Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 292: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the progress made in his Department on the roll out of the poverty impact assessment to ensure that all policies are evaluated in terms of their potential impact on poverty and social inclusion; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24111/07]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Poverty proofing was introduced in 1998 on foot of a commitment in the first National Anti-Poverty Strategy. Since then it has been a requirement for significant policy proposals to indicate clearly the impact of the proposal on people in poverty or at risk of falling into poverty.

Following a review of the poverty proofing process, the Office for Social Inclusion, which is based in my Department, produced a revised set of guidelines for what is now termed Poverty Impact Assessment. This change of name is intended to underline that the emphasis in the process should be on the outcomes of policies, programmes and services and that poverty impact assessment should form an integral part of the policy making process.

The revised guidelines are designed to better assist policy makers across all levels of Government in evaluating policy proposals in terms of their potential impact on poverty. They include a number of new steps to ensure greater transparency in the process and a requirement to monitor the impact of any policy change. The guidelines have been published on the website of the Office for Social Inclusion, at www.socialinclusion.ie, and have been presented to all Government Departments, which have responsibility for their implementation.

Support for the work of the Office for Social Inclusion in developing effective poverty proofing mechanisms is a key commitment in the Programme for Government and the roll out of the revised guidelines is a priority in this regard. The Office has commenced a pilot programme providing focused assistance to individual departments on implementation of the new guidelines. The experience gained from this process will aid the development over the coming months of training for officials in all government departments. The Office is working with the Combat Poverty Agency on applying the new guidelines to local authorities.

Within my Department, it is the practice for policies and programmes to be assessed for their impact on poverty. The revised guidelines for poverty impact assessment are now being used for this purpose. For example, poverty impact assessments have been carried out on Social Welfare Budget packages in recent years and on a number of policies reviewed as part of the Expenditure Review Initiative, including the proposals in the Government discussion paper on supporting lone parents and Phase II of the review of the Supplementary Welfare Allowance scheme.

My objective, in line with the Programme for Government, is to ensure that the new guidelines will serve as an effective tool in ensuring that the priority of combating poverty and social exclusion is kept to the fore in policy making and implementation at all levels of Government.