Benefit Tribunals

Part of Northern Ireland Assembly – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 6:30 pm on 14 February 2012.

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Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green 6:30, 14 February 2012

The Member may disagree with me, but as an elected representative, I reserve the right to make my point.

We hear much about efficiency savings, but often, rather than those, we actually see top-slicing and cuts. The Executive will rightly seek, in the Programme for Government — when we see it — to tackle a number of cross-cutting issues. We could make genuine efficiencies in tackling cross-cutting issues through the pooling of budgets between Departments. Although they engage with one another through ministerial subcommittees and consultation, Departments need to move beyond simply talking to one other and towards collaborative working and the pooling of limited resources to ensure that they can go further. While Departments continue to operate in silos, limited resources will be wasted.

Another advantage of pooling budgets would be to help Departments to engage in preventative spending. Earlier, Jim Wells pointed to the importance of the public health agenda in preventing ill health rather than simply treating it. Equally, the many ill effects of poverty need a similar approach. Northern Ireland has the highest level of child poverty in the UK, and the UK was ranked by UNICEF as the last of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in relation to child well-being.

Investment in the early years of a child’s life is essential to tackle that problem. As highlighted by Professor James Heckman, the benefits of a £1 spend on children in their earliest years, from nought to six, would require an equivalent spend of £7 in adolescence to produce the same benefits. We need Departments to work together, and I speak specifically of the early years strategy, which, unfortunately, sits in one Department. We need such strategies to be cross-departmental and with a cross-departmental spend to prevent some of the ills that the Budget has to address.

Yesterday and today, we began the legislative process to allow the Budget to take effect, but my party continues to oppose the priorities of the Budget. We need to keep it continually under review to ensure that we spend our limited resources wisely.