This is the view of an East Antrim MLA, who has told the Assembly his constituency has a low and falling proportion of posts in the public services, but warned against a rush to relocate staff across Northern Ireland.

Roy Beggs believes decentralisation, approached correctly, can offer savings to the public purse, but fears a rush to redistribute posts could be costly.

“We ought to learn from the Republic of Ireland’s painful experiences of job relocation: huge expense and considerable upheaval of services. The Scottish Executive have had virtually to reverse their decentralisation policy and give increased weight to value for money,” he said.

“We have to save £370 million. Proposals to relocate Civil Service jobs would incur an additional cost. A decision to relocate civil service jobs means deciding not to provide money to front line services, and we must be careful that that does not happen.

“We must be careful to make sure that such moves will produce savings and that a new work arrangement will kick in at the same time. Such moves must be carefully planned so that savings are made, thus enabling reinvestment for the future.”

Mr Beggs, noted that East Antrim has only 2.4% of Northern Ireland’s 219,000 public sector jobs, with a Department of Agriculture office in Larne earmarked for closure. Carrickfergus has 8.2 public sector jobs per 100 of working age population, Larne eight and Newtownabbey 10.3; Belfast and Londonderry have 35.6 and 19.2 respectively.

The Ulster Unionist representative suggested that the Review of Public Administration may provide an opportunity to examine where civil servants should be based.

Finance Minister Sammy Wilson, also an East Antrim MLA, said he accepts that “economic benefits need to be spread across Northern Ireland,” but suggested that capital investment - funded by the Executive but with most work done by the private sector - is a more important factor in creating and sustaining jobs in many areas than actual civil service posts.

The DUP representative agreed with Mr Beggs that reorganisation now will mean less money for other projects and can only be justified if future savings will be made.