Northern Ireland Community Relations Council - About Us - Council Minutes

16 March 2010

Policy and Communications Committee Meeting

Present: Billy Gamble, Hassan Mansour, David Russell, Jonny Byrne, Katie Hanlon, Tony Kennedy, Tony McCusker, David Porter

In Attendance: Ray Mullan, Dympna McGlade, Gemma Attwood, Ellana Tomasso, Patricia O’Neill, Duncan Morrow, Jacqueline Irwin

1 Welcome and Apologies

Tony Kennedy welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Apologies: Deirdre MacBride, Sinead McShane, Rosaleen McCorley, Stephen Farry.

2 Minutes – 1 September 2009

The minutes of the meeting on 1 September were formally ratified by the Committee.

3 Minutes – 13 January 2010

The minutes of the meeting on 13 January were also seen as a true and fair reflection of the meeting. It is noted that a subsequent meeting had taken place between David Russell, Dympna McGlade and Billy Gamble.

4 Matters Arising

There were no matters arising.

5 Chair’s Business

The Chair thanked everyone for attending the meeting.

Mr Kennedy also asked if Mr Mullan and Ms McGlade would do an overall briefing of their programmes work at the start of the next and subsequent meetings.

6 Community Relations Week – 26 April – 2 May 2010

The deadline for submission of entries for the CR Week Brochure was 1 March. All District Council areas except two had arranged events. A total of 135 events were listed in the programme. The Policy Programme was organising its annual conference to take place during the week and also a Resource Fair was taking place in L’Derry which was being arranged across the CRC programmes.

The theme for this year’s CR Week was ‘Changing the Conversation’. The aim is to encourage discussion and engage young people in conversations on the way forward for Northern Ireland.

Launch events are being held in Belfast, L’Derry and Enniskillen. Council members will be circulated with details of the launches and are encouraged to attend. Council members should also indicate their availability throughout CR Week and will be slotted into events as appropriate. The events listing will be updated on the website. A discussion was held as to the Lifetime Achievement Award – which may be given during the week as in previous years.

7 Policy Conference – W5 – 27 April

The policy conference is being held in conjunction with Youthnet. Representatives from all political parties have been invited to attend. The general invitation will be sent out next week. Paul Sweeney from Department of Education has been asked to speak at the conference – currently awaiting confirmation. It was asked if Council members could attend and help facilitate workshops.

The Live Issues conference was also discussed – it is taking place on 11 March in Armagh. The theme of this conference is sustainability.

8 One Small Step Campaign

One Small Step is hosted by CRC and is inactive at the moment. The last meeting of this group took place on 11 February. The Committee was informed that a decision had been made to support a CFNI/Co-operation Ireland youth project called Changing the Conversations – which would form part of an evaluation and present proposals for the way forward for One Small Step.

9 Interface Working Group

A summary of the group’s history was given to the Committee. Cross-border event held in the Killyhevlin on 4 March and there will be a further event in the Cavan Crystal on 29 March. Members are welcome to attend. A paper has been produced by ICR on interfaces beyond Belfast and we are now working in partnership with RCN on the Rural Enablers Programme which will look at ‘interfaces beyond Belfast’.

10 CRC Publications

Shared Space – CRC’s research journal comes out at the end of next week.

There was a suggestion that a summary of articles from Shared Space could be produced in a more populist version.

11 Consultations and NI Assembly Update

Draft response to Bill of Rights (NIO) – Amendments from B Gamble and D Russell. Paper to be updated and presented to Council for further comment and ratification.

The Housing Bill (DSD) – Gemma Attwood needs comments back by close of business on Thursday 11 March. It will be submitted on Friday 12 March 2010.

Members found the Assembly reports very useful and thanked Ms Attwood for her work. There was also the suggestion that we should look at ‘alerts services’ from Westminster.

Gemma Attwood disseminated a paper on process for consultation responses. Committee ratified process.

Duncan Morrow and Gemma Attwood are meeting with various MLAs.

12 CSI Update

Duncan Morrow gave an update on the Assembly’s CSI document. The Committee welcomed this.

13 External Communication Review Update

There was a need to move on with this. The key priorities were seen as media work and public affairs. This was taken into account when designing the job description for the new Policy Officer.

14 Section 75

Clarification is required on CRC’s role in relation to Section 75. There is some concern about the relationship between CR and equality.

ECNI and CRC have a memorandum of understanding but it would be beneficial to have a method of operation in place which could include Human Rights. Necessity to work in concert with ECNI and Human Rights Commission promoting equality, CR and human rights as common goals. We need to move away from the theoretical to a practical programme of work across the Commissions.

This should be worked on with the other Commissions.

15 AOB

Press release to be put out on Policing and Justice.

Duncan Morrow and Tony McCusker travelled to York to agree Memorandum of Understanding with Rowntree regarding the Research post which will have a clear connection with the Policy Department.

The Policy Officer post has also been advertised including a key focus on engagement with political institutions.

Tony Kennedy proposed Michael Wardlow as a co-optee to the Committee. This was agreed.

16 Date of Next Meeting

12 May 2010.

All action points are highlighted in red and bold.