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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The GNWT has announced the amalgamation of 70 regional and territorial boards into seven regionals bodies.

Responsibility for the delivery of health care, education and housing will fall to seven boards within three years, according to Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger, who leads a ministerial committee aimed at refocusing government priorities.

The ministerial re-focusing committee is planning to reduce the number of boards and agencies operating in the territory 10-fold by 2011.

Six regional boards will be responsible for program delivery while chairpersons from each board along with cabinet ministers will make-up a seventh pan-territorial co-ordinating committee.

"We have 70 boards in these program areas administering 33 communities, or 42,000 people," Miltenberger said, adding the multiplicity of boards is creating a barrier to service delivery.

Miltenberger's announcement Tuesday came as a surprise to some officials.

A board member with the Commission Scolaire Francophone - the territory's French school board - did not wish to be identified but said she hadn't heard any information about the merging of boards either, Thursday.

Miltenberger said, however, that territorial government officials did meet with CEOs.

"They were given some initial briefings from some of our senior folks involved in this - to go over the presentation and show them what our thinking was at this point and how we intend to carry on that process," he said.

Although Miltenberger said the refocusing committee recognized there will be difficulties combining the various boards he was adamant that the move was going ahead.

Miltenberger said his government will consult with the boards before the merger, but said the plan to do so is past the point of discussion.

"The issue is, we are not asking do you think this is a good idea. We are talking about how do we implement it," he said.

The government intends to take a two-track approach, he said, explaining that combining the agencies and boards in regions outside Yellowknife would be fairly straightforward and work would begin on that soon.

Miltenberger insisted that the merger plan should not be viewed as a cost-cutting exercise even though he acknowledged that it will help reduce administration costs.

"Anything that is not used in administration that is freed up will be used and absorbed by the program side," he said.

The refocusing committee was established during Premier Floyd Roland's spring budget - who was also finance minister at the time - to look at inefficiencies with delivery of programs and services from the government.

Agencies in Lutsel K'e, Dettah and Ndilo will be lumped in with the Yellowknife boards to create one North Slave regional board, said Miltenberger.