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50 signatures reached
To: NI Executive
OPEN PUBLIC LETTER: Drop the harmful Anti-Poverty Strategy
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We, the undersigned, alongside a number of prominent individuals and organisations from across civic society have signed on to this letter to call on the NI Executive to withdraw its support for this so-called strategy.
It is more harmful to have a strategy that will not address poverty, than no strategy at all. Our children, families and communities – your constituents – deserve better.
It is more harmful to have a strategy that will not address poverty, than no strategy at all. Our children, families and communities – your constituents – deserve better.
Why is this important?
We are inviting members of the public to sign the open letter to the Executive which was drafted based on the shared input and collective sentiment from a workshop hosted by the Northern Ireland Anti-Poverty Network regarding the draft anti-Poverty Strategy.
Dear Executive Ministers,
The undersigned agree that the Northern Ireland Executive's draft Anti-Poverty 'Strategy' does not meet the criteria of a reasonable strategy. It fails to fulfil what oversight bodies, including the NI Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee, outline as the basic elements of any strategy.
The NI Audit Office said that "an integrated cross departmental anti-poverty strategy [should] ensure that the focus is on a number of properly defined and more specific actions" and “it should include an action plan containing clearly defined indicators and targets aimed at quantifying and reducing poverty."
The Public Accounts Committee said that there is a "clear need for targets and outcomes that are quantitative, qualitative and time-bound to properly measure performance and demonstrate the impact of strategic actions." It also considered that "a strategy which does not have specific resources devoted to it is never going to be as effective as it could be."
We acknowledge that the Minister has indicated that an action plan with targets and specific actions will follow at a later, unspecified date, but every expert, every oversight body is clear that a strategy must include measurable and time bound targets within or alongside the strategy.
Once again, we urge you to meaningfully engage with the huge volume of research that has been produced by the Independent Expert Advisory Panel (2020), the Anti-Poverty Strategy Co-Design Group (2022), the Welfare Reform Mitigation Review (2021), the Discretionary Support Review (2022) and the hundreds of pages of Northern Ireland specific evidence produced by organisations and academics that provides clear evidence of the interventions that work to tackle poverty.
We are committed to working with you in good faith to eradicate poverty in Northern Ireland, and therefore, we are asking the NI Executive to withdraw their support of the draft Anti-Poverty Strategy, on the basis that it is more harmful to have a strategy that will not address poverty, than no strategy at all. Our children, families and communities – your constituents – deserve better.
Yours Sincerely,
50+ organisations and the undersigned