Common boundaries

Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) - Central Unit

John McMillen - Telephone 028 9052 8615 (Internal 28615)

The Review of Public Administration (RPA) represents a real opportunity to revitalise public services in Northern Ireland, to replace current structures with a new, more accountable public sector, working together with a common purpose to meet the needs of the 'on-demand' lifestyles that people now lead and have come to expect from our public services. It is an opportunity to realise the vision of a world-class Northern Ireland.

Currently, regional services in Northern Ireland operate on a variety of different bases.  For example, the Planning Service has six Divisions, Roads Service has four Divisional areas and councils are grouped together into five regional tourism organisations.  These structures are based on the most efficient and effective size of management unit for the different services.

Experience elsewhere, and responses from the first RPA consultation process, suggested that co-terminosity is the single most important factor that will facilitate joint working.  As such, co-terminosity was identified as one of four key guiding principles that lie at the heart of strong local democracy.

Co-terminosity is at its most powerful when organisations operate on a 1:1 basis, sharing exactly the same boundaries.  The benefits diminish as the relationship becomes 2:1 or greater.  The benefits of 1:1 co-terminosity include:

Not only are common boundaries easier to understand for everyone, but they provide real opportunities for well-planned, joined-up services around the same population and the same geography, which together provide a powerful common purpose.  The success envisaged for Community Planning will depend on organisations working within the local government boundaries.

A scoping paper on cross-cutting common boundaries issues was agreed by RPA Steering Group in July.  As such, a programme of research and a series of cross-departmental events will be undertaken in the coming months.

An international briefing paper on common boundaries was commissioned in August 2006.  The paper is intended to inform the RPA Central Unit and the RPA Steering Group of the key issues for organisations in moving to, or organising around, common boundaries in the delivery of public services.

The research suggests that the scale of the change in Northern Ireland, across so many parts of a public administration system, in such a compressed timescale, is relatively unprecedented.  In addition, the research shows that moving to common boundaries will not, of itself, produce the kind of joined up, citizen-centred service provision that the RPA is seeking.  A variety of inter-related factors have to work together to achieve this end goal.  This research identifies a significant number of these critical factors and discussses their inter-dependent nature.