Minister Charles Mangion meets Local Councils' Association Committee

The Minister of Justice and Local Councils, the Hon. Charles Mangion, had a meeting today with the Executive Committee of the Local Councils Association led by its President Dr Ian Micallef.

The participants to the meeting exchanged views and discussed various topics and issues, among them the attachment of workers from the Public Sector, representation of Local Councils on the Boards of certain Corporations, delegation of law enforcement and collection of fines, recruitment of wardens, reassessment of the financial mechanism for Local Councils and training schemes for Secretaries and Councillors. It was agreed that these questions would be discussed in more detail at future meetings.

Another item that was discussed was the implementation of Section 47(6) of the Local Councils Act concerning the appointment of Committees to report on the needs of particular towns, villages or hamlets within a locality. The Executive Committee agreed to promote the setting up of such Committees in those localities where this was applicable.

In recognition of the ever increasing volume of work that was being shouldered by the Local Councils Association, the Minister announced that the grant paid to the Association was being increased to Lm 30,000.

It was finally agreed that similar meetings would be held with the Executive Committee of the Local Councils Association on a regular basis.

These meetings would not affect in any way meetings which the Minister would hold with individual Local Councils as already scheduled, and on an ad hoc basis as requested by the Local Councils.