To ask the First Minister and deputy First Minister what steps have been taken to reduce poverty amongst people with disabilities and their families since the launch of the strategy to improve the lives of people with disabilities.

The Executive’s Disability Strategy provides a framework for all departments to drive improved service delivery, increase awareness of the needs of people with disabilities and improve opportunities for people with disabilities across all policy areas. It includes a specific priority to reduce poverty among people with disabilities and their families. The Strategy also seeks to protect the right to an adequate standard of living, as well as to address the identified inequalities experienced by people with disabilities and tackle the barriers that they continue to face in their daily lives.

Work is being taken forward, across all departments, to reduce poverty amongst families with children and young people with disabilities. Parents of children with disabilities have particular needs in relation to childcare and may need additional support. The development of childcare services for children with a disability is being taken forward through Bright Start. This will include providing training and small grants to enable childcare providers to meet the needs of children with a disability for childcare services. Through the Family Fund, the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety provides grant support to low-income parents raising disabled and/or seriously ill children to help with essentials. Children with a statement of special educational needs and who require a special diet are entitled to Free School Meals, regardless of other criteria.

OFMDFM hosted a major, inclusive disability awareness conference to consider how current arrangements meet the needs of all people with disabilities on the basis of equality in May 2013.

A 2013/14 annual report on the delivery of the Disability Strategy will set out the actions that all departments have undertaken under the Strategy in its first year. We hope to publish the report in Autumn 2014.

We are currently considering a number of further projects submitted by departments to deliver outcomes under the Disability Strategy, to be taken forward within the Delivering Social Change Framework.