Ulster Unionist Leader Mike Nesbitt MLA has said that the fact it has taken OFMdFM a full year to provide the Assembly Committee with a written brief on the Sexual Orientation Strategy, is further proof that urgent change is required at Stormont.
Mr Nesbitt, who is Chair of the OFMdFM Committee, said:
“The very fact that it has taken until September 2015 for officials to provide a written brief to the OFMdFM Committee on the consultation process is further evidence of the dysfunctional nature of both the Executive as a whole and OFMdFM as a department.
“The Consultation Document on the Development of a Sexual Orientation Strategy and Action Plan was launched 18 months ago in March 2014. Phase 1 of the public consultation ended on 6 June 2014 and over the summer of last year responses were to be analysed.
“This is a department, it must be remembered, which has more staff than either 10 Downing Street or the White House. OFMdFM also has no fewer than eight Special Advisers. That’s for one department, whereas the entire Welsh Government has to struggle by with the same number whilst Scotland has a total of 14 across all departments.
“I know that a total of 995 responses were received but over 300 of these were accounted for by four template style responses making basically the same points.
“It is simply unacceptable that it should have taken a year to analyse this volume of information but sadly this is par for the course for a department that has proven notoriously slow at responding to requests for information via Assembly Questions or the Freedom of Information Act.