Debate contribution: Committee for Communities: Report on Engagement with Local Government on the Draft Anti-poverty Strategy

Debate contribution by Mr Maolíosa McHugh on 26 May 2026.

MLA: Mr Maolíosa McHugh
Party at the time: Sinn Féin
Date: 26 May 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Committee Business
Heading: Committee for Communities: Report on Engagement with Local Government on the Draft Anti-poverty Strategy
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5582565

Text

The recent 'Report on Engagement with Local Government on the draft Anti-Poverty Strategy' is welcome and important. First, I place on record my sincere thanks to councils right across the North, their elected members and officers, community planning partnerships and the wider community and voluntary sector for the extraordinary work that they continue to do every single day to support people and families who are experiencing poverty and hardship. We all know that councils are already on the front line of that work, whether delivering emergency hardship schemes, supporting social supermarkets, funding breakfast clubs, helping families with cost-of-living pressures, investing in labour market partnerships, supporting rural transport initiatives or coordinating local wrap-around services. Time and again, councils are stepping in to support communities when they need it most. The report highlights powerful examples. We heard about councils allocating hundreds of thousands of pounds from their own budgets to support vulnerable families. We heard about emergency fuel support schemes being overwhelmed within hours because the level of need is now so severe. We heard about community advice services bringing millions of pounds in unclaimed benefits back into local economies and about local interventions helping to tackle isolation, food insecurity and barriers to employment. That is essential work. The key message from the report, however, is clear: councils cannot continue to be treated as an afterthought in the development and delivery of an anti-poverty strategy. They have to be part of it. Recommendation 1 is particularly important because it recognises what many of us already know, which is that local government and community planning partnerships must be formally embedded at the heart of delivery. Councils understand their communities. They know where the pressures exist. They know the local organisations delivering real change on the ground, and they have already demonstrated their ability to bring agencies and communities together in practical, effective ways. If we are serious about tackling poverty, councils must be centrally involved in shaping, coordinating and delivering that work, and that must come with proper support and resources. Councils cannot continue to carry additional financial burdens without sustainable funding from central government. Some 80% of council income is solely from rates collection, and that must pay the bills. Rates collection must pay the wages of our brilliant council staff and the services that they deliver. The report rightly calls for multi-year, ring-fenced funding arrangements that move away from short-term firefighting and allow councils and community organisations to plan ahead properly. That is essential because tackling poverty cannot rely on yearly uncertainty. Late funding allocations are forcing local government to absorb increasing pressures through an already stretched rates base. Properly resourcing councils would allow them to continue to deliver vital support, ease the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on families, strengthen preventative services and build long-term, sustainable interventions that break cycles of poverty rather than simply managing crisis after crisis. The report provides a clear road map. I want to leave you with its last paragraph:
"The Committee strongly urges the Minister for Communities and Executive colleagues to carefully consider and implement these recommendations, and looks forward to reviewing a robust, fully-costed, and genuinely integrated final Anti-Poverty Strategy that truly delivers for the most vulnerable citizens in our society."
The challenge of the report, therefore, is for the Minister to listen, act and ensure that local government is recognised not simply as a stakeholder in this work but as an essential partner in delivering meaningful change for communities across the North.

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

Assessment

Awaiting analysis

This record has not been analysed yet. It is not counted in any total until it has been assessed.

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