interim Belfast Education and Library Board on the basis that the four persons appointed will be representatives of the four largest Party Groupings on the Council but that the Committee express its disappointment that the Minister had not accepted the four names submitted under the Council’s d’Hondt system.

            On a vote by show of hands ten Members voted for the proposal and seven against and it was accordingly declared carried.