Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 13 June 2023
65. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development if she will provide an update on how her Department intends to assist community groups with growing regulatory burden; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28428/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraVery often for good reason, the regulations in a whole variety of areas mean it can be very challenging for community organisations to ensure their affairs are run correctly. It is not necessarily that we are rolling back any regulations but it is about how we can assist organisations to ensure they are compliant with a whole variety of issues on which I will expand in a minute.
In 2019, my Department published Sustainable, Inclusive and Empowered Communities: A Five-Year Strategy to Support the Community and Voluntary Sector in Ireland 2019-2024. The strategy reaffirms the Government’s commitment to supporting the sector and addressing some of the burdens faced by service providers, while also recognising the reality of finite resources and the need to ensure that available resources are focused on providing effective services.
The strategy commits to developing appropriate compliance and monitoring arrangements and supporting capacity in the sector to meet them. Actions include reviewing the appropriateness of regulatory compliance requirements; developing and implementing a strategy to reduce, streamline and standardise all public-funded programme and regulatory monitoring, reporting and compliance requirements, where appropriate; and resourcing and supporting organisations to fulfil compliance requirements.
The implementation of the strategy is being overseen by the cross-sectoral group on local and community development, which supports my Department in the prioritisation of objectives and actions to be progressed within the framework of annual work plans.
It is also important to note that some community groups are also registered charities and as such are bound by the requirements of charity legislation. The amendments contained in the forthcoming charities (amendment) Bill aim to strengthen the charities sector, ensuring greater transparency, clarity and fairness, which will serve to enhance public confidence in charities.
I recognise the need for proportionate regulation and governance requirements for our charities. In many cases, the Bill will actually ease the administrative burden on smaller charities and it will also further enhance and empower both existing trustees and potential trustees by giving greater clarity in respect of roles and responsibilities. The charities Bill is a key step that needs to be implemented to allow for the appropriate regulation, particularly financial regulation, of the sector. I will give the Deputy a little bit more information about a needs assessment we are doing on different levels of charities in my follow-up.
We are lucky in this country that the community and voluntary sector is truly a community and voluntary sector. In many other countries, there is not the same proportion of genuine community and voluntary people who are not paid. The participation of people who are not paid is much more significant than it might be in other places.
I am and have been a member of a number of boards in my local community. If an organisation is looking for new trustees, on top of the significant responsibilities people have when they join a board, for various organisations now, there is everything from health and safety, employment law and charity regulation, which includes articles of association and constitution. Then, there is all the stuff that goes with tendering to do with the Charities Regulator and auditing. Everything that goes with it is very substantial now. These could be organisations that might have only two or three people. It will be a challenge to find trustees for organisations unless we can make the work a bit easier for them.
I thank the Deputy for raising that particular point. I will take the opportunity to acknowledge all the board members across the country who do all the unseen work behind the scenes, much of which is tough drudgery and administrative work that does not always get acknowledged and seen. We are doing a needs assessment. We are currently working on a research programme to establish the skills and training needs within the sector to provide opportunities where gaps exist and to help to signpost existing resources where that is required. The first report of the training needs of the local community development committees, LCDCs, is to hand and has been agreed by the cross-sectoral group, CSG. A decision was taken to hold and publish all three reports together once they are finalised. A second report relates to the training needs of the voluntary boards of middle-sized charities. That report is nearing completion and we hope to be in a position to present the draft report to the CSG group shortly. The third report around training relates to smaller and community voluntary groups. It is also nearing completion and a draft report is due to be submitted to the subgroup shortly. The plan is to publish all three reports together and to get an implementation plan rolling as quickly as we can so we can help people in the situations the Deputy has described to feel better able to handle their workload.
It is not necessarily just about the time and effort, although those are considerations. There is also a cost implication to some of this stuff. People are trying to ensure boards or community associations are properly run. There may be three, four, five or six people employed. Some organisations would not even have that many and a lot of them might only have two or three employees. Those organisations are trying to ensure they have the correct policies and all that kind of stuff. Perhaps they have to have some sort of contractual arrangement with some of their tenants or some of the people who use a building and so on. That requires a consultation with a lawyer to get these things drafted. Laypeople do not have the skills to ensure such documents are watertight. The situation is similar in respect of the Charities Regulator. Someone who is seeking a constitution or articles of association will have to spend money to ensure the work is done properly. That issue needs to be addressed because it can draw on the limited incomes of community organisations when we would much rather see that money go to things that benefit people more directly. Obviously, these things benefit the community but we would prefer the money to go towards things that more directly and visibly benefit the community.
I take the Deputy's point about costs. We have different levels of funding for different types of organisations. The level the Deputy is talking about tends in many cases to get support via LCDCs and the community support fund we are in the process of rolling out across local authorities at the moment. We announced last year that €10 million would be available to grassroots groups, of which there are hundreds in every local authority area. That fund is particularly effective at reaching some of those costs but perhaps not all of them. I would also point to national organisations we fund with core funding whose job it is to support smaller organisations to develop. I am thinking of Boardmatch, The Wheel and the Carmichael Centre. To some extent, I am also thinking of the Irish Men's Sheds Association, which helps to support smaller organisations to grow and develop. We are certainly conscious of the cost of compliance and administration that many organisations, particularly small organisations, are facing and it is one of the reasons we are, through the Charities Bill, making it easier for those smaller organisations to submit reporting to the regulator.
