asked the Minister for Labour if his attention has been drawn to the anxiety among voluntary sponsors of the social employment scheme regarding the delays in making payments to them; and the steps, if any, he proposes to take to remedy the situation which has caused considerable hardship.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Social Employment Scheme.
7.
As I indicated in my speech on the Estimate for my Department, I am aware of the concern among some voluntary bodies at delays which have been experienced in the processing of claims for payment of social employment schemes grant instalments. Extra staff have been allocated recently to expedite the processing of outstanding claims and I am satisfied that significant inroads are being made into the arrears problem.
Would the Minister agree that the success of the social employment scheme and, indeed, the Teamwork scheme depends on voluntary groups coming forward to offer themselves as sponsors and would he also agree that in the early days of these schemes the voluntary groups who came forward had particular objectives of their own in mind but that many of the groups who are now coming forward are motivated by a desire to do something about unemployment in their areas and in those circumstances it is particularly important that they do not find themselves having to carry the burden of funding programmes because of delays in the Department?
I accept the Deputy's point and agree that these voluntary and community groups are not in a position to pay overdrafts on bank accounts. Extra staff were allocated to the relevant section of the Department in order to clear the very large backlog. Can I say that it is the success of the scheme which is creating the problem. A lot of administrative work is involved but the officials involved are doing their utmost to clear the backlog.
On the question of administration, is it not the case in relation to teamwork that a portion of the grant is paid to the voluntary group in advance and that in the case of the social employment scheme the money has to be expended first? If that is the case, could the difficulties be resolved by moving over to a Teamwork type of approach whereby the voluntary group would draw down a portion of their grant in advance?
I confirm what the Deputy has just said. In the social employment scheme the grant is paid on completion of the project when a final statement is issued. From the questions which have been asked of me here in this House it is clear that it is the final account which quite often causes the delay but it is not always the fault of the Department as a number of other aspects have to be cleared up. Recently, six extra staff members were allocated to the section and in view of the recent staffing difficulties that is a substantial number to be put into any one section. Therefore, we are hopeful that this will lead to a resolving of the difficulties. Another problem is that a number of schemes are coming to an end and this has led to an increase in paperwork over the past few months.
I understand from what the Minister has said that there may be additional administrative difficulties because of the phase which some of these schemes are now at, although I fail to see why they should be so acute. Can the Minister give the House an assurance that the reasons for the delays are confined exclusively to administrative problems and are in no way related to internal cashflow difficulties within the Department?
I can.
If that is the case, is the Minister in a position to pay the interest charges which many of the voluntary groups have had to undertake in order to finance the inefficiencies within his Department?
That is a problem which has not been raised to the best of my knowledge previously but it is one which is now beginning to be raised by a number of voluntary groups.
It is a very acute problem for some of them and I am not being difficult in raising it.
I accept that some of the voluntary organisations have difficulties. To fund interest charges was not part of the original scheme and it would take an amendment to the scheme in order to do so. What I would rather do is to try to clear the accounts so that this problem does not arise. Further interest payments to the banking system is not the solution to the problem.
Three local authorities in County Louth had arrears of almost £250,000. In view of that fact and the position which pertains in County Louth would the Minister agree that the level of administration in the scheme should be reduced? For example, the local authorities are blaming Manpower who in turn are blaming the Department who in turn blame Manpower and it goes around in a vicious circle. There are three statutory bodies handling the administration of what should be a very simple scheme. Something drastic needs to be done. We in County Louth had to stop all future schemes until the moneys were paid up and this was damaging to a very successful scheme.
On the last occasion on which I answered questions in this House the Deputy had tabled some questions to me on the position in County Louth and I managed to get all but one scheme cleared.
Thank you very much.
I accept that during the last few months there have been delays some of which lasted for a number of weeks. That is why we allocated additional staff to clear the backlog. I can give the House an assurance that over the next few months I will continually monitor the scheme.