Agenda item

         The City Solicitor reminded the Committee that, at the time agreements had been made by Members in respect of the City Hall Exhibition, a paper had been tabled seeking agreement in terms of a process for future revisions to the exhibition.  He reported that the draft agreement as set out below reflected the principles shared between the parties in reaching agreement on establishing the exhibition and those principles were extended in respect of any proposals for any future changes.  The proposed arrangements for revision included proposals for mediation in respect of any revision to the exhibition which might be politically contentious.  It was pointed out that the agreement applied also to the East Lobby, a flexible exhibition space:

Appendix

Memorabilia Refresh Policy

The parties agree to the following principles on the display of memorabilia in the dedicated exhibition space and further agree that any decision on revising or amending the content of any display or narratives associated with the exhibition for the future will respect the principles so agreed-

1.     The display will reflect a fair balance of the traditions and history of the two predominant communities in N Ireland. This is without prejudice to any proposals to include material that might not have such an association or is otherwise uncontroversial.

2.     The display of material will have an association with the Citizens, City or district of Belfast.

3.     Material removed from any part of the exhibition with an association with a community must be replaced with material having the same community association, unless otherwise agreed between the parties.

4.     Narratives will be neutral reflecting a factual position and will not seek to promote or criticise any political party, view or tradition.

5.     Material relocated from the Rotunda and placed on display in the exhibition space will not be removed from the exhibition space unless otherwise agreed by the parties.

Without prejudice to the above principles, the parties agree to the following default arrangement with regard to decisions on revision and future content of the exhibition-

A.    Any proposals will be referred to the City Solicitor who will commission an assessment of the impact of such proposals in terms of equality and good relations impact.

B.    The proposals and report dealing with the impacts will be referred to the Shared City Partnership for comment.

C.    The matter will then be reported to SP&R. The parties agree to address issues within the spirit of this agreement and to work toward reformulating such proposals, if required, to take account of any identified impacts and the views expressed by the Shared City Partnership.

D.    In default of agreement the parties agree that the proposals will be subject to mediation.

Mediation will take place facilitated by an independent senior legally qualified member of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Service. Mediation will take no longer than 4 weeks. In the event that mediation has not been successful in formulating a proposal with which the parties agree, the proposal will be referred back to SP&R for consideration and decision.

The parties concur that this agreement creates a legitimate expectation that each will respect the principles upon which it is based and that they will work to resolve issues generally and in the manner set out. The parties accept that a failure to work and produce outcomes within the spirit and principles of this agreement may form the basis of a call-in in the context of Section 41 of the Local Government Act (NI) 2014 and that this agreement will be material to consideration of such issues and/or in relation to any complaint made to the Equality Commission alleging breach of Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act (NI) 1998.

         The Committee approved the refresh policy, subject to point 5 being replaced with the following

“Material relocated from elsewhere in the City Hall for display in the exhibition space is defined as part of the permanent exhibition.”