Q45 Mr. Dave Anderson: We heard this morning from the Chief Executive of this city that he had been advised that something like £200 million worth of savings would be reinvested in the front line and I guess that a lot more savings are going to come from job losses. Within the statement from the Secretary of State he talks about setting up an independent advisory public sector commission to take this forward. Have you got any ideas of what sort of job losses there will be and have there been any discussions about how they will be handled in terms of whether there is going to be redeployment, retraining and some of the other things that people look for, such as a compulsory redundancy situation. Is that discussion taking place or have you got a view on what the size of the problem may be?

Mr McConnell: As I explained to you, work has been done to estimate the level of savings that could arise from this, and implicit in that there is a number of job losses in administration. The Secretary of State has made it clear that that money stays within Northern Ireland. That money will be recycled to the front line so that at an overall level you would not expect to see a significant change in the level of public sector employment. That is not to underestimate the impact on individuals. In those figures I quoted of £140 million to £200 million assume a reduction in the number of people involved in administration. Some were between 2,200 and 3,800. Those are the figures but I re-emphasise that these are estimates based on benchmarks of good practice elsewhere. No-one is saying that when the organisations are designed those will be the actual figures involved but, make no mistake about it: ministers recognise that there will be job reductions as a result of this. As you have said, the Secretary of State gave a commitment to a public sector commission and the public sector commission will be designed to ensure a smooth transfer of staff between and within new organisations and to advise government on guiding principles that will apply across all sectors. As you note, trade unions and others have been pressing for a commitment to no compulsory redundancies. Ministers have not given that commitment at this stage. They do not feel able to do that and certainly at the senior level it is clear that a number of senior posts will disappear and there will be limited scope for redeployment. Having said that, it will be in everyone's interests to minimise the number of redundancies for the impact on individuals and for the costs involved, and the loss of experience that will be involved with that.

Q46 Mr. Dave Anderson: Is there any timescale on the setting up of a commission?

Mr McConnell: The public sector commission will be a non-statutory body and the intention is that it will be appointed early in the new year.

Q47 Chairman: Meg Hillier has asked me to ask you one particular question. When you were talking about the timetable you were talking about implementation rather than legislation. Do you have an estimated time from your point of view as to when you think we shall have all the legislation?

Mr McConnell: Legislation tends to take us about 20 months from start to finish. We should not underestimate the volume of the legislative task here. For local government we need some legislation to direct the Boundary Commissioner. We need a new Local Government Act. We need very comprehensive new legislation for education and for health. We need to amend our legislation in respect of roads to transfer the responsibility to local government, planning the same, and across each area that is transferred there will be some changes made. All this we hope to have through in time to allow the health and education arrangements to come into place in two to two and a half years' time and because of the extra stage of the Boundary Commissioner we expect to have all that through in time to implement in 2009. These are highly ambitious targets and, needless to say, ministers do not accept them at all and want the whole process implemented much faster than that.

Q48 Chairman: May I ask a question finally to the two experts here? Mr Mitchell and Dr Frawley, are you entirely happy that these fundamental, major changes that are to be made - local government, health, education - in the absence of an Assembly are going to leave those who are given devolved responsibility a great deal to do?

Dr Frawley: I think that it leaves a very significant task to do because I think that in the nature of the changes, not just in local government but in health and education, there is an incredibly important role in terms of scrutiny and in terms of policy. One of the things that is missing then is those who are delivering services, giving effective account to the Assembly for the achievement of targets, and indeed the issue addressed in Professor Appleby's document, the absence of real performance in health, for example, that needs to be tested robustly. It seems to me a vigorous, energised Assembly will have a major task because all of these policies and directions need to be refined and refocused all the time and I think there is what I might call a very real constructive tension between what locally people would wish for and what regionally is required. I think in that circumstance Northern Ireland will have governance fit for purpose. I hope that at that point we will be at a place and a location where people will come and see what we have achieved rather than us always feeling that we have to follow what others are doing.

Mr Mitchell: I basically agree with that. The only thing I would add is that if we do not have an Assembly operating effectively I think it is important - and this is a personal view - that there is effective local engagement with the political parties in Northern Ireland.

This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee. Neither witnesses nor Members have had the opportunity to correct the record. The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings.

Promoted by Paul Foy on behalf of Dave Anderson, both of St Cuthbert's Church Hall, Shibdon Road, Blaydon, NE21 5PT