Sharing power locally
Power-sharing or the lack of it becomes contentious in areas where one community is a small minority. Nationalists have claimed they have been excluded from posts on Lisburn City Council while unionist councillors have said the same about Newry and Mourne District Council’s main jobs.
There are unionist majorities in 13 councils and nationalist majorities in 11. In two councils – Belfast and Armagh – neither community has overall ‘control’.
Research by agendaNi has found that 12 councils use the d’Hondt system i.e. Belfast, Armagh and all nationalist-held councils except Newry and Mourne where unionism is too small to be represented in the system.
Elsewhere, posts are shared out through informal deals between the parties or as a general proportion of seats. The actual degree of power-sharing, of course, depends on relations between councillors and the general atmosphere of the chamber.
Using existing boundaries, the 11 councils would include six with unionist majorities and four with nationalist majorities; Belfast again has no overall majority.
If the new councils go ahead, the DoE plans to allow them to choose a method for allocating positions from a “limited number of specified models”. These will cover positions on the council and council appointed positions on external bodies.
“These proposals have been developed mindful of the need to ensure effective and inclusive democracy and promote the need for equality of opportunity,” a departmental spokesman said. The Executive is currently considering the proposals.
Unionist parties leave power-sharing arrangements up to individual councils. A DUP spokesman explained that “to date his party hasn’t imposed a central view”. The UUP did not comment directly but Local Government Spokesman Roy Beggs has partly blamed the reform delay on “failure to build consensus” and “lack of leadership.”
Sinn Féin wants councils to follow the Executive’s example. A spokesman explained the party has “always supported the use of the d’Hondt system to apportion all positions within councils on the basis of parties’ mandates.”
Meanwhile, the SDLP has called for power-sharing to be legally binding and wants any such law to guarantee four things: cross-community representation in the top posts; proportional representation in other nominations; sufficient cross community consensus on important decisions; and safeguards against “partisan or sectarian decision-making.”
Alliance instead prefers a voluntary model.
“We are obviously in favour of powersharing at council level because we want to ensure that all the parties work together to deliver for everyone and to ensure that democracy is respected,” a spokesman remarked. “It has to be voluntary and it has to involve partnership and it has to involve parties across the constitutional spectrum. We rather people wanted to work together.”
When this was put to Sinn Féin, a spokesman said that his party ensures equality on nationalist-majority councils, using d’Hondt, but in other councils unionist councillors have “disregarded equality” and “continue to discriminate”; he claimed that Alliance councillors supported unionists in this.
“This is why legislation was required as unionists refused to do this on a voluntary basis or as a matter of practice,” he concluded. Alliance strongly refuted the accusation, saying it worked for equality and fairness across all councils where it was represented and had a “strong track record” on that.
In response, the SDLP said d’Hondt was not the only mechanism to achieve “proportionality, inclusivity and fairness” but if it is used, an agreement should be reached for the full council term.
The TUV, which has 11 councillors, supports power-sharing with “constitutional, democratic parties” but would see any imposition of “enforced power-sharing” as “further evidence that that the parties at Stormont have come to accept this as the norm”.
