Almost 50 charities and anti-poverty organisations have called on the Northern Ireland Executive to withdraw its draft strategy to tackle poverty, saying that families “deserve better”.
The letter reads:
Dear Executive Ministers,
The undersigned agree that the Northern Ireland Executive’s draft Anti-Poverty ‘Strategy’ does not meet the criteria of a reasonable strategy. It fails to fulfil what oversight bodies, including the NI Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee, outline as the basic elements of any strategy.
The NI Audit Office said that “an integrated cross departmental anti-poverty strategy [should] ensure that the focus is on a number of properly defined and more specific actions” and “it should include an action plan containing clearly defined indicators and targets aimed at quantifying and reducing poverty.”
The Public Accounts Committee said that there is a “clear need for targets and outcomes that are quantitative, qualitative and time-bound to properly measure performance and demonstrate the impact of strategic actions.” It also considered that “a strategy which does not have specific resources devoted to it is never going to be as effective as it could be.”
We acknowledge that the Minister has indicated that an action plan with targets and specific actions will follow at a later, unspecified date, but every expert, every oversight body is clear that a strategy must include measurable and time bound targets within or alongside the strategy.
Once again, we urge you to meaningfully engage with the huge volume of research that has been produced by the Independent Expert Advisory Panel (2020), the Anti-Poverty Strategy Co-Design Group (2022), the Welfare Reform Mitigation Review (2021), the Discretionary Support Review (2022) and the hundreds of pages of Northern Ireland specific evidence produced by organisations and academics that provides clear evidence of the interventions that work to tackle poverty.
We are committed to working with you in good faith to eradicate poverty in Northern Ireland, and therefore, we are asking the NI Executive to withdraw their support of the draft Anti-Poverty Strategy, on the basis that it is more harmful to have a strategy that will not address poverty, than no strategy at all. Our children, families and communities – your constituents – deserve better.
Yours Sincerely,
The Northern Ireland Anti-Poverty Network, Goretti Horgan (Ulster University and Expert Panel), Pauline Leeson (CiNI and Expert Panel), Mike Tomlinson (Professor Emeritus, QUB and Expert Panel), Bernadette McAliskey (Expert Panel), Barnardo’s NI, Action for Children, Children in Northern Ireland (CiNI), Save the Children NI, NICVA (Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action), Ulster Farmers Union, UNISON NI, Unite the Union, Gerry Murphy (ICTU Assistant General Secretary), Alan Perry (Senior Organiser, GMB Trade Union), the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, Rev. David Campton (Belfast Central Mission), Rev. Brian Anderson (East Belfast Mission and coalition of Christian Voices Against Poverty), Rev Dr Norman Hamilton, Rev Paul Maxwell (Chair of Dundonald Foodbank and Superintendent Minister of the Belfast East Circuit of the Methodist Church in Ireland), Dr Ciara Fitzpatrick (Ulster University), Law Centre NI, Cliff Edge Coalition NI, Rural Community Network, Belfast Central Mission, Black and Minority Ethnic Women’s Network, Women’s Policy Group NI, Women’s Resource & Development Agency, Human Rights Consortium, Community Advice Fermanagh, Forward South Partnership, Women’s Spaces, Raise Your Voice, Northern Ireland Council for Racial Equality, Storehouse (NI), Conradh na Gaeilge, Disabled People Against Cuts Northern Ireland, Northwest Forum of People with Disabilities, Age NI, Dr Alexandra Chapman (Ulster University), Ann Marie Gray FAcSS (Professor of Social Policy and Co-Director of ARK), Northern Ireland Women’s Budget Group, Simon Community, Women’s Support Network, Women’s Regional Consortium, Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, Ardoyne Association, Ardoyne Bone Community Health and Leisure Trust, An Dream Dearg, St Vincent de Paul, Community Transport Association Northern Ireland, Ecojustice Ireland, NIRWN (Northern Ireland Rural Women’s Network), Participation and the Practice of Rights, and Reclaim the Agenda.
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