News – N Ireland adjusts to new role for local government

The Forum for Local Government and the Arts (FLGA) is stepping up its engagement with district councils and strengthening its activities by building partnerships between local councillors, council officers and arts representatives across Northern Ireland. Originally formed more than ten years ago to act as a bridge between local government and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI), FLGA will be taking on a more prominent role as a co-ordinating and lobbying organisation, ensuring that the arts are a prominent feature in local politics.
The increased role is particularly significant in the light of changes to the future of public administration in Northern Ireland. Nick Livingston, Director of Strategic Development at ACNI, said, Following the Review of Public Administration, many more services will come under local control, and there will be new emphasis placed on community planning. The reinvigoration of the community planning process will lead to closer working partnerships across a number of areas, and this presents a significant and timely opportunity for the FLGA to help to embed the arts in local cultural planning and to ensure that historic disparities of spending on the arts between council areas are not replicated in the new system.