By Lisa McElherron from NICVA
Published on 16 Nov 2006
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland launches Governent's strategy for tackling poverty, in a launch at NICVA Headquarters.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has announced government’s commitment to work to eliminate poverty and social exclusion in Northern Ireland by 2020.
Peter Hain and Seamus McAleavey at the strategy launch.
When launching the document the Secretary of State paid particular attention to the role of voluntary and community organisations in the drive to end poverty and called for the sector to remain "a constant thorn in the side of government departments, not in a negative way but in a way that ensures we do not fall short of the mark”.
Enough is Enough.
After years of struggling with Targeting Social Need (TSN) and the recent high profile Enough is Enough campaign, Seamus McAleavey, Chief Executive of NICVA, welcomed the document saying "our sector is about bottom up approaches, but to be effective, bottom up has to meet top down. As a sector we asked for a robust strategy with political direction and that is what we got. Now the work begins again to ensure that the strategy is implemented"
Special Report
Watch the video footage of the 
Secretary of State's speech, with a transcript for accessibility.
Watch the video footage of Seamus McAleavey's speech, with a transcript for accessibility.
Early intervention
The Secretary of State stressed the need for early intervention as the most effective foil to poverty and social exclusion, and made some detailed remarks on the strategy itself.
Early intervention is the key to preventing poverty. It is our aim to provide a children’s centre in disadvantaged areas throughout Northern Ireland and to provide better services for children and their parents to ensure that the cycle of poverty is broken.
We must also ensure as a priority that the barriers to people joining or rejoining the labour market are removed by providing support to those who are unemployed or economically inactive.
Seamus McAleavey, NICVA’s chief executive, welcomed the report, but stressed the need for genuine action.
NICVA wanted a plan with clear goals and we welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has come up with this.
We are also pleased that ending poverty is now a priority for government departments as they prepare their budgets.
The launch of the strategy is a major milestone in the pursuit of policy to eradicate poverty in Northern Ireland. The launch at NICVA was symbolic of the vital role the voluntary and community sector has taken and will take in the delivery and development of a successful anti-poverty strategy, a point forcefully made by the Secretary of State in his remarks.
Key amongst the strategy's action plans are:
The poverty forum
A ministerially-led forum will bring together stakeholder groups, including local politicians, employers, representatives of trade unions, the statutory, voluntary and community sectors, social economy and individuals experiencing poverty and social exclusion. Secretariat for the forum will be provided by a Central Anti-Poverty Unit.
Cross-cutting priority
The anti-poverty and social inclusion strategy will be a cross-cutting priority in the Comprehensive Spending Review. This means that bids for money by government departments will take account of their commitments under the strategy. Once the spending review is completed, the policies needed and the resources involved to meet the commitments of the anti-poverty strategy will be published.
Local government
Sponsoring departments of the new District Councils will ensure that anti-poverty principles are firmly embedded in the business plans of the new organisations
Early years
The Children and Young People’s Package will give 12,000 more children access to Sure Start; there will seven new projects and 19 existing Sure Start initiatives will expand.
£8 million will be invested over two years to create multi-disciplinary support teams to offer support services in schools and other early years settings.
Another £100,000 will be allocated to increase the enrolment of Travellers in pre-school facilities.
Breastfeeding will be encouraged, to reach a target of 70% by 2025.
Children and young people
Child poverty will be eliminated by 2020, in line with the broader UK target. This means lifting 65,000 children out of relatively poverty within four years and the remaining 65,000 within 14 years.
By 2020 all children will have basic literacy and numeracy when they leave school and the performance of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds will have ‘substantially improved’.
Every child and young person will live in a decent, warm home by 2020.
The Secretary of state commending the document to the sector.
Working age adults
The government promises to raise the employment rate by 2008 and to increase the rate among lone parents by 2010.
It wants to reduce the proportion of adults with no formal qualifications to 18% by 2014 and 15% by 2020.
Boost employment in disadvantaged areas by targeting 75% of first time investment projects towards them.
Older citizens
There is a target to reduce the gap in life expectancy between the fifth most deprived and least deprived areas by two-thirds for both men and women between 2000 and 2025.
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