Thomas P. Broughan
Question:119 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the total amounts of grants or financial assistance given to men's organisations for each of the past three years. [10626/99]
Written Answers. - Community Support Services.
Thomas P. Broughan
Question:120 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the total amounts of grants or financial assistance given to women's organisations for each of the past three years. [10627/99]
It is proposed to take Questions Nos. 119 and 120 together.
The Department of Social Community and Family Affairs' grant schemes provide support for community and personal development work undertaken by a wide range of local self-help groups, including women's groups and men's groups. This support is provided under a number of different schemes. The individual schemes are designed to meet different aspects of the support
needs of local groups and are linked to form an overall framework of support and progression path for community and family support groups at different stages of development. It is acknowledged that disadvantaged women and men, in both urban and rural areas, can experience particular problems arising from poverty and marginalisation and that women's groups, men's groups and community groups generally have an important role in tackling these problems. Particular emphasis, therefore, is placed in the various grant schemes operated by my Department on support for community-based initiatives tar geted at disadvantaged women and men. Schemes of particular relevance in this regard are the: community development programme; family and community services resource centre programme; community development education and training grants scheme; scheme of grants for locally-based community and family support groups.
The community development programme was established in 1990 in recognition of the role of community development in tackling poverty and disadvantage. The programme provides financial assistance to projects towards the staffing and equipping of local resource centres which provide a focal point for community development activities in the area and to other specialised community development projects and initiatives having a strategic importance. The projects provide a range of supports, development opportunities and services to community groups and individuals within their areas. However, work with women and participation by women are high priorities across most projects in the programme and four of the projects funded under the community development programme are specialist women's projects. At present there are some 107 projects participating in the programme or in the process of being set up.
In 1994, to mark the International Year of the Family, an allocation of £250,000 was made available by the Department to fund a number of family resource centres. The decision was motivated by the perception of a possible gap in statutory support for community development activities focused on support for families and tackling child poverty. Ten centres were funded on a three year pilot basis and all centres are characterised by a focus on work with disadvantaged women and men.
An evaluation of the work of these centres was published in 1997. The key recommendation of the report was that funding of these centres should be mainstreamed by this Department as a family and community services resource centre programme. In addition, the Commission on the Family, in their submission on the 1998 budget, considered that these centres have significant potential as a primary preventive strategy and endorsed the recommendation for significant expansion of the Department's funding programme to support a network of centres throughout the State.
Recognising the important role played by these centres in supporting families, this programme was expanded in 1998, with an additional 29 centres being funded in that year. The 1999 Budget again provided extra resources to allow some 20 to 25 new centres to be funded this year.
The total provision for both community development programme and the family and community resource centre programme was: 1996, £4.6 million; 1997, £5.6 million; 1998, £7.759 million.
The purpose of the community development education and training grants scheme is to fund training and education initiatives aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of local community and voluntary groups. Responsibility for administering the scheme transferred to my Department from the Combat Poverty Agency in 1997. The following are details of the number of grants and amount of money spent under this scheme in 1997 and 1998: 1997, £158,715, 99 grants; 1998, £116,489, 85 grants.
A substantial portion of the above were grants to local women's and men's groups.
My Department has for many years provided assistance to voluntary and community groups for community development and personal development activities undertaken by them under a number of individual once-off grant schemes as follows: scheme of grants to locally-based women's groups; scheme of grants to locally-based men's groups; and scheme of grants to lone parent groups. The emphasis in the three schemes was on making small grants to a relatively large number of locally-based groups involved in programmes of self-help and personal development designed to tackle poverty and disadvantage using a community development approach. Following evaluations of the women's and men's grants schemes and the change of name of my Department to reflect its wider community and family focus, and an internal review by my Department of the overall package of supports proved by the Department for community development and family support groups, a new scheme of grants to community and family support groups, integrating the former schemes of grants to locally-based women's groups, locally-based men's groups and lone parent groups, was introduced in 1998.
In essence, it was decided to streamline the separate schemes because having three separate such schemes had proved to be unduly inflexible in that it tended to force some groups to seek to fit into a category narrower than their actual work, e.g. family support groups, traveller groups, local community development groups, and did not explicitly cater for other disadvantaged target groups; disabilities, for example, where numbers of local self-help groups have emerged in recent years. The amalgamated scheme continues to provide supports for exclusively women's, men's and lone parents groups, while also giving the Department the flexibility to respond to the needs of local community development groups that comprise both men and women and family support groups that focus on helping individuals and communities in the family context. It also recognised the reality that many of the groups funded in previous years under the women's grants scheme were broader community and family support groups whose work was focused on a range of target groups as well as disadvantaged women.
As was the case previous with the three separate schemes, the scheme of grants for locally-based community and family support groups provides grants towards the cost of activities engaged in by local groups. The costs that can be met under the scheme include tutors fees, training materials, cre±che facilities and other running costs. A separate grants scheme, the scheme of grants to voluntary organisations, provides funding for equipment, premises and other once-off, 'tangible' items. Women's and men's groups are eligible to apply and, indeed, have received funding under this heading down through the years.
I must emphasise that the integration of the three schemes referred to above does not mean that exclusively men's or exclusively women's groups are no longer eligible for funding. It has eliminated the problem of 'mixed' groups, e.g. traveller groups, people with disabilities, having to be squeezed into an artificially narrow funding category before they can be considered for funding. However, the opposite does not apply and the scheme expressly continues to provide for exclusively women's or exclusively men's groups.
In addition to the main scheme, a total of 36 more established community groups groups-networks are in receipt of three year core-funding in the range £8,000 to £35,000. This category of funding came into being in 1994, when 19 women's groups and networks were funded and has been expanded each year since. Of the groups at present being funded, 27 are women's groups-networks and one is a men's network.
The following table sets out the amounts allocated and the number of men's and women's groups which received funding under these schemes, as outlined above, in the years 1996 to 1998 inclusive:
|
Year |
Men's Groups |
Amount |
No. of grants |
Women's Groups |
Amount |
No. of grants |
|
1996 |
£150,000 |
103 |
£1,125,000 |
791 |
||
|
1997 |
£127,120 |
80 |
£1,162,265 |
485* |
||
|
1998 |
£53,520 |
46 |
£1,329,648 |
784 |
*The lower number of individual grants as compared with 1996 and 1998 reflects the fact that grants to ICA guilds in 1997 were paid via County Federations.