NORTHERN IRELAND
The head of the Northern Ireland Public Service, David Sterling (pictured) has denied an accusation he unfairly blamed a colleague for the botched Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme to secure his promotion to the Province’s top job.
Giving evidence to the inquiry into the RHI, Mr Sterling dismissed a claim by a former adviser to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) that he tried to pin the RHI failings on fellow PS employee Dr Andrew McCormick.
Both Mr Sterling and Dr McCormick had been in line to succeed the former head of the Public Service, Sir Malcolm McKibben.
In January 2015, Mr Sterling headed the Department of Finance and sent an email to Dr McCormick, then heading the Department for Enterprise, asking how his Department had got the RHI so wrong.
Ex-DUP adviser Tim Cairns said Dr McCormick believed at the time he was being unfairly blamed.
Mr Sterling rejected the accusation he did this to gain an advantage, saying “it’s just not in my nature to seek to do something like that”.
Mr Sterling said having known Dr McCormick for 18 years, he regarded him as a friend and that he would never try to shift blame towards him.
Meanwhile, the Northern Ireland Public Service is a step closer to getting the boosted clarity on its powers that UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Karen Bradley had promised in response to the continuing political vacuum in the Province.
Legislation to support PS staff effectively running Northern Ireland in the absence of elected Ministers has passed its third reading at Westminster.
Northern Ireland has lacked an Executive Government since power-sharing arrangements between Sinn Fein and the DUP collapsed in February 2017.
While PS staff have limited powers to keep services moving when there is no Executive in place, the lack of political direction is understood to have led to a backlog of major decisions being placed on hold.
A parliamentary briefing on the legislation suggested that just one of Northern Ireland’s eight Departments had a list of stalled decisions that ran into double figures.
Belfast, 26 October 2018
