Committee system

1. Go onto http://www.televisiontunes.com/Robin_Hood_-_Whistling.html click play then watch the power point from slide 2 onwards

2. Committee system Shay and Jack

3. Today's lesson • Today class we are going to learn about the committee system in NI • We will look at: • What is a committee ? • What is their role how are the members decided? • Different types ? • What is a statutory committee and how many are there? • What do they do ? • What powers do they have ? • Strengths and weaknesses • What is a standing committee and a Ad Hoc committee • Question time !

4. Lagan school rocks What is a Committee • Individual or a group, appointed by an agency, authority, or larger assembly, to whom a matter is referred, or is committed for attention, investigation, analysis, or resolution. A committee has no powerper se, except the power(s) assigned to it by its appointer. • But what does it mean to us ? • Committees are very important to us as they scrutinise, legislate as well as represent. This is because MLAs from a range or different parties are able to discuss laws from different perspectives and come to a fair compromise.

5. How are they elected • By a system of d’hont • The d'Hondt, or highest average method, is named after a Belgian lawyer from the 1870s.  • Unlike single transferable vote, it does not use a quota or formula to allocate seats or posts. Instead, these are allocated singularly and one after another. • The basic idea is that a party's vote total is divided by a certain figure which increases as it wins more seats. As the divisor becomes bigger, the party's total in succeeding rounds gets smaller, allowing parties with lower initial totals to win seats. 

6. What types are there • The big 4 • Statutory • Standing • Ad Hoc • Joint

7. It may seem boring . So here some cats messing’

8. What types of statutory committees are there in the NI assembly • Although there are several types of statutory committees. These include: # • Education, • Justice, • Environment • Agriculture • Health • OFMDFM

9. What is their role egislate • As everyone knows, the three main roles of a statutory committee include L_________,S__________ and R_________. crutinise epresent

10. Statutory Committee powers • The statutory committees have specific powers. These powers include: • CONSIDER and ADVISE e.g. their departments budget. • LEGISLATE and take the COMMITTEE STAGE of LEGISLATION • Starts INQUIRIES and makes REPORTS • Consider MATTERS brought to them by MINISTERS • CALL for PERSONS AND PAPERS

11. Strengths and weaknesses!! • STRENGTHS: • It is a key building block to the NI Assembly. • They are locally based and therefore will be able to represent their constituents-whom it will actually affect and benefit. • Inquires mistakes to be recognised and improvements made. • Committees can work together and create effective policies and legislation. • Membership through D’Hondt forces parties of different backgrounds to share views and work together. • The Assembly has no effective opposition and is very important as it is the only way bills can be scrutinised.

12. Weaknesses • Proposals to reduce the number in each committee to 9 has also been rejected as reducing effectiveness. • Committees have been described as being overworked which makes them ineffective. An MLA can be part of 3 committees. This dilutes their experience and makes them much less effective. 70 MLA’s work in 2 committees or more. • Committees have a built in ambiguity to advise the Minister AND hold them to account—Is this achievable? How can they hold an Executive minister to account while advising them at the same time? • Ministers in the past have simply ignored committee advice and went on solo runs  • Multi Party composition does not necessarily inspire cooperation. There have been many times when DUP / SF are not talking. Are party ties and differences too insurmountable to be overcome?

13. What is a standing committee? • Standing Committees are different and are dedicated mostly with the overall effective running of the Assembly and the Executive. There are currentlySIXpermanent Standing CommitteesStanding Committees ALSO have the power to call for Persons and Papers

14. Audit Committee: Scrutinises the spending plans/accounts of the audit office. Public Accounts Committee: Scrutinises the use of resources by Departments as well as Government agencies. What do they do? Committee on standards and privileges: Deals with matters that relate to privileges and conduct of members.

15. Ad hoc committees • These Committees are TEMPORARY and are set up to deal with SPECIFIC, TIME CONSTRAINED ISSUES. • They have to investigate an issue and report back  with concerns and solutions.

16. Examples It doesn’t always work Proceeds of crime: investigations into how crime assets could be seized and put to good use Flags and Emblems: A report was drawn up into concerns regarding contentious flags and murals in the NI. A result of this was that paramilitary murals were replaced with nice ones

17. Question time • you are each going to get a sheet . Table with the most correct answers WIN

18. Its not all that confusing

19. Credits to Shay and Jack Thanks for watching guys