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The
Executive's proposals for Targeting Social Need in Northern Ireland |
Under
the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, the government is committed to making
Northern Ireland a fairer, more equal and prosperous society. It aims
to achieve this through New TSN, an agenda for Targeting Social Need and
Promoting Social Inclusion in Northern Ireland. The TSN policy was first
introduced by the Conservative Secretary of State, Peter Brook in February
1991. However, the concept of Social Need was poorly defined and unfocused
and failed to address adequately the structural problems underlying social
need and social exclusion. When New Labour won the 1997 General Election
they chose to revamp the policy and called it New TSN.
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| The
Labour government's vision for a "vigorous and effective" New
Targeting Social Need policy was outlined in the Partnership for Equality
White Paper published in March 1998 and identified in the Good Friday Agreement
as one of the Government's socio-economic commitments. The programme was
formally launched on 28 July 1998 by the Secretary of State Dr Marjorie
Mowlam. |
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TSN is a strategy designed to tackle social need and social exclusion by
identifying people and areas in greatest need and ensuring that government
programmes are more effective in helping them. An integral part of New TSN
is Promoting Social Inclusion (PSI). This programme, unique to Northern
Ireland, "is about helping people who cannot enjoy the full range of
opportunities in life which most people take for granted". |
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White Paper designates the Secretary of State with the responsibility for
the political direction of New TSN and each Northern Ireland Department
and the Northern Ireland Office are obliged to develop a three-year Action
Plan showing how they intend to implement New TSN. The government will work
in partnership with other public agencies, the private and voluntary sectors
to ensure that the programme is implemented across the board. |
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| New
TSN aims to eradicate social need in a way that does not favour one community
over the other. However, the government recognises the statistical evidence
that the Catholic community is more disadvantaged than the Protestant community
and it believes that "New TSN should contribute, over time, to the
erosion of differentials between the communities". |
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