Budget: EQIA

Oral Answers to Questions — Culture, Arts and Leisure – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 2:00 pm on 24 March 2015.

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Photo of Bronwyn McGahan Bronwyn McGahan Sinn Féin 2:00, 24 March 2015

2. Ms McGahan asked the Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure for an update on the outcome of the equality impact assessment (EQIA) on the draft budget and departmental spending plans, including what actions are being brought forward on any gaps that have been identified resulting from the EQIA. (AQO 7862/11-15)

Photo of Carál Ní Chuilín Carál Ní Chuilín Sinn Féin

I thank the Member for her question. Following the Executive's agreement on the 2015-16 Budget, DCAL published detailed savings delivery plans that summarised each savings measure, outlined the impact on front-line services, and addressed the potential impact on equality. It also published a high-level equality screening of its spending proposals. Overall, the Department's high-level impact assessment of its savings plans is revealed as largely neutral, but with some minor negative impacts for some aspects. The consultation ended on 9 March. Officials are now considering the representations that have been made and are preparing complete and appropriate responses to them. That process is ongoing, and I intend to publish a summary of the representations and the Department's responses to them.

Meanwhile, there were equality-related representations over concerns affecting cuts on people with disabilities, disability arts, the library service and sports, which are some examples, but others have been raised.

Photo of Bronwyn McGahan Bronwyn McGahan Sinn Féin

I thank the Minister for her response. Will the Minister detail DCAL's statutory requirements under section 75 in relation to the budget?

Photo of Carál Ní Chuilín Carál Ní Chuilín Sinn Féin

My Department, like every Department in the Executive, has a statutory obligation to meet its section 75 obligations. Certainly, with regard to our equality duties, we have a legal duty to consider the likely impact on budget proposals, particularly on section 75 groups, and make final budget decisions, having given consideration and due regard to competing or other factors. So we must evaluate the impact, particularly on section 75 groups. Measures proposed in my Department have been in the middle of our consultations. However, we need to ensure that equality impact assessments are built in to any consultation responses. All the groups that apply will get a response. When the exercise has been completed, we will publish the responses on our website.

Photo of Chris Lyttle Chris Lyttle Alliance

What message do the Executive have for our world-class artists — poets such as Michael Longley, writers such as Glenn Patterson and young actors such as Jayne Wisener — who say that the scale and level of reductions applied to the arts in Northern Ireland are wrong? What, if anything, can she do to help the organisations whose very existence seems to be threatened by the scale of those reductions?

Photo of Carál Ní Chuilín Carál Ní Chuilín Sinn Féin

I am saddened that we are in this situation. I encourage the Member to talk to his party leadership and to join with most, if not all, other parties. We need to put the blame for these cuts on our block grant firmly where it belongs — with the Westminster Government. We have lost hundreds of millions of pounds of public money that could have been spent not only on our local economy and our local infrastructure, but on supporting our local indigenous economies such as our artists and all the rest. While that is going on, I am sure that the Member knows that, even in his constituency, the Eastside Arts/East Belfast Partnership has been awarded funds. We want to make sure that people who have never received support from government bodies and agencies get funding and get it because they deserve it and because it is the right thing to do. I ask the Member to join with the rest of us to convince his party that we need to firmly convince the Westminster Government not to continually take money from our block grant.