The first New TSN Annual Report November 1999

2.

2.1

2.1.1

New Targeting Social Need

Social Need and Social Exclusion

People who are in social need can be disadvantaged in various ways. They may for example be poorly skilled, unemployed, living on a low income or coping with difficult home circumstances. They might live in poor housing or in areas blighted by crime. Those living in rural areas may have difficulties in accessing the types of services that other people take for granted.

2.1.2 Some people are subject to combinations of problems. Sometimes these problems are so numerous and the effects are so severe that it is impossible for these individuals to lead what most people in Northern Ireland would consider to be normal everyday lives. The Government uses the term "social exclusion" to describe what can happen to people who are subject to the most severe problems. Social exclusion has to do with poverty and joblessness – but it is more than that. It is about being cut off from the social and economic life of our community.

2.2

2.2.1

Focus on Unemployment and Increasing Employability

For people of working age, joblessness is one of the most profound causes of poverty. Being out of work impacts directly on income, and the Government’s view is that, for many people, the best protection against poverty is a job with a decent wage. New TSN therefore has a particular focus on tackling the problems of unemployment and on increasing people’s knowledge and skills so that they are motivated and feel more confident in accessing whatever employment opportunities are available to them.

2.2.2 This element of New TSN is particularly relevant to the Department of Economic Development (DED) and to the Department of Education (DENI), and to their associated Agencies, Non Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs) and service providers who are working to expand employment opportunities or to educate or train the workforce.
2.2.3 In 1995, as part of the earlier Targeting Social Need initiative, DED set targets for increasing employment opportunities and training activities in, or adjacent to, disadvantaged areas. These targets were met and further objectives are now being set. Through the Life Long Learning policy, DENI and the Training and Employment Agency (T&EA) are delivering a strategy which will increase employability through the development of basic skills and by linking education and training provision more closely to regional and local skill needs. The New Deals and Worktrack are helping people to get off benefits and back into work. DENI’s School Improvement Programme, and the targeting of new places in pre-school education provision towards children from less well-off families, will help to raise standards among the next generation. New TSN will reinforce the benefits of these programmes for disadvantaged people.
2.2.4

Other Departments also make a contribution through, for example:
  • programmes which provide employment or which regenerate disadvantaged areas and make them more attractive to investors

  • community development and volunteering initiatives through which people of working age may develop skills which could help them to get a job in the future

  • the expansion of childcare provision, which helps remove one of the major barriers to parents’ participation in the workforce.

2.3

2.3.1

Tackling Social Need in Other Policy Areas

Unemployment and poverty tend to be associated with other types of need, such as poor health, low educational achievement and poor housing conditions. Departments which are implementing policies to address such problems are committed to concentrating more closely on the situation of people who are in greatest social need. Some services are delivered on a universal basis (eg health and statutory education). However, within these programmes, resources and efforts may need to be directed towards those who are most disadvantaged so that inequalities can be reduced.

2.3.2

Some areas and communities are subject to higher than average rates of unemployment and are more deprived than others. In Northern Ireland deprivation is most concentrated in areas of Belfast, and in the West and South of the Province. New TSN recognises this and commits Departments, where appropriate, to target such areas for special attention. Programmes such as Making Belfast Work, the Londonderry Initiative, the Rural Development Programme and other area-based interventions are particularly relevant in this regard.

2.4

2.4.1

Promoting Social Inclusion

The factors which cause social need and social exclusion do not always fit comfortably within the areas of responsibility of individual Government Departments. Furthermore, there are some groups within society whose members tend to be less well-off or more at risk of exclusion than others and whose needs must be tackled in a coherent way, eg Travellers and other minority ethnic people, young people with limited skills, those most affected by the Troubles and older people on low incomes.

2.4.2 PSI involves Departments working together and with their partners outside Government to identify and tackle factors which can contribute to exclusion and which are best dealt with in a co-ordinated way. This element of New TSN addresses a series of issues, concentrating on a small number at any one time. It emphasises prevention, co-ordination and evidence-based decision making.
2.4.3 PSI is unique to Northern Ireland and was designed to tackle the particular problems which arise here. In developing it, however, account was taken of the Prime Minister’s new approach to tackling social exclusion in England and the establishment of a Social Exclusion Unit within the Cabinet Office.

2.5

2.5.1

Targeting Resources

New TSN is not a spending programme. There is no special fund set aside for it – and it should not be assumed that extra money will be made available for it in the future. Rather, New TSN is a theme which runs through spending programmes. It involves giving greater priority to the needs of disadvantaged people within a programme’s objectives so that a greater proportion of the available funding can be channelled towards people, groups and areas in greatest social need. This might be done by, for example:

  • building New TSN principles into the formulae used for funding service provision to the statutory sector and the criteria for support to the voluntary and community sector

  • taking appropriate account of New TSN in economic appraisals

  • setting aside part of a programme budget to provide additional assistance to those in greatest need

  • focusing the availability of grants or services more closely on those in greatest social need.

2.6

2.6.1

Targeting Efforts

New TSN is not just about money. It is also about targeting efforts. This means changing the way things are done so that policies, programmes and services are organised and delivered in ways which are more helpful to disadvantaged people. This can be possible even when there is no opportunity substantially to change the way in which resources are distributed. This type of targeting is important because, while disadvantaged people often have greater need for support from public services, they may have particular difficulty in accessing them.
2.6.2

Depending on the nature of the programme, ways of targeting efforts might include:
  • making special efforts to ensure that public information, education and prevention campaigns are designed to communicate effectively with, and are targeted towards, disadvantaged people so that they are aware of the services and benefits available to them

  • making services more accessible, for example in terms of their location or opening hours, outreach in disadvantaged areas, or through inter-agency or one-stop shop approaches

  • making special efforts to ensure that disadvantaged people have opportunities to contribute to consultation exercises about the development and delivery of policies, programmes and services.

2.7

2.7.1

Identifying Those in Greatest Social Need

People, groups and areas in greatest social need are identified using objective criteria appropriate to a particular policy or programme and the level at which it is delivered. For example, DENI uses entitlement to free school meals to identify school pupils from deprived families to help it target additional resources. DED is using unemployment data to identify areas on which to target its job creation and training activities. The Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland (DOE) has used the Robson Indicators of multiple deprivation to identify disadvantaged urban areas.

2.8

2.8.1

Community Differentials

Evidence collected over a number of years shows that, compared with Protestants, Catholics in Northern Ireland are over-represented among the unemployed and that they fare less well than Protestants on a number of other socio-economic indicators. By consistently addressing the problems of people who are objectively shown to be in greatest social need, New TSN should, over time, contribute to the erosion of the differentials between these two communities.

2.9

2.9.1

The Wider Policy Agenda

Opportunity for All (Cm 4445) which was published in September 1999 set out Government’s strategy for tackling poverty and its causes across the UK.
2.9.2

UK-wide policies can often have as great an impact on disadvantage in Northern Ireland as any regional initiative. This will be as true under devolution as under Direct Rule. Three key areas highlighted in Opportunity for All are the national minimum wage, taxation and pensions:
  • the national minimum wage boosts the wage of the lowest paid workers to £3.60 per hour

  • from October 1999 the Working Families Tax Credit will generate a minimum weekly income of £200 for working families with children

  • the Green Paper, A New Contract for Welfare: Partnership in Pensions (Cm 4179), published in December 1998 set out proposals for a new insurance contract for pensioners, including stakeholder pension schemes and improvements in pensions for low earners, carers and people with disabilities through a new State Second Pension. Today's pensioners will benefit from the new minimum income guarantee which is paid through Income Support.
2.9.3 Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 requires Government Departments and other Public Authorities to have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity between people in terms of their race, gender, religion, political opinion, disability, age, sexual orientation, marital status and whether they have dependants. There is no incompatibility between the principles of equality of opportunity and targeting on the basis of objective social need. Indeed, many of the actions which Departments will take in relation to New TSN will have resonance with their responsibilities under Section 75 of the Act.
 
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