Motion no: 22
As we meet, it is approximately 450 days since the NI Assembly was suspended. With still no progress on the re-establishment of the executive in Northern Ireland one of the unintended consequences is that significant decision are being made with no democratic scrutiny.
Conference believes that this is unacceptable and it is our members who are bearing the impact.
Within health and social care, we have seen unilateral decisions made (and then reversed) about £70 million of savings. We have also seen a reluctance to implement the pay review body recommendations – again a decision which trade unions were instrumental in reversing.
Major policy decisions should be open and transparent and the people making them should be held to account, particularly when we have no executive in place to challenge those decisions. Conference believes that trade unions are a crucial segment of civil society that enriches democracy. Union members are stewards of the public good, empowering the individuals through collective action and solidarity.
The current political hiatus, with major decisions on health services being taken by unelected unaccountable public servants could lead to an erosion of civic engagement, further economic inequality, and a political imbalance of power that can undermine wider civic society. Further, unilateral decisions taken by unelected officials’ runs completely contrary to the spirit and letter of the Good Friday Agreement.
In the absence of representative political structures and oversight mechanisms it is incumbent on civil administrators to bring forward robust proposals for engaging with wider civil society to ensure that policy decisions are taken in the interests of the many and not the few.
Consequently, conference is calling on the Northern Ireland Civil Service to bring forward a programme of civic engagement with representative organisations including the trade union movement, as a matter of urgency.
