Meeting Details

This meeting will be webcast for live and subsequent broadcast on the Council's You Tube site Live Broadcast Link

Members should declare any financial and non-financial interests they have in the items of business for consideration, identifying the relevant agenda item and the nature of their interest.

This Council calls for the urgent implementation of the Strategy to End Violence Against Women and Girls, which must address violence at its roots, tackling everyday sexism and misogyny, working with Women’s Aid and other community and voluntary organisations and most importantly with those women who are victims and survivors and families of those who have been killed.
This Council supports Tackling Violence Against Women & Girls being a priority in the new Policing Plan 2025-2030 and calls on the local PCSP to include Tackling Violence Against Women & Girls in the development of the local PCSP plan and works with the community & voluntary sector and statutory bodies to deliver on this priority.

Council is concerned about the reduced funding to frontline policing which impacts directly on their ability to adequately police our local communities.
Council will write to both the Justice Minister and the Executive asking that additional funding be made available to support front line policing in our neighbourhoods.

That this Council recognises the negative impact that is reverberating across the Farming and Agriculture Industry caused by the first Budget by the new UK Labour Government.
And recognises the added challenges posed by the Budget, particularly the changes to Agriculture Property relief,  to the continuance of Family Farming; further recognises the intrinsic value of Farming and Agriculture to regional and national food security, and further commits to writing to the Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs to call on him to engage with the Chancellor at the earliest opportunity and demonstrate his absolute support for Farmers affected by this Budget.

That this Council notes Homelessness Awareness Week 2024; 
•Acknowledges the growing level of housing need across Mid Ulster District Council, whereby as of June 2024, there were 4858 applicants on the social housing waiting list, 3199 of whom are in acute need of a home; 
•Recognises the major impact homelessness has for the health and wellbeing of those impacted; 
•Welcomes and commends the ongoing work of organisations in the voluntary and community sector working to prevent homelessness; 
•Stresses the particular challenges facing rural communities, as Housing Executive targets have been consecutively missed over several years; 
•Calls on the Minister for Communities to ensure the homelessness sector receives sufficient funding to support people at risk of or experiencing homelessness; 
•And affirms that change is needed to increase housing supply and ensure greater cross-departmental working in collaboration with local Councils, to make ending homelessness within our society become a reality.

 

Failure of RAISE Programme in Tackling Educational Underachievement
That this Council recognises that socio-economic background is the biggest predictor of educational underachievement; acknowledges that a range of targeted interventions across government are required to tackle the issue and give children and young people the opportunity to reach their potential; welcomes the allocation of over £20 million from the Shared Island fund to help tackle educational underachievement; regrets that the resulting RAISE programme’s eligibility formula excludes many schools in some of the most deprived working class communities; further regrets that, by design, this programme will not deliver based on objective need; and calls on the Minister of Education to replace the RAISE programme with a new programme which will target support to the schools and children that, based on objective evidence, need it most.

That this Council notes with concerned that no legislation providing legal protection for young people over the age of 19 with Special Education Needs exists in NI, in contrast with England and Wales.  Commends tireless efforts and campaigning of everyone connected with Caleb's Cause; and will write to ministers for Communities, Education and Health requesting that the required legislation be enacted to provide legal protection to young people in NI.