The Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has said the Department for Communities’ handling of the Child Poverty Strategy is a “catalogue of failures”, where children and families are not at the centre.

The scathing ‘gaps’ report has been published and makes 11 recommendations to tackle child poverty.

The strategy was initially developed in the office of the First and Deputy First Minister and then moved to the DfC.

It ran from 2016 to 2022 and, since its conclusion, no similar plan has been implemented.

The PAC report said that during its implementation the strategy was insufficiently targeted and funded and had “unacceptably poor” accountability arrangements.

The PAC said the child poverty rate grew from a steady 20% to 24% in 2022-23 and that the DFC “appeared to be too far removed” from children and families experiencing poverty.

Talking to him Good Morning Ulster program on ThursdayPublic Accounts Committee chairman Daniel McCrossan said: “Make no mistake, we will call those responsible for implementing this strategy back before our committee to ensure the recommendations have been carried out.”

McCrossan described the evidence sessions held by the PAC as “absolutely shocking” and said the department was “simply not in the races on this issue at all”.

“Ministers and the executive have said this is important to them, but we haven’t really seen any action,” he added.

He called on the DfC to confirm that a new anti-poverty strategy will be presented to the Executive at the end of March.

In its report, the Public Accounts Committee considered the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) report on child poverty which was published in March.

The number of children living in poverty in Northern Ireland showed a significant increase in 2022.

They indicated that around 109,000 children or 24% were living in relative poverty, compared to 19% in 2021.

Action for Children NI’s Sheena McMullen told the program: “We already pay a lot for poverty and in so many ways.”

He described as unjustifiable the argument of “financing limitations” for not implementing a strategy against child poverty.

“The audit office concluded that child poverty costs us £1 billion a year,” he said.

“Poverty is at the root of many of our political conundrums which place demands on health services, educational services, justice and social care settings.”

McMullen said the report “came at a good time” and that the executive office now “needs to show us that they are taking this issue seriously.”

A Department for Communities spokesperson said: “The Department welcomes the PAC’s interest in this important issue and will fully consider the Committee’s recommendations.”

There are two main measures of low income used by the government. Income is counted as the money a household has to spend after housing costs are taken into account.

Absolute poverty measures how many people this year cannot afford a given standard of living. The Department for Work and Pensions currently defines this based on the standard of living that an average income could buy in the year ending March 2011. If your income is 40% below this level, after adjusting for the increase of prices since then, he is classified as living in absolute poverty.

Relative poverty is the number of people whose income is 40% below the current average income.

A person is considered to be in relative poverty if they live in a household with an income of less than 60% of the typical UK income.

This is a measure of whether those in the lowest-income households are keeping pace with the income growth of the population as a whole.