Stormont executive’s six year plan to tackle child poverty in Northern Ireland a failure, says scathing new report
A Stormont executive strategy to tackle child poverty has been a failure, a scathing new report says.
The plan was supposed to reduce the number of children in poverty and lessen the impact of poverty on children, but a new report says it made little to no impact in both areas.
Originally slated to run from 2016 to 2020, the Child Poverty Strategy was later extended to May 2022.
A review conducted by the Public Accounts Committee says it had no impact on child poverty levels, was not sufficiently targeted nor funded, did not focus on prevention, was not centred around the needs of children, and had “unacceptably poor” arrangements for accountability.
The report said there was little improvement in poverty levels throughout the lifetime of the strategy, with relative poverty rates hovering around 20%.
The committee accused the Department for Communities, which ran the scheme, of appearing to be “to be too far removed” from those experiencing poverty.
“We consider that delivery of the Child Poverty Strategy has been characterised by failure,” stated the committee.
“Failure to reduce child poverty, failure to monitor outcomes effectively, failure of collective working and accountability, failure to engage with children and the community and voluntary sectors, and now a failure to produce a new anti-poverty strategy.”
Since May 2022, Stormont hasn’t had any plans for tackling child poverty in place.
The committee said a new anti-poverty strategy needs to be developed urgently, adding the department should report back early next year to confirm one will be ready to present to the Executive before the end of March.