Governance Blog Archive
Here you will find an archive of Governance Blog articles published before 1 May 2022, divided into their relevant categories.
Brexit
This article updates a previous article on the negotiations around the Gibraltar Protocol. Gibraltar provides an interesting point of comparison with Northern Ireland in terms of arrangements following the…
John Locke once wrote, ‘we should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, signs of our ideas only,…
The Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol (‘the Protocol’) was the subject of a judicial review challenge at the High Court of Justice in Belfast. The hearing, which stretched over several days,…
Democracy and Government
The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill returns to the House of Commons this week. MPs will consider the Bill in a Committee of the whole House. The Bill repeals the European…
The Westminster general election of 8 June 2017 resulted in a ‘hung parliament’, with the Conservatives as the largest party but without an overall majority. The result was: Conservative…
Transferred votes are an extremely important part of the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system. In the 2017 Assembly Election, only 18 MLAs had a sufficient number of first preference…
Justice
Rapid technological changes have caused the norms and methods of children’s sexual behaviour to evolve. Much screen-based media use now involves accessing interactive social networking sites such as Facebook…
Planning
Local government underwent significant structural change in 2015 with the number of councils reducing from 26 to 11, and the transfer of many functions from central to local government….
Statistics and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
By Aaron McMurray & James Bamford This dashboard has been prepared by the Assembly Research and Information Service (RaISe) to visualise data describing the spread of COVID-19 in Northern…
Overview The latest figures published by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) (February 2021) show that the number of alcohol-specific deaths in 2019 was the highest ever…
Foodbanks are an increasingly useful resource for many in Northern Ireland. They provide a valuable service to communities and are continually helping to feed those in need. An interactive…