Consultation on Department for Communities Budget 2025-26 allocations
This consultation detailed the Minister for Communities’ initial Budget 2025-26 decisions and how they will impact on the Department’s ability to deliver public services. Siobhán has completed a detailed response to this consultation highlighting the greater likelihood for women to live in poverty and to need to be able to access the services provided by the Department. Siobhán also raised issues with the data being used to make proposals in the consultation and the fact that data from the Community and Voluntary sector has been ignored.
You can read the response to this Consultation on the Consortium’s website here:
Proposals to amend the Minimum Standards for Childminding and Day Care
for Children Under Age 12
The Department of Health consulted on proposals to amend the minimum standards for childminding and day care for children aged under 12. The purpose of the consultation was to get feedback on proposals to changes to two key areas of childcare regulation. The first area was in relation to vetting (the requirement for all prospective childcare workers to provide a health assessment, countersigned by their GPs, in advance of taking up employment). The second area concerned the adult:child ratios set out in the Minimum Standards for Childminding and Day Care for children under 12.
You can read the response to this Consultation on the Consortium’s website here:
Consultation on Addressing Age Discrimination in Goods, Facilities, and Services
A private member’s bill was brought forward by Claire Sugden MLA to propose legislation to address protections against age discrimination in goods, facilities and services and close the gap in our equality laws to give people the right to challenge this age-based discrimination.
You can read the response to this Consultation on the Consortium’s website here:
Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper – Department for Work & Pensions Consultation
The Labour Government proposed a series of cuts to disability benefits including Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Universal Credit health support in the Pathways to Work Green Paper. This Green Paper proposed changing PIP rules to make it harder for some groups of disabled people to qualify for the daily living component, scrapping the Work Capability Assessment and making support for health conditions in Universal Credit based on qualification for PIP, cutting the health payment for new claimants in Universal Credit and introducing a new disability payment into Universal Credit from 2026 for those on the new lower rate of the health payment, but only where they are someone who has “the most severe, life-long health conditions, who have no prospect of improvement and will never be able to work”.
A detailed Consortium response was made to this consultation which is likely to have greater impacts on Northern Ireland. You can read the response to this Consultation on the Consortium’s website here:
