Ms Sian Muldowney:

The social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, is the successor programme to the local and community development programme, LCDP. The LCDP provided significant, and in many circumstances core, funding for projects funded through the community co-operative. It was announced by the Department at the beginning of 2014 that SICAP would be put out for competitive tender as part of public procurement under EU law. This is the first time a social inclusion programme has been subject to a public procurement process rather than the traditional grant approach in Ireland. The tender process has taken place over two stages. Expressions of interest were sought in July 2014 and successful applicants were invited to tender. The deadline for that tender was 19 December 2014 with a decision expected on or around 18 February 2015.

I will refer to some of our experiences as part of this process but only in general terms as it is still ongoing and I do not want to be seen to be trying to influence the outcome in any way. Ultimately, It is our contention that the competitive tendering of SICAP and other programmes with a social benefit is not in the best interests of citizens for three main reasons. It will undermine and potentially eradicate community development and local community projects; it will result in a deterioration of services, particularly to the disadvantaged; and it does not adhere to the spirit of the EU directives and the European debate. We are concerned that the best placed organisations for developing and delivering social inclusion work may not be best placed at winning tenders. Our expertise lies in the delivery of relevant and responsive services and we may not be as adept as some private companies in commercial tendering. Some of these companies have entire units dedicated to developing contracts of this kind. There is also an assumption that using competitive tendering will automatically deliver the best value for money. This is not necessarily the case. When assessing value for money on programmes like this, it is necessary to look at a range of non-financial and social capital benefits that community-led organisations can offer. Community-led groups do not make a profit for shareholders. Our aim is to provide services and supports to the communities where we work.

Tendering processes are complex, often benefit larger organisations and potentially advantage private sector operators. This is due to the often large-scale nature of contracts awarded and the fact that tenders may be required to fund cashflow to a much greater extent than under grant-based services. Some organisations are unable to make applications due to the restrictions and complexities that apply. Community-led organisations often cannot meet those criteria and can therefore be excluded from even participating in the competitive tender before it starts. For example, in stage one of SICAP, applicants must meet certain financial and resource requirements which exclude many groups. For the purposes of SICAP, the country was divided into lots according to local authority areas. In the Dublin lot, it was necessary to have a turnover of between €1.25 million and €1.5 million which automatically excluded a vast number of groups. The groups in the co-operative would not have been able to apply for SICAP individually. The short timeframe for applying to stage one also hindered the development of partnerships and consortium bids that smaller organisations need. We had an advantage in the inner city because we have a long history of working together and we were able to come together quite quickly to form the co-operative and therefore tender. However, this was not the case with other groups such as Travellers' groups, women's groups and projects in the islands. They were not able to fit into the structure being presented to them. The process was administratively heavy and time-consuming. We were trying to submit a tender for SICAP but at the same time in respect of these smaller organisations, some of which have only two or three staff, we are trying to meet our obligations to deliver the services and meet our obligations to our funders. All of this is happening at a time when we are being asked to cut back on administrative budgets and resources.

We utilise a range of approaches to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged. These are methods that generally do not exist in the private or public sector, namely, the ability to provide responsive and tailored services that use a person-centred approach. We are innovative in service design and delivery, flexible in our approach and able to respond to new and emerging needs. An example of this relates to head shops. It was the community that first identified the danger around head shops and that was able to organise and bring the issue to our public representatives. There is a strong value for money focus in what we do as we continue to strive to deliver services, despite the vast reduction in funding we have received. We involve our users and beneficiaries in service design and control of services. Underpinning all of this are an ethos and a commitment to social justice, equality, tackling exclusion and empowerment. If disadvantaged communities do not receive services that are delivered in this way, they will ultimately lose out.

Inevitably in completing a tender, work is tailored to meet the criteria of the tender, but these criteria are not necessarily developed with the community's needs in mind as it was not involved in developing them. SICAP contains no reference to homelessness despite it being a significant issue in our communities and an issue of which members of the committee are aware. Further down the road, in conjunction with the local community development committees, we could add the homeless as a target group. We are looking at the end of this year and the beginning of 2016, so in the interim, our hands are tied and there is nothing we can do on this matter.

The Department will argue that we were consulted about SICAP. In respect of that consultation, we were invited to a two-hour meeting in the Department where somebody actually read the programme to us. We then had about 20 minutes in smaller discussion groups and a brief question and answer session. Following that, we were invited to complete a questionnaire with questions on the programme. I need to point out that we were being asked to comment on a programme that was already written. At no point were we engaged in the actual development of that programme.

It is our contention that it is not good public policy to put social inclusion programmes out to public tender as these services are for the public benefit and not for private profit. Ms McCarthy will talk about the new EU directives.