Court holds that NI Executive has failed in its legal duty to adopt an anti-poverty strategy

The terms of the Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006 placed a legal duty on the Executive Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly “to adopt a strategy setting out how it proposed to tackle poverty, social exclusion and patterns of deprivation based on objective need”

A recent judgment from the Northern Ireland High Court in a Judicial Review, brought by the Committee on the Administration of Justice, held that the Northern Ireland Executive is in breach of this duty.

Defining “objective need” and "strategy"

CAJ argued that the Executive had failed to adopt a strategy and that it had failed to adopt any definition of “objective need” on which such a strategy would be based. It argued that “objective need” was a concept intended to reduce the scope for discrimination between people in need by tying the allocation of resources to neutral criteria that measure deprivation irrespective of community background or other affiliation

In its response to the case, the Executive argued that its strategy was contained in various policy documents and initiatives and that an obligation to provide a single definition of “objective need” within the strategy itself would be entirely impractical.

The judge disagreed with this approach. He referred to the Oxford English Dictionary definition of a “strategy” as “a plan of action designed to achieve a long term or overall aim“.  The judge stated that

• the strategy must be a written document or collection of documents from which a single strategy is identifiable
• the strategy must be identifiable and complete
• the strategy must aim to be effective,
• its effectiveness must be capable of measurement and
• the actions taken must be referable back to that overarching strategy.

The court held that it was clear that no strategy was in place. He commented that the concept of objective need was central to the statutory provision, the intention of which is to remove or reduce the scope for discrimination. It was hard to see, therefore, how the Executive could deliver the required strategy without adopting some agreed definition of objective need

Outcome

The Judge granted a declaration that the Executive was in breach of its duties under section 28E of the Northern Ireland act 1998 because of its failure to adopt a strategy setting out its proposals to tackle poverty, social exclusion and patterns of deprivation based on objective need.

An order was made requiring the Executive to adopt such a strategy. The court did not impose a time limit. The Executive must now, however, act on the court’s order or it will continue to be in breach of its legal duties