To ask the First Minister and deputy First Minister to detail the extent to which the Programme for Government 11-15 commitment to reduce child poverty has been achieved.

In the Programme for Government, the Executive made a commitment to fulfil our commitments under the Child Poverty Act 2010. The Child Poverty Act 2010 requires the Executive to publish a Child Poverty Strategy, prepare and publish annual reports on the Strategy and to formally review the Strategy every third year. The 2011-14 Child Poverty Strategy was published in March 2011, to date three Annual Reports have been published and we are currently refreshing data for the imminent publication of a further report. A review of progress was completed in 2014 in consultation with departments. A revised Child Poverty Strategy has been developed, which, following Executive agreement, will be published shortly.

In addition, the Delivering Social Change (DSC) Delivery Framework was established in 2012 and sought to co-ordinate key actions across Government departments to take forward work on priority social policy areas. Delivering Social Change Signature Programmes were initiated in to improve literacy and numeracy levels, offer increased family support and to support job creation within local communities, all of which were identified as being key priorities. It is already evident that each programme has reached a significant number of people (based on the latest available figures reporting up to June 2015):

Over 3,300 families signposted to a range of services through Family Support Hubs;

306 primary school children supported by Nurture Units;

44 test traders benefitted from the services of Social Enterprise Hubs;

Over 16,000 primary and post primary children received additional Maths and English support through the Literacy and Numeracy Programme;

720 families participated in the Community Family Support Programme;

Over 650 families supported through Parenting Support Programmes ;and

Over 300 health professionals developed their skills for delivering programmes (improving infant mental health and reducing childhood behavioural problems).

In addition the £80 million Social Investment Fund aims to deliver social change in the 9 Social Investment zones across Northern Ireland by supporting investment to tackle issues associated with poverty and deprivation.

In all this work we have focused strategically on improving outcomes across a range of poverty and deprivation measures including health, education and developing the economy to improve the fortunes of those in poverty.