NI Anti Poverty Network criticises Executive's Anti-Poverty Strategy
'Another missed opportunity to take specific measureable actions to tackle poverty here' - NI Anti Poverty Network
The NI Anti Poverty Network (NIAPN) has criticised the Executive's Anti-Poverty Strategy.
The Strategy, published by The Department for Communities on June 17, is currently out for public consultation, which closes on September 19, 2025 at 5.00pm.
A spokesperson for NIAPN said: "After 19 years of waiting for the publication of a draft strategy, we are hugely disappointed by the fact that this is not a strategy.
"Both the NI Audit Office and the Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee have been clear that a strategy must have certain characteristics. These include: specific poverty reduction targets, strategic outcomes supported by specific actions and interventions, and a ringfenced budget to deliver the strategy.
"The Minister says targets and specific actions will come with Action Plans – but every expert, every oversight group, is clear that a Strategy requires measureable outcomes. This is another missed opportunity to take specific measureable actions to tackle poverty here. Instead, we have a recycling of existing interventions and plans which will not eradicate poverty.
"It is hard to see how we can make a formal response to a document that contains no elements of a Strategy. Our initial response must be to ask the Minister to go back to the drawing board and produce a Strategy that meets the basic requirements laid out by oversight bodies such as the NI Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee."