Anti-Poverty Strategy Update: Commissioner meets Minister for Communities to discuss the NI Executive’s Anti-Poverty Strategy

The NI Commissioner for Children and Young People, Chris Quinn had a constructive meeting with the Minister for Communities, Gordon Lyons MLA yesterday in relation to the NI Executive’s Anti-Poverty Strategy (APS).

They agreed about the importance of the APS making a real contribution to lifting children out of poverty.

The Commissioner highlighted his recently submitted advice to government on the APS, and suggested a number of areas that could ensure the strategy reflected long standing recommendations by the office and others on tackling child poverty.

Chris pressed the need to have specific, targeted intervention measures for assisting children and their families and those with specific vulnerabilities, that the strategy should have a ‘lifecycle approach,’ to introduce a new weekly child payment to all children in poverty. They also discussed the need to reduce family outgoings, including on fuel costs and the costs of education, including school uniforms.

Chris welcomed the Minister’s commitment to ensuring the APS was fit for purpose, and took into account the findings of the NI Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee reports on child poverty.

Both NICCY and the Minister, along with his Departmental officials, discussed a range of specific actions that NICCY proposed should be included in the Strategy and associated action plans to ensure that it improves the lives of babies, children, and young people in NI.

An outline of NICCY’s advice to government on the Anti-Poverty Strategy (APS)
The commissioner and his team provided an overview of NICCY’s advice on the Anti-Poverty Strategy:

• The APS must take a lifecycle approach and have clear focus on eradicating child poverty
• It should focus on lifting children out of poverty
• The Strategy should include new actions and not just collate actions already in place
• The Executive must dedicate resources to these actions
• Parents and children in poverty must be involved in advising on the APS, in terms of its design, implementation, monitoring and delivery
• The Executive must take account of the findings of the NI Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee reports on the previous child poverty strategy.

Actions that NICCY proposed should be included in the Strategy, as developed by the Anti-Poverty Strategy group are as follows –

• Introduce a new weekly Child Payment to all children in poverty
• Restore the value of key social security benefits for children to levels prior to austerity cuts
• Reduce family outgoings, and make education cost-free
• Deliver a new Executive Early Education and Childcare Strategy, targeting families in poverty, which will provide accessible, affordable, high quality, flexible and sustainable childcare.
• Provide targeted interventions for children with specific vulnerabilities.

Read our advice to government on the APS here.