#niassembly

[bobbylovesthebeach]

Just voted 🗳 in Assembly 2022 Elections 👍

[wimpstv]

Another of the #WIMPSCamp13 groups visit the NI Assembly chamber at Stormont.

What a great morning in Stormont- thanks ‪@NIAEducation‬ ‪#wimpscamp13‬ - @sianWIMPS

[garyeoghan]

MLAs and their paper problem.

News today on the front page of the Irish News says that MLAs have amassed a total of £230,528 on printer toner cartridges in Stormont. While this is seen as a shocking amount, most papers a few weeks ago talked about how all Assembly members have received an 11% pay rise. Attached to most reports of this story was the fact that they were also trialing the use of iPads in Stormont in the hopes it will reduce paper usage.

This trial seen Stormont spending £7000 on 13 iPads. That gives a rough price of £538.46 per iPad. This is near the RRP of a new iPad with Wi-Fi and 4g (£579.00).

If Stormont were to go ahead after a successful trial and each MLA got an iPad (each MLA is currently entitled to two desktop computers and two laptops) the potential cost would be £62,532 (RRP) or £58,154 (based on the trial price).

With a difference of £172,374 between the printer cartridge cost and potential iPad cost, and the level of flexibility and functionality an iPad is seen to give, it remains up to Stormont to figure out two things: Would going fully digital be beneficial, and how much money have they been wasting on paper?