Commissioner Chris Quinn proposes a “rewrite” of the anti-poverty strategy so it can genuinely reflect the needs of children in low-income families. Read Chris’s statement outlining his six essential points for a robust strategy.
“Poverty is one of the most significant and persistent problems facing children and their families in Northern Ireland. The latest government figures show that 25% of children, around 109,000, live in relative poverty. That is appalling, and unacceptable. But it is not news – this has been the case for many years now.
“My office, along with a range of civic society organisations, political representatives and academics, has advocated for many years for a robust Anti-Poverty Strategy that will bring a focus across government to tackling this problem and start to shift things in the right direction. We have provided advice on what is needed, drawing on evidence and the experiences of those living in poverty.
“I have consistently outlined six essential points in relation to the strategy, and these are shared with a wide range of organisations, including members of the Anti-Poverty Strategy Group.
“While I have been pleased that the Executive has published its draft Anti-Poverty Strategy, I have been deeply disappointed to see that it falls short on each of these six essential points.
- Firstly, if the draft strategy is to truly eradicate poverty, it follows that it must focus on lifting people out of poverty. There are numerous other strategies relating to addressing disadvantage, and mitigating the impact of poverty, and the specific contribution of the Anti-Poverty Strategy must be on lifting people out of poverty. Only one of the three pillars of the Strategy focuses on ‘supporting people to exit poverty’.
- Second, the strategy should adopt a life cycle approach, focusing on children, working-age adults, and older people, recognising that at each stage, there are different causes of poverty and barriers to moving out of poverty. The draft Strategy has moved away from this approach, and in doing so, does not adequately focus on child poverty.
- Third, it must contain new actions, not just collate the actions that are already being delivered, otherwise it offers nothing new. The draft Strategy provides very little in the way of specific new actions or indications of areas where the Executive intends to develop new actions.
- The fourth point relates to this: the Strategy should result in budget being allocated to new actions, or to invest more in actions that are already being shown to lift people out of poverty. There is no indication of new funding allocated to the Strategy or its actions, other than that which has already been announced.
- Fifth, it is absolutely essential that those with experience of poverty, including children and their families, must be meaningfully engaged in the design of the strategy and actions. Moreover, government must listen to people experiencing poverty as the strategy is implemented, and be accountable to them in monitoring its delivery. There has been no engagement with people with experience of poverty at any stage of the process of developing the strategy, and there is only a vague statement that this will be considered at some point.
- Finally, both the NI Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee produced reports critiquing the delivery of the 2016-22 Child Poverty Strategy, noting no sustained decrease in child poverty over this time. Both made very strong recommendations relating to the points above, and specifically about accountability. There is no indication that this draft Strategy has taken account of any of the NIAO or PAC recommendations, and as it stands, it is set to repeat past mistakes.
“It is important that people, particularly those with experience of poverty, engage with the consultation on the draft Anti-Poverty Strategy.
“The Executive needs to hear what will make a difference for children in low income families, and rewrite the strategy to reflect these actions, and the six standards I have laid out.”
Visit the Department for Communities website to take part in the Anti-Poverty Strategy consultation.
