AQW 39757/11-15

Mr Oliver McMullan
Sinn Féin
East Antrim

Tabled Date: 03/12/2014
Answered On Date: 11/12/2014
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety whether he will ensure that councillors cannot be nominated for a second term to the Northern Local Commissioning Group, therefore providing the opportunity for new councillors to be nominated.

Answer:

The term of office of members of a Local Commissioning Group (LCG) is prescribed in the Local Commissioning Groups (Membership) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2009. The regulations state that the term of office of members shall be 4 years or such other period as may be determined by the Health and Social Care Board (HSCB) at the time of the appointment. Under paragraph 7(3) of Schedule 1, Section 7 of the Health and Social Care (Reform) Act (NI) 2009, the Department is required to approve the appointment of any person to a committee of the Board.

A District Council member may, on the termination of the term of office, be eligible for re-appointment for a further period not exceeding 4 years. The HSCB may extend the appointment for such further period as may appear reasonable in the particular circumstances, for a further period not exceeding 4 years.

In order to rule out a second period of appointment, the legislation would need to be amended.

I can advise that there will be a District Councillor vacancy from 1 April 2015. In anticipation of this, a public recruitment exercise was undertaken in September 2014, and a subsequent exercise was undertaken by email and hard copy correspondence to individual councillors but yielded no applicants for the Northern LCG vacancy. It is anticipated that a further recruitment exercise, which will include the Northern LCG District Councillor vacancy, will take place in January 2015.