Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 July 2012
18Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Social Protection the progress that has been made on the findings of the reviews she commissioned in relation to community employment schemes; the schemes that have been earmarked for closure, cuts in materials and training grants; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35042/12]
View answerTotal expenditure on the community employment programme in 2012 will be approximately €340 million. The number of places available on the community employment programme has remained constant at 23,300, including supervisors. The financial review of the schemes has been completed, and the Department has contacted schemes to advise them of their revised materials and training allocations. The materials and training budget for community employment schemes has been increased by €9.5 million from the original budget of approximately €11 million following transfers from savings identified elsewhere in the departmental budget. The new materials and training budget is thus €20.5 million.
Under the revised arrangements, schemes will no longer be given universal amounts of financial support but will instead be provided with specific levels of support aimed at meeting the particular costs of community employment schemes, having regard to the overall level of funding available for community employment nationally. To date, significant savings have already been made to the overheads of community employment projects in annual insurance costs and audit fees.
I am not aware of any proposals to close community employment schemes following the outcome of the financial review. I urge all schemes, supervisors and boards of management to work closely with officials of my Department to ensure community employment continues to play an important role in the provision of local community services, work experience and training opportunities. I thank the many sponsors, staff and participants in community employment schemes who co-operated with the Department's review in a positive manner.
On the training allocation for schemes, community employment participants may also access a number of Springboard, VEC and FÁS courses free of charge. I am working on this issue with the Department of Education and Skills to ensure courses are made available to participants in community employment schemes which assist them in securing employment in the future.
As the Minister stated, in recent weeks community employment providers received notification that the review of community employment schemes was complete. They were also notified of the details of their revised grants for the year. The Minister also noted a slight increase of €9 million in materials and training grants from the originally budgeted figure of €11 million. The allocations made to many community employment schemes have been cut by between 30% and 40%. That will tip many of them over the edge in their efforts to continue in existence. Given that it had been going on since the budgetary process in January, when was the review completed and placed on the Minister's desk? When will she publish the plan for us to review? In direct communications and also at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection, Deputy Ó Snodaigh and I have asked her to publish the plan.
It was a very substantial piece of work because, as the Deputy knows, the FÁS employment officers and responsibility for the community employment, CE, schemes transferred to my Department on 1 January. The review was a major undertaking and I received the report in recent weeks. I do not have the exact date, which I can get for the Deputy, but it was towards the end of June. As soon as I received it we contacted those involved with the schemes. However, I was very impressed by the level of contact between the social protection officials, who are now managing CE, and the schemes. I had the opportunity, which I greatly valued, to visit and meet a number of sponsors of schemes and those involved. As there are almost 1,000 schemes, obviously I could not visit them all, but I visited very many of them and had very detailed discussions about how people envisage the schemes being used for the improvement and enhancement of their communities as well as providing quality experience to the participants.
From my discussions with those involved in CE schemes in my constituencies and beyond, I have discovered extensive variations in the size of cuts. In some cases those cuts will lead to possible closures of the schemes. The Minister is very precise in saying the budgetary allocation towards that materials and training grant has increased from €9 million to €11 million in this year's budget spend. Obviously it compares unfavourably with the allocations for last year and previous years. Can the Minister say to me definitively - as definitively as she mentioned the increase in her initial allocation from €9 million to €11 million - the revised average cut taken by CE schemes? It has been a long and drawn out process. We all recognise and pay tribute to those involved in the schemes and the good work they do in their communities. We acknowledge that and it goes without saying. The process has taken a long time and been very labour intensive with intense negotiations and deliberations by the departmental officials in arriving at their conclusions. Based on that process, surely the Minister can indicate the percentage cut to these CE schemes.
Schemes have been allocated funding of between €500 and €1,000. Approximately 6% of schemes have been allocated less than that because the process depended on two things: the submission and application the schemes themselves made and the availability of funding for both materials and training of up to €1,000. Some schemes would have other forms of funding whereas other schemes might have almost no other sources of funding. We have moved away from the old system whereby everybody got exactly the same amount towards a customised approach-----
They have to wait until July each year.
-----to the actual work the scheme is doing. We have looked very closely at the work the scheme is doing in the community as well as the provision of the training experience to the community employment scheme participants.
