Chief Electoral Officer to appear before council to clarify future of Derry office

The Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland has been summoned to appear before Derry City and Strabane District Council to discuss the impact the closure of the regional officer would have on the city.

The move comes after a meeting of the local authority was warned that it could be tasked with overseeing future elections if plans to close the local office in the city go ahead.

The warning came from Dooley Harte, Higher Executive Officer with the NIPSA union, at a meeting of the council’s Governance and Strategic Planning Committee.

Mr Harte told elected members that NIPSA had been contacted by management from the Electoral Office in the summer of last year who informed them that its budget had been cut by 25 per cent.

He added that in January of this year, NIPSA had seen proposals that showed a ‘preferred option’ or centralising electoral services to Belfast, adding that such a move would result in the closure of six regional offices, including Queen Street in Derry, where five full-time staff are currently employed.

Mr Harte continued that two days of industrial action had taken place earlier this year in response to the proposals.

He told elected members that if the Electoral Office was to go ahead with the move, it would result in the council ‘paying for elections’, as it would have to take on functions currently carried out by the Queen Street office such as the electoral identification service, voter registration service and encouraging voter participation.

He continued that there was further anger over the lack of information from the Chief Electoral Officer, Graham Shields (pictured), on the issue, adding that NIPSA had received ‘no answers’ from him on the proposals.

Sinn Fein councillor Brian McMahon said Mr Shields should now be brought before the council to explain their plans, adding that he had concerns over the ‘cavalier attitude’ being shown.

The SDLP’s John Boyle said that any move to close the office could ‘disenfranchise’ people in the city, adding that it was particularly concerning given that there were currently 6,000 not on the electoral register in Foyle.

“If we did lose our electoral office, that would be great concern to us,” he said, adding that if the local office was closed, then ‘who would take up the slack’ for their responsibilities.

The independent councillor Darren O’Reilly then asked for a breakdown in council’s role in the proposals, however, the council’s Chief Executive, John Kelpie, said that no information had been given to council by the Electoral Office regarding the matter.

Independent councillor Gary Donnelly praised staff at the local electoral office for their support for elected representatives, adding that it was time for them to ‘reciprocate’ that by now supporting them.

The SDLP’s John Boyle then formally proposed Cllr McMahon’s suggestion that the Chief Electoral Officer be brought before them to ‘explain the situation, as we’re in the dark here’.

Cllr McMahon also proposed that council back the retention of the six regional electoral offices.

It emerged last week Mr Shields is to retire at the end of this year.

The process of recruiting a successor for the has already begun, with applications and the successful candidate will be paid between £64,000-£78,300 a year.