Poverty: The Missing Mission in the draft Programme for Government

The Northern Ireland Executive’s draft Programme for Government 2024 – 27, ‘Our Plan: Doing What Matters Most’ is currently out for public consultation. A Programme for Government (PfG) is the Executive’s agreed upon set of priority objectives and an agreed budget linked to policies and programmes that aim to meet those objectives.

In other words, the PfG is the document that highlights the key objectives the government is planning on prioritising, what they are going to do to make progress towards them, how they will measure progress and the budget linked to make those programmes happen. The consultation closes on 4 November.

As a member of the Cliff Edge Coalition working group, NIAPN worked to prepared a response to the draft Programme for Government and a template cover letter that emphasizes that eradicating poverty should be a key priority for the PfG.

The Cliff Edge Coalition was set up to campaign for the extension and strengthening for the welfare mitigations package which currently protects people from the Benefit Cap and the Bedroom Tax in Northern Ireland.  Cliff Edge wants to ensure that these mitigations are extended beyond March 2025, and wants to see a strengthening of the mitigations package to include the removal of the two-child limit, resolving the Universal Credit five-week wait and increased support for private renters affected by the Local Housing Allowance.  These mitigations are crucial to addressing poverty across NI, particularly for women and children.

As part of the Cliff Edge Working group, NIAPN hopes that many organisations and individuals respond to the consultation, as we have been advised of the importance of the quantity of responses.

The draft PfG does not mention the Anti-Poverty Strategy by name; does not include eradicating poverty as a key priority; does not have objectives, measurables or targets relating to decreasing poverty over the course of the PfG.

NIAPN finds this unacceptable.

The main recommendation is to make ‘The Eradication of Poverty’ a priority. 

The Programme for Government should include details on:

• Implementing the Anti-Poverty Strategy;
• Prioritising the extension of the current welfare mitigations and strengthening them to align to the Cliff Edge Coalition’s three key asks:
  • Resolve the five week wait in Universal Credit
  • Remove the two-child limit
  • Provide support to private renters affected by the Local Housing Allowance
• Identifying short, medium and long-term objectives relating to tackling poverty with corresponding and measurable outcomes and targets
• A corresponding budget linked to achieving these objectives.

Please see attached link here to the Working Group response and a temple letter than can be easily edited as your response. 

The consultation closes 4 November 2024. Responses can be submitted by emailing PfGconsultation@executiveoffice-ni.gov.uk or by completing the online consultation survey which is available here: https://consultations.nidirect.gov.uk/teo/pfg-2024/consultation/subpage.2024-04-24.0780425831/