Alliance's marathon manifesto

29 Apr 2016 Nick Garbutt    Last updated: 29 Apr 2016

They've read it: have you?

At more than 37,000 words and 88 pages the Alliance Manifesto is by far the longest to be published to date. 

This is great in so far as it is the most comprehensive exposition of policy from any party standing, but publishing an election document the length of a short novel and expecting voters to read it is a very big ask. However Scope readers need to worry too much about that. We’ve been through it and have picked out some of the best bits.

It is called Faster Forward, and describes itself as an agenda to speed up the pace of change.  A quarter of the document is devoted to outlining the party’s record in its stewardship of its two ministries, Justice and DEL and its conduct in the Assembly as a whole.

The party restates its commitment to creating an integrated and shared society which it describes as its central mission. It wants to see “new leisure, educational, health, social and community facilities being built with an explicit objective to ensure optimal and open public use.”

And Alliance asserts that division comes at a cost: it says that all departments in the next government should audit themselves to ascertain the financial cost of societal division and adopt plans to address it.

By doing this the party identifies that monies would be freed up to deliver on other manifesto pledges.

The party reiterates its support for the European Convention of Human Rights, but is sceptical about a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. It says compelling arguments need to be put forward to explain why we need a “fundamentally different” human rights regime to other jurisdiction and would oppose any Bill that entrenched the notion of two separate communities in Northern Ireland. The party also commits itself to introducing a single Equality Act.

There is a specific section on Equality in the manifesto, covering people with disabilities, women, LGBT rights (although its support for equal marriage is conditional on protection being afforded to faith groups and celebrants who do not wish to marry gay couples}, children and young people (including lowering the voting age to 16) and older people.

The section on political reform contains a proposal to drop the current First and deputy First Minister designations and replace them with joint First Minister roles. It wants the return of the Civic Forum and a Youth Assembly. On devolution the party is in favour of a federal UK and would like more tax raising powers here, but states that Northern Ireland politicians would need to demonstrate more “political maturity” first.

On Justice the party wants an Adult Restorative Justice strategy as part of a plan to put victims at the centre of the system and also wants a statutory presumption against the use of short sentences, challenging their effectiveness and disproportionate cost. . It concedes that existing initiatives on interfaces are not working so wants to set up an independent body to help regenerate interface areas and work with communities to build the confidence for barriers to be removed.

The party supports lower Corporation Tax but wants to know how this will be funded. It wants to see the setting up of a “Prosperity Panel” of international experts to guide government on supporting economic growth. It also supports the development of social enterprises and wants a “Social Enterprise Strategy”.

Alliance has always been a strong proponent of integrated education. It has a nine point plan for increasing provision which includes the following:

  • Government should set a minimum target of 20% of children being educated in integrated schools and 40% in mixed schools within the next ten years.
  • The duty on the Department of Education to encourage, not merely to facilitate, the development of integrated education must be better enforced, and also fully applied through the new Education Authority.
  • Where new schools are being built, for example, to service new housing developments, the Department should survey local residents regarding a presumption that they will be integrated or mixed. As far as possible, new schools should be sited to service mixed catchment areas.

It also renews its commitment to deliver on a single teacher training institution for Northern Ireland, a policy on which it was faced down in office.

The party opposes academic selection but argues that the current system is not working. It wants to see “non -tested selection” in schools at 14, but does not define precisely what that would mean.

All the parties agree on the need for reform of the Health Service, but none have spelled out what that means in terms of closing acute hospitals. Alliance goes further than the others to date with this:

“Alliance recognises the importance of providing local access, where practical, to the widest range of services, and preserving local facilities for current or alternative use as far as possible. However, this must be balanced with the need to achieve economies of scale in relation to access to the very best equipment and technologies, and to allow clinicians to maximise their skills in some specialism through having a critical mass of relevant patients.

Any reconfiguration of services should be preceded through better facilitating of travel for both patients and visitors, including the provision of an Air Ambulance, and greater use of tele-medicine.”

The party supports the introduction of a “small charge” for prescriptions for those able to afford it.

There is a commitment on Arts spending to “raising arts spending to at least the average spend on arts in these islands per capita, and review how to make this spending effective.”

The party also has the following on the voluntary sector:

“The voluntary and community sector is a vital part of Northern Ireland’s communities. It is also becoming an increasingly complex sector, which is involved in delivering public services as well as other, philanthropic roles. The time has come to ensure our government structures are in place to support the voluntary sector and promote an active role in communities for those who want it. Alliance will do that by:

  • Producing a public consultation on Active Citizenship and Volunteering to help make the most of these activities.
  • Providing clearer advice on procurement for voluntary and community organisations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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