THE States has been told to get serious about tackling poverty. The Scrutiny Committee has admitted serious concerns about the future of the Corporate Anti-Poverty Programme.
‘The intentions behind it are good, but we need to see a serious commitment to make the States aspirations to tackle poverty a reality,’ said committee chairman Jean Pritchard.
‘How can we do that without any understanding of what the size or nature of the problem is and without measurable targets and funding?’
Objectives, priorities and resources have not been clearly identified, she added. It was and is difficult to assess the impact and performance of the underlying strategy.
Deputy Pritchard had an amendment approved by the States when the Capp was last discussed in May 2006, seeking more cost information on the work streams and an analysis of progress towards the target of halving relative poverty.
Her committee is not convinced that the necessary work has been done.
‘In the last States debate on this a year ago, I said that I thought the Capp was less of a programme or strategy and more of a collection of independent measures, all of which it was hoped might impact on poverty, but with little cohesion,’ she said.
‘Unfortunately this new update has done nothing to change that opinion.’
Scrutiny has given a cautious welcome to the intention to subsume the Capp into the new Government Business Plan. It is worried that without a dedicated annual progress report, developments might not be so evident and transparent.
And it is also concerned that there does not appear to be a plan in place for monitoring the effectiveness of Capp and that policy continues to be agreed based on little evidence or information.
Article posted on 26th May, 2007 - 12.00am
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