Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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365. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the annual cost per participant of the community employment scheme as administered by her Department; the amount of the cost that is incurred at each of the levels, administration/management by her Department at national level, at local Department of Social Protection office level, at sponsor employer level; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5700/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The annual cost per participant of the Community Employment (CE) scheme is based on social welfare rates with an additional payment of €20 per week. This amounted to €267m in 2013. In addition to the participant costs, a grant for Supervisors who manage the CE scheme amounted to €56.8m was drawn down in 2013. A total of €4.5m training costs was incurred for CE participants over the same period. The material costs, covering the administration of the scheme, are based on actual receipted expenditure and in 2013 amounted to €12.9m. A breakdown of material costs by Division, for 2013, is shown in Table 1.

Table 1: CE Material Costs by DSP Division, 2013

CE projects are typically sponsored by groups wishing to benefit the local community, namely voluntary and community organisations and to a lesser extent public bodies involved in not-for-profit activities. These management committees do not receive any fees for their service. There were 22,575 participants and 1,368 CE Supervisors on CE at the end of December, 2013.