Building Back Fairer: the new Programme for Government must confront inequalities exacerbated by Covid-19 (PPR’s response to the Outcomes Framework consultation March 2021) Humanitarian workers, social scientists and others have spent years accumulating hard evidence of the ways in which shocks -- natural disasters, famines, Ebola or Zika, war -exacerbate inequalities in the places they've struck. We've come to understand that crises hit hardest the people who are least equipped to withstand them, and leave them even further behind. Think of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, 2005, and the way in which -- in one of the richest and most powerful nations in the world -- the ones who died were predominately Black and poor. The same holds true for the pandemic in the UK -- those most badly affected come, by and large, from the groups who were worse off to start with. As Children's Commissioner for England Anne Longfield said in her recent leaving speech, "it’s impossible to overstate how damaging the last year has been for many children – particularly those who were already disadvantaged". Her assessment has been replicated over and over in a host of different areas.
health: statistics have revealed stark inequalities in mortality from Covid-19, particularly in deprived areas and amongst BAME groups (Institute of Health Equity's Covid-19 Marmot Review: build back fairer and others)
livelihood and living standards: analysis shows a disproportionate impact of the pandemic on young people in insecure work, affecting their employment prospects, income and ability to meet housing costs (eg Resolution Foundation's intergenerational audit)
mental health: worse mental health impacts of Covid-19 have been found amongst poorer families, linked not least to financial strain (the most recent British Medical Journal and elsewhere) These statistical patterns of failing outcomes for those in most need are mirrored across NI.
I. The PfG Draft Frameworks consultation The NI Executive’s draft Outcomes Framework for a new Programme for Government will direct and orient both future work and future expenditure for the next five years. Work on the Outcomes Framework began before the pandemic. The difficulty is that, barring a more recent foreword and introduction, the Executive's draft largely reads as though the pandemic never happened. The nine proposed Outcomes and the suggested Key Priority
Areas within them do not mention Covid-19 except in two places (and then in reference to its impact on the economy and investment, not on people). For the most part, the strategies and policies listed as being mechanisms for achieving progress against the outcomes pre-date Covid as well. How much does this matter? The Executive's Introduction says It is crucially important to get the wording of the Outcomes right as they will provide the starting point for future long-term strategic policy planning by the Executive and act as a touchstone for its strategies and actions moving forward. To that, the draft's Equality Impact Assessment added a consistent message heard from stakeholders is that the Framework needs to be upfront and clear about the Executive’s key priority areas so there can be no ambiguity around the work to be taken forward. In that spirit, the following contains evidence of pre-existing inequalities and of the ways that have been deepened by the past year's pandemic. They all need urgent attention. Recognising them in the Outcomes Framework of the Programme for Government is the first step towards acting on them. Including them is one way of demonstrating that this government is committed to improving the lives of those who need it most. The Equality Impact Assessment clarified that for each outcome, indicators "drawn from official and national statistics" will be used "to quantify achievement towards the Outcomes and to show change over time". That makes sense -- with the caveat that, in the wake of the seismic changes wrought by Covid, a lack of a national statistical baseline in a given area is no excuse for failing to set indicators that match the most pressing concerns in people's daily lives. This PfG is an opportunity for government to be nimble and responsive -- not hidebound or hamstrung by procedure. Where key issues have been left out of the Outcomes Framework and its key priority areas, that has been pointed out below, with suggested sources for an evidence base for the relevant indicator.
II. Summary of recommended changes to the Outcomes Framework For the Programme for Government to be fit for purpose, it must ensure that going forward, longstanding inequalities that have been made even more acute by the past year's pandemic are explicitly named, addressed and monitored. These include: Children and young people 1. Child homelessness. 2. Child food poverty. 3. Children's mental health and wellbeing. 4. Children's special educational needs. 5. Children and young people's digital exclusion. 6. Enforced destitution. Housing and homelessness 1. Homelessness and housing stress. 2. Vulnerable security of tenure of private renters. 3. Rough sleeping. Standard of living and income 1. Deprivation. 2. Household poverty. 3. Insecure work. 4. Barriers to work for disabled people. 5. Barriers to work for refugees and asylum seekers. 6. Impact of the social security and benefits system on the people who need them. Detail on how inequalities in these areas have been deepened by the pandemic can be found in the following section.
III. The evidence on how Covid-19 has deepened key inequalities here The first aspirational Outcome, "our children and young people have the best start in life", is addressed below, followed by additional input by theme.
Children and young people (draft Outcome 1) 1. Child homelessness. Housing Executive figures released to PPR under Freedom of Information legislation reveal that even before the first case of Covid-19 here, there were over 13,000 children living in families with FDA homeless status. Local charities such as Depaul reported rising numbers of newly homeless people even before the latest lockdown. The Detail recently reported that the number of young people requiring temporary accommodation placements rose during the pandemic, with the increase from April to September 2020 over double that over the same period in 2019. Housing is not a Key Priority Area under the children's outcome. In fact it isn't mentioned at all in this Outcome, though "quality physical environments with space to play" is -- a welcome mention, though of course children benefit more from play areas when they have a home to go back to afterwards. After a year in which we have all been required to spend so much time in our homes -- when we know through experience how much home matters -- how is it possible that housing homeless children is not front and centre in the list of priorities? Statistics on homelessness and housing stress amongst households with children are readily available from the Northern Ireland Housing Executive as an evidence base for an indicator. 2. Food poverty. According to Action for Children NI, even before the pandemic around 107,000 children -- 24% of the total here -- were living in poverty. Trussell Trust 2020 figures for NI show demand for food banks rose by an estimated 80% on the previous year, even before the most recent lockdown; one in three food parcels distributed here were to children. Organisations like FareShare Northern Ireland have expanded their operations to collect food from industries and deliver it to charities, and food banks around the region -with much-needed support from government -- have stepped and played a lifesaving role in struggling families' lives. The draft Outcome 1 text does not even mention food poverty ('child poverty' is pigeonholed in a list of issues under Early Years, and a child poverty strategy currently under development is listed as a potential delivery mechanism). This is simply not credible after a year of pandemic. The key priority areas that have been identified -- education, capability and resilience, skills and attainment -- all depend on a child's not being hungry. Food poverty must be explicitly named and addressed as a baseline issue for the rest to seem remotely tied to reality.
Given that the authorities have recorded jumps in enrolment in the Free School Meals programme and have extended that programme to holiday times in recognition of child hunger, statistics from that programme would be a logical underpinning for an indicator on child food poverty and wider household poverty affecting children. This could be supplemented for instance by household composition data from Universal Credit and other programmes. 3. Children's mental health and wellbeing. Work by Parenting NI, Barnardo's and others has drawn attention to the detrimental impact of the pandemic on children's mental health and wellbeing. Within this context, children with preexisting mental health conditions are more at risk. The children's outcome makes no mention of the mental health and wellbeing challenges stemming from the pandemic; indeed it does not refer to mental health at all, despite heightened awareness of the prevalence of these issues even before Covid-19. 4. Children's special educational needs. Some children faced particular challenges, even before Covid-19. According to the Children's Commissioner for England, a child growing up in poverty is 88% more likely to have a special educational need than a child who is not. The National Autistic Society NI and the Evangelical Alliance spotlighted the harm to disabled children and children with special educational needs when the services on which they depend closed overnight due to lockdown. Further along in the PfG process the above organisations and the NI Commissioner for Children and Young People would be recommended as a source of advice on developing evidence-based indicators for this area. There is a reference to "complex needs" under the Early Years key priority area, but this would have been inadequate even before the pandemic. The Children's Commissioner has highlighted how poor children are more likely to have special educational needs, and we know that families that were already poor have been hardest hit by the pandemic. Add to this the harm caused to these vulnerable children and their families by the isolation, anxiety and added stress of the lockdown periods, the Outcomes Framework needs to explicitly lay groundwork for specific indicators to orient and measure the impact of work on their behalf. Again, the above organisations and the NI Commissioner for Children and Young People would be an expert source of advice for indicators for this area.
5. Children and young people's digital exclusion. Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the web, has just last week raised this issue in a letter marking its anniversary. Here, groups such as Barnardo's, the Belfast Charitable Society and the Centre for Research in Educational Underachievement have sounded alarms about the impact of the digital divide when people are having to learn remotely. Teachers involved in the BlendED NI project have reported to an Education Committee meeting at Stormont about the challenges of delivering remote learning in the face of uneven digital access. PPR's Internet4All network of 200 organisations and individuals has been highlighting the way the pandemic compounds the harm caused by digital exclusion since early spring 2020. The only mention of digital access in the consultation text is around business infrastructure and investment. This is another carryover from pre-pandemic times, before we realised just how essential it would become for our children's development. Children and young people, and their parents and teachers, need this issue to be explicitly named as a priority and indicators developed for it. The Department of Education has allocated funding to address the digital divide through the school system, and the Department for the Economy has done the same through the regional college system. These programmes provide a logical evidence base for an indicator, and the organisations named above could potentially provide useful input to that process. 6. Enforced destitution. In June, following a £20/week increase in Universal Credit payments in response to the pandemic, the Home Office announced a parallel rise for in support to asylum seekers -- of £1.85 a week. This was followed in November by a further rise of 3p a week, to a total of £39.63 a week. The Refugee Council called this latest evidence of the hostile environment policy an affront and asked, "what can you buy with 3p"? The impact of rising food prices and increased need for items like masks and hand sanitisers on asylum families' already impossibly strained budgets was seen by organisations like the South Belfast Foodbank, which reported greatly increased demand amongst already vulnerable groups like asylum seekers alongside increasing demand in the wider community. The EQIA mentions inequality in access to health and social care for migrants and newcomers and refers to statistics on hate crime, including racially motivated hate crime. These areas are key and would be important indicators to measure progress against. When measuring child poverty and child food poverty -- both of which must be specific indicators under a credible post-Covid Programme for Government -- the particularly vulnerable group of children of asylum seekers must be reflected as well.
Housing and homelessness (draft Outcomes 2 (sustainable living), 8 (a caring society), 9 (a place people want to live) The NI Executive's ‘New Decade New Approach’ (NDNA) document set out the process and approach for developing this Programme for Government, but -- as pointed out by the Minister for Communities as well as the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Housing Federation of Housing Associations (NIFHA), Housing Rights and the Council for the Homeless -- the draft Outcomes Framework does not follow through on the NDNA commitment that "housing will be included as a specific priority in the Programme for Government". The EQIA offers an odd justification for the rollback. It claims that a standalone housing outcome could "unduly focus on the activity of building houses". For starters, given the steady rise of housing stress and homelessness as evidenced by Housing Executive and Department for Communities figures, a focus on building houses is anything but undue? Secondly, the Minister for Communities' own plan for housing transformation manages quite handily to address housing supply alongside a host of other housing issues including regulation of private rental standards and homelessness response. Why can the Executive not do the same in the PfG? 'New Decade New Approach' promised that "the Executive will also enhance investment and agree a target for new social and affordable home starts", but the Executive's budget for 2021-2022 does not follow through on this commitment. Its target for social housing starts is 1,900, an increase of just 50 over the previous three years' target and lower than the target seven years ago -- with clear equality ramifications. Covid-19's impact on deepening child homelessness is detailed above; the Outcomes Framework and its EQIA have other blind spots as well. 1. Homelessness and housing stress. The Detail reported that the NIHE social housing waiting list was over 10% higher at the end of 2020 than it was in March at the start of the pandemic, against a rise the previous year of 2.3%. Roughly seven out of every ten of these were considered to be in housing stress. Belfast's Deputy Lord Mayor Paul McCusker has been among the voices calling for more homes to be built urgently so that people have a place to 'stay home' in as advised during the pandemic. The BuildHomesNow and Housing4All groups supported by PPR have continued to support people whose housing situation has worsened during the pandemic and to draw attention to the need for change. The number of households in housing stress -- an indicator in the last PfG -- steadily rose during the life of that PfG and is currently at "an all-time high", to quote the EQIA. Covid-19 has clearly played a part in the rise over the last year. Given this, households in housing stress must be retained as an indicator and the mechanisms used to tackle it improved so that progress can actually be made.
Other indicators will also be required. The EQIA notes that Current evidence suggests that some differences continue to persist on the basis of religion. For example, the gap between Catholic and Protestant households in housing stress has been steadily widening over the past 8 years, with Catholic households making up a higher proportion of households in housing stress than Protestant households in 2019/20. … Of these households, 42 per cent were Catholic whereas only 26 per cent were Protestant households. This gap needs to be monitored separately under its own indicator. PPR have monitored this issue through Freedom of Information requests; the evidence base is readily available from the Housing Executive. 2. Vulnerable security of tenure of private renters. Housing Rights amongst others here have drawn attention to the particularly precarious situation of tenants of private landlords. Both social and private renters have seen their work and income impacted by Covid-19; but while the Housing Executive and housing associations gave assurances early in the first lockdown that they would not evict people who fell into arrears during the pandemic, this was not the case for private landlords. Legislation extending the notice period for evictions was passed to offer them some protection, and has since been extended until September 2021. However this has not prevented local charities such as Depaul (mentioned above) reporting rising numbers of newly homeless people. Even before the pandemic, private renters faced a more precarious situation than social tenants around security of tenure -- which is a key component of the right to adequate housing. This inequality has been more keenly felt since Covid-19, given the differential in level of protection afforded to renters in the two sectors. They were not mentioned in the Outcomes Framework. Nonetheless, there is a pressing need for an indicator on this issue, and the evidence base for it is readily available. Information on private rent arrears in NI has been published by the Housing Executive amongst others. Monitoring numbers of eviction proceedings in the courts would provide further direct evidence of the pressures on people in this sector. 3. Rough sleeping. Numerous NI organisations work with rough sleepers and other homeless families and have been involved in the Housing Executive's version of the 'Everyone In' programme. The Detail reported that Flourish NI and other charities working with migrants in Northern Ireland had found that some of the homeless people they were working with were excluded from the project during the pandemic, despite the commitment to temporarily house everyone regardless of nationality or immigration status. Rough sleepers are among the most disadvantaged and unprotected people in any society, even without the risks posed by a contagious virus -- hence the unprecedented 'Everyone In'.
People excluded from that initiative face multiple risks. The draft Outcomes Framework mentions homelessness once (under the key priority area of housing in the 'caring society' outcome), and rough sleeping not at all. With regard to an evidence base for an indicator, the Housing Executive collects some data on rough sleeping, and its Covid-era homelessness reset plan has more. Charities like those mentioned in this section could provide further useful input on developing a meaningful indicator. England's Office of National Statistics has begun efforts to improve its data on homelessness and rough sleeping, including on homeless deaths; when last contacted on this issue by PPR, NISRA had not yet followed its example.
Standard of living and income (outcomes 2 (sustainable work), 3 (equal and inclusive society), 4 (health), 5 (reaching potential), 8 (caring society), 9 (people want to live and work here)) It is worth noting that the EQIA includes an explanation of why a past PfG housing outcome, "more people working in better jobs”, has been excluded from this round. It centres around that aim being "too narrowly defined", as "having a good job is not in itself an end-product in wellbeing terms". In this time of job retention and income support schemes, of unprecedented loss of income and job security under the double threat of Covid-19 and Brexit, the decision to omit this outcome was ill-advised. It gives the impression that the Executive is cut off from the reality people are living in, and it needs to be reversed. Evidence of the pandemic deepening specific existing inequalities is detailed below. 1. Deprivation. The NI Statistics and Research Agency reported that as of end January 2021, Covid-19 related deaths were highest -- 188.3 deaths per 100,000 population -- in the north's 20% most deprived areas, and lowest -137.5 deaths per 100,000 -- in its 20% least deprived areas. That's a differential of 50 deaths per 100,000 between the poorest and most affluent communities. The draft Outcomes Framework lists 'inclusion and tackling disadvantage' as Key Priority Areas under outcomes 3 (which also lists 'rights and equality'), 4 and 8. None of these outcomes mention Covid-19 or the stark impact of pre-existing deprivation on death rates. This is a shameful dodge of a painful reality that deserves to be named and tackled head on. NISRA, as noted above, is already publishing data on Covid-19 deaths and deprivation. The evidence base is there, there is absolutely no excuse for omitting this going forward. 2. Household poverty. Action for Children NI reported that even before the pandemic, around 107,000 children -- 24% of the total here -- were living in poverty. Since Covid, it reported, "many have struggled to access government support. Some families are unaware of the financial assistance available to them, and others have been unable to navigate the digital Universal Credit claim process". This paper began with an overview of emerging UK-wide research into the ways in which the Covid-19 pandemic is deepening poverty for already struggling families. The evidence base is incontrovertible, and growing -- yet this draft Outcomes Framework mentions poverty only twice. Both times it is buried in a list of elements to be considered under 'key priority areas' on something else ('early years' under outcome 1 and 'inclusion and tackling disadvantage' under outcome 3 -- nowhere near the prominent, deliberate, targeted focus that this escalating threat warrants.
Evidence of growing poverty is everywhere. Elements of an evidence base to inform indicators could be found, for starters, in numbers and household composition of Universal Credit applicants; in applications for discretionary support from Department for Communities; in levels of state support to food distribution initiatives through foodbanks and in communities. Charities and community initiatives that have stepped in to meet their neighbours' needs, often with support from duty bearers, will be able to advise -- some of them are listed here, many more have participated in Department for Communities, DAERA and council support schemes. 3. Insecure work. In November the Nevin Economic Research Institute -examining NISRA 'hours and earnings' data to see the impact of the first lockdown period on pay and hours -- found that "the burden of dealing with the Covid-19 public health crisis has not been shared equally across our workforce". It highlighted in particular the prevalence of low pay amongst groups like younger workers "who were low paid to begin with". It reported that 25% of employees in Northern Ireland have earnings below the real living wage of £9.30 (set in April 2020 as the wage needed to have a minimum acceptable standard of living). There are some references to jobs in the Outcomes Frameworks; 'better jobs' are a key priority area under both outcomes 5 and 9. However, the PfG needs to become more targeted and incisive in this area. The NERI analysis above is just one example of research exposing the inequalities in our labour market and the ways in which the pandemic have deepened them. The NERI research is based on NISRA data, so there is clearly an evidence base for an indicator on this. 4. Barriers to work for disabled people. The EQIA flags UK Labour Force Survey findings that NI had the lowest employment rate for disabled people and the largest disparity in employment between disabled and non disabled people. The pandemic has exacerbated the isolation of disabled people; Disability Action NI has taken part in a project to help those hampered by digital exclusion to get connected. Disability is a key priority area under outcome 8 (caring society) -- the only place that it appears. The EQIA highlights how far behind NI is terms of employment for this group, yet it is not mentioned under the 'reaching potential' outcome or the 'people want to live and work here' outcome. This is an area where the new PfG can surely improve on past efforts. Statistics to serve as an evidence base for an indicator are cited in the EQIA, and there are bound to be others; the charities flagged here are well placed to advise.
5. Barriers to work for refugees and asylum seekers. The Lift the Ban coalition has called on ministers to remove obstacles preventing asylum seekers and refugees -- including for starters those who are medical professionals -- from working. The current policy - driven by the punitive Home Office 'hostile environment' approach - has forced them to be inactive and dependent. Since the pandemic began, they have been unable to contribute their skills to the fight against Covid-19, despite public awareness of the pressures on the NHS and on individuals working in it. Neither the Outcomes Framework nor the EQIA mention either refugees or asylum seekers, despite their being amongst the most vulnerable populations we have. The Key Priority Area of "access to health: taking forward health and social care reform to ensure we can deliver safe, high quality services to meet the challenges of the future" needs to explicitly encompass this issue going forward. Input on how to track and monitor this area can be sought from the Lift the Ban Coalition and from charities working in this field.
6. Impact of the social security and benefits system on the people who need them. When the first lockdown happened, assessments and appointments were suspended and people's payments continued; for a few months, overpayments and advances were not deducted from people's monthly transfers but by mid-summer the Department for Communities announced it was resuming these. Suspended appointments created backlogs -- for example, over 4,000 people appealing Personal Independence Payment decisions -- waiting months, often on significantly reduced incomes, for their cases to be heard. When appointments resumed, the requirement to hear appeals by phone or video link to minimise Covid risks caused added stress and difficulty to some due to the disabilities they live with. People in need could lodge new applications for Universal Credit online; for many, the five-week wait for the first payment obliged them to seek advances to carry on paying their bills. Some are still having those repayments deducted, meaning that they are living every month below the prescribed income line. In September Belfast City Council passed a motion saying, "In the wake of the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, this Council recognises the need for a reformed, fairer welfare system that protects everyone in society and acknowledges the need to provide economic security for all to invest in people, protect livelihoods and kick-start the economy… Belfast City Council calls on the Departments of Communities, Finance and the UK Treasury to investigate the design and delivery of a recovery UBI [Universal Basic
Income] for Northern Ireland, and will commit to producing a plan for how such a pilot could be implemented in Belfast." The social security and benefits system is mentioned only once, as a topic under the key priority area of 'inclusion and tackling disadvantage' in the 'caring society' outcome (outcome 8). This is a surprising omission, given Department for Communities analysis that the monthly average of around 7,000 new claims jumped more than fivefold in March 2020 alone. An unprecedented number of NI households are relying on the Universal Credit programme to get by every month; surely how this is working warrants dedicated focus under this Programme for Government. The evidence base can be drawn from DfC programme statistics.
IV. Conclusion The foreword to the draft Outcomes Framework, signed by the First and Deputy First Ministers, mentions 'emerging positives' from the pandemic like a new focus on health and happiness, innovation and partnership. The introduction says further that while the pandemic highlighted "flaws in traditional models and approaches to public services", it also showed what could be accomplished with political and popular will. All of this is true, and can provide meaningful support to programming going forward. But as both the draft document and its EQIA point out, ensuring that the essentials are identified and included, in enough detail to ensure that adequate, targeted programming and resources follow, is the job of the Outcomes Framework. Anything else is not good enough.