Dealrgy: Voucher equality screening should have happened earlier and not "done as a last minute exercise"

Sinn Féin Foyle MLA, Padraig Delargy, has welcomed the launch of an investigation by the Equality Commission into the decision to exclude under-18's from the Voucher.

Mr Delargy's comments came after the Commission said it would look at whether the Department for the Economy failed to comply with its approved equality scheme following an official complaint.

The complainant, who is under-18 and cannot be identified for legal reasons, is receiving assistance with their complaint from the Children's Law Centre.

Mr Delagy said: “I welcome the investigation by the Equality Commission into the rollout of the High Street Voucher and the exclusion of under-18s.

“Earlier this year I brought a Petition to the Assembly calling for the scheme to be extended to 16 and 17-year olds who work and pay tax but who were denied a voucher.

“Despite receiving many signatures the Economy Minister point blank refused to extend the scheme.

“The DfE Equality Screening was not carried out at the earliest stage which is best practice and it was instead done as a last minute exercise, I look forward to the outcome of this investigation and into the ramifications that this had.”

Policy officer at the Children's Law Centre, Claire Kemp, said that despite the scheme's announcement being as long ago as February of this year, no equality screening exercise had taken place until the complainant had filed their complaint – September 10, 2021.

She said: “This was not the earliest opportunity as is required, it was an afterthought.

“Decision makers have a duty to ensure the decisions they make do not adversely impact or discriminate against sections of the population.

“This includes children and young people. To ensure they avoid making decisions that discriminate they have to carry out an equality screening exercise at the earliest opportunity.

“In this case it was clear the Department for the Economy failed to do that.

“What chance do children and young people have against discrimination if executive departments fail to uphold even their own equality duties?”

In response, a spokesperson for the Department for the Economy said: “The Department has outlined the rationale for the exclusion of 16 and 17 years in the scheme eligibility to the Equality Commission.

“The Department complied fully with regard to its commitments set out in its Equality Scheme and the outcome of the Equality Screening was published on the Departmental website on the 10 September 2021 – Equality Screening - High Street Scheme (HSS) | Department for the Economy (economy-ni.gov.uk)

“The Executive agreed to the qualifying criteria for the High Street Scheme and all MLAs are aware of the legal and practical issues in extending the scheme, including the child specific duties imposed by the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the lack of datasets to verify applications.

“Given the tight timeframe in which to deliver the scheme the Minister is content that from an affordability, operational and legal perspective, there is a strong rationale for restricting eligibility for a Spend Local prepaid card to adults aged 18 and over.”