Almost a year into her tenure as Town Clerk, Valerie Watts has presented her plans for the rationalisation of Derry City Council to the councillors.  While the proposals are not yet fully in the public domain, there are grounds for optimism.Her proposals ‘Transforming Derry City Council’ would see around 20 departments being reduced to 3 Directorates.   There will be a trawl for voluntary redundancies seeing 20 posts, believed to be higher/middle management being axed.  So far, so good.  However, what will happen if voluntary redundancies do not suffice?  Nor do we know exactly what posts are to go.  The Derry public need to know what posts are to go and what the bases for those decisions are.

That demand cannot be about personal witchhunts, but about public service delivery arguments. Nor do we want to see a rerun of the Review of Public Administration in health and education which inevitably saw mergers resulting in more management being employed than before reforms began.  Ratepayers cannot afford that luxury.

Inextricably linked to the question of management rationalisation is the future internal organisation of Council.  The important test is that underperforming staff and unnecessary services go while productive services are retained and indeed created.  Hopefully this will all be made clear in the report once it is public.

The response of NIPSA to the plans as ‘hatchet wielding’, (which presumably they have seen)  is unsurprising.  Unfortunately, NIPSA has a poor track record when it comes to embracing change.  That is bad for its members.  We need strong professional trades unions.  Council is known to have poor morale in many sections, so unions should embrace plans that can give their members a better place to work.  Their response is hopefully just an opening gambit in the negotiations for juicy pay offs for management who fancy leaving.

The Town Clerk doesn’t seem a fan of short titles! The 3 directorates proposed are “Corporate Services, Environment, Infrastructure and Culture”; “Business and Community Services” and a “Town Clerk and Chief Executive’s Office”.  These seem to be a bit of a dog’s breakfast title-wise but not knowing exactly what each one will cover it’s hard to give alternatives!

The sooner the plans are brought into the open the better for everyone.  Ms Watts has a delicate balancing act to perform.  Underperformers should go.  Unnecessary services should end.  Priority services should be retained and developed.  Most of all, the ‘lean and mean’ structure that is left must be capable of delivering that performance in an efficient and sufficient way.  This is her big test and the biggest test facing elected councillors in a decade.