Member's statement: Orchardville Society
Member's statement by Mr Peter Martin on .
- MLA
- Mr Peter Martin
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 11 February 2025
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Orchardville Society
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4793316
Read the official Assembly record
Text
The Orchardville Society is an organisation in my constituency that has been providing essential services and support for people with learning disabilities and autism for more than 40 years. Annually, it assists over 600 people from across the country, but, most recently, in December, it launched an extended and expanded service in North Down. Recently, I was delighted to meet the staff and users in their new North Down centre, where I saw at first hand the outstanding work that is being done to transform the lives of those with autism or learning disabilities. The centre in Bangor has quickly become a thriving hub for its participants, welcoming over 100 users every week and projecting an impressive 10,800 attendances annually. Orchardville supports its participants in a range of ways, such as through employability and skills. The team encourages participants to overcome individual barriers to employment and assists them in developing skills to achieve accredited qualifications so that they can pursue secure and paid employment. The organisation is very community-orientated and works to ensure that all its service users are integrated into their local community and forge new friendships through social clubs and weekend activities. It also provides well-being support to participants with problems, such as anxiety, to help them cope better. Despite the amazing efforts of Orchardville in supporting its clients, it has come under increasing financial pressure very recently. Most notably, the rise in National Insurance contributions, amalgamated with a higher minimum wage threshold, means that Orchardville will now have to find £75,000 to meet the increased costs that those changes will have. It is indefensible to expect it to choose between staff wages and funding. In tandem with the impact of NIC, it has been affected by the reduced funding allocation from the Shared Prosperity Fund, leaving staff unsure about the future due to financial pressures. One-off programmes for Orchardville are simply not sustainable as it is assisting people with disabilities, and many of those people require ongoing support for their employment and skills. It is imperative, therefore, that a long-term financial plan is designed to help and support social enterprises such as Orchardville to carry on the fantastic work that it does, helping some of the most vulnerable in our society. Therefore, I ask the Health Minister to look at measures that will place its funding on a more secure footing and underpin the incredible work that it does.
402 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.94).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- Subject area: Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits.
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.03 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.01 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.94 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 1.00 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.00 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
| Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:57 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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