Mattie McGrath
Question:543. Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will consider increasing the materials grant provided to community employment schemes (details supplied). [11439/21]
View answerWednesday, 3 March 2021
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Community Employment (CE) supports projects that provide work experience for long term unemployed persons to assist them entering the open labour market on exit from the CE scheme, while at the same time providing valuable community services. These can be in the areas such as social care, childcare services, heritage, arts, culture, tourism, sport and the environment. The programme is delivered through CE sponsoring authorities in the community and voluntary sector.
CE sponsoring authorities receive annual contracts from my Department which fund the employment of both CE participants and CE supervisors. Funding is also provided towards training and material costs. The materials grant is a contribution towards the running costs of the scheme and covers consumable services and materials necessary for the effective operation of the CE project including such items as Employers and Public Liability Insurances, tools, stationery, audit fees, bank charges (excluding bank interest), protective clothing and the hiring of equipment.
Materials funding is provided to CE sponsoring authorities in accordance with their requirements, where necessary. The Department provided an additional materials funding of €2 million in Budget 2019 and this additional annual provision continues to be allocated to those projects that identify a valid requirement for additional materials funding.
Over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic each CE sponsoring authority has maintained different levels of service provision in line with the public health restrictions up to and including Level-5 that are currently in place. For many CE schemes this has resulted in a reduction in materials expenditure while a number of CE schemes have experienced some additional costs. A number of CE schemes are already in receipt of the maximum materials funding available.
If a CE sponsoring authority is seeking further funding under the materials grant, they should make an application through the Department's Community Development Officer assigned to their CE scheme.
In relation to the Deputies suggestion that unused training resources might be transferred into materials funding, it should be note that €4.2 million of the training Budget allocated to CE is funded from the National Training Fund and that materials funding would therefore not be possible under this training strand of funding.