To ask the Minister of the Environment when he intends to transform Voluntary Transitional Committees into Statutory Transitional Committees.

In order to drive the process of transition and convergence of local councils under the reform of local government, my Department is working to transform local Transition Committees from a voluntary standing to a statutory position as soon as possible. I intend to lay regulations in the Assembly by February 2013 and will put the Committees onto a statutory footing as soon as this legislation has been passed by the Assembly.

This will enable Statutory Transition Committees to take forward key areas of work that will include governance, corporate and financial planning, service delivery, transferring functions, community planning, capacity building and the appointment of senior staff. I believe this will help create certainty and provide leadership.

However, there is no impediment for VTC’s pressing on with their work programmes, which should be accelerating as we are now 500 days to the shadow elections and 850 days to the new council clusters going live.