Debate contribution: Child Poverty

Debate contribution by Mr Alan Robinson on 15 April 2024.

MLA

Mr Alan Robinson

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

15 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Child Poverty

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4482994

Read the official Assembly record

Text

It is important to base a strategy and action plan on reliable research and informed studies. The Northern Ireland Audit Office recently published its report on child poverty in Northern Ireland. I will highlight some of the findings. The Audit Office report concluded that about one fifth of children in Northern Ireland live in relative poverty, before housing costs are factored in. The report found that there has been "little sustained improvement" in reducing child poverty levels since the Executive published their previous child poverty strategy in 2016. The report found that the previous strategy's outcomes:

"were not clearly supported by specific actions and interventions".

Accountability arrangements were not understood by all, and a lack of joined-up working "hampered the effectiveness" of the strategy. The report also found that there are:

"limitations with data and measures used to assess and monitor child poverty".

It states:

"The costs of dealing with the effects of child poverty are significant".

I will highlight some of the key recommendations of the Audit Office report, the first of which is:

"An integrated, cross-departmental anti-poverty strategy is urgently needed. As co-ordinating department in this area, when the Department presents a draft strategy to the Executive, it should include an action plan containing clearly defined indicators and targets aimed at quantifying and reducing poverty, including measures of persistent poverty and the poverty gap."

Second, the report recommends:

"In developing the action plan for presentation to the Executive, as co-ordinating department, the Department should work with contributing departments to ensure that the focus is on a number of properly defined and more specific actions, including early intervention and prevention, and that they can demonstrate clear links between actions and reducing the scale and impact of poverty."

The third recommendation is:

"Collective ownership and accountability arrangements for the new anti-poverty strategy should be clearly outlined and agreed at the outset. The Department should provide the Executive with recommendations regarding an independent monitoring mechanism, which includes key stakeholders, to provide regular independent scrutiny and review of anti-poverty strategic outcomes as well as to identify and address gaps in understanding of the accountability process."

The fourth recommendation is:

"In leading on a new anti-poverty strategy the Department should work with other contributing departments to identify opportunities where delivering interventions in a genuinely cross-departmental way (including the role to be played by non-governmental organisations) would be appropriate and effective, and present these proposals to the Executive for consideration."

The fifth recommendation is:

"When the new anti-poverty strategy and action plan is prepared, the Department should work with contributing departments to ensure that, as far as possible, actions included are properly costed to allow the Executive to make decisions on the budget allocations required. To enhance transparency and allow an assessment of the value delivered by publicly funded services, direct spending on new actions within the strategy should be monitored and reported."

The sixth recommendation is:

"The Department should present proposals to the Executive for monitoring mechanisms to measure the new anti-poverty strategy's objectives and outcomes and to enable data to be collated and reported in a timely fashion."

The seventh recommendation is:

"The Department should continue to work closely with DWP on their work on developing a new poverty metric to enable it to determine whether a more nuanced poverty measure should be developed and implemented for Northern Ireland."

My party welcomes the Audit Office report and the informed analysis and recommendations that it provided for taking this important matter forward.

579 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not qualifying

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:00 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reviews every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification