The mid-term review of the URBAN Operational Programme is due to be completed by 3 June 1998.
The interdepartmental policy committee on local development was reconstituted under my chairmanship in October 1997. It has a mandate in relation to the overall co-ordination of Government policy on local development. All Departments, with the exceptions of the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Defence, are represented on the committee as well as three agencies — Area Development Management Limited, Combat Poverty Agency and FÁS. There have been five committee meetings to date. The main themes of the committee's discussions to date have related to reviewing interdepartmental and agency co-ordination in relation to local development initiatives, developing a co-ordinated approach to meeting the needs of the most deprived urban areas, and considering the future of local development programmes post-1999.
The committee has been mandated to oversee an integrated services project. The project, which will operate in four pilot areas, seeks to develop new procedures to ensure a more focused and better co-ordinated response by the statutory authorities to the needs of committees with the greatest levels of disadvantage.
The committee is also considering the future of local development programmes post-1999, especially in the context of proposals for the closer integration of local development and local government systems. The committee has recently received presentations in this regard from area partnerships, Leader groups, county enterprise boards, local development liaison teams, the General Council of County Councils, the Association of Municipal Authorities of Ireland, the Donegal County Manager and the Dublin City Manager. These presentations have primarily focused on three related issues: co-ordinated delivery of State services to disadvantaged areas, the shape and content of local development programmes post-1999 and the administrative context of these programmes post-1999.
I report to the Cabinet Committee on Social Inclusion, Drugs and Local Development in relation to the work of the committee.