Chairman:

I wish to raise a general issue. I have been around long enough to have seen community employment in different Departments and in different guises. The community employment scheme has always managed to evolve somewhat to meet the situation of the day. It has been around in times of virtually full employment and at times of exceptionally high unemployment.

Ms Stack hit the nail on the head in her opening statement when she referred to the value of the scheme to communities as well as the training and education to the individual participants. The feedback I am getting at present is that it is becoming more challenging for the community groups than for the participants. A couple of issues come to mind. For groups that might be relatively small, a significant change of personnel arises when the existing participants come to the end of their period on the scheme. This means there is no shared learning or shared experience of being on the job and this gives rise to concerns when there are no immediate replacements. As we are now reaching the point of higher employment levels, there needs to be greater flexibility to ensure that the perspective of the operators of the schemes are considered. They could have a period of a month when they are missing one or two participants because they cannot recruit, and that needs to be examined.

Ms Stack specifically stated that the contracts are for a period of one year, except in the case where people are doing major awards, where it can be two or three years. I would like Ms Stack to examine a different element, in particular in areas of significant economic disadvantage. I think people from most disadvantaged areas who get on those schemes need more than one year. In many cases, many families in the community have experienced intergenerational unemployment. The level of support they need is probably greater. Having broken the cycle to get on a scheme, a year may not be long enough and in the course of the first year they may not have entered an educational scheme where they are going for a major award. It may take them longer to make that level of progression, but ultimately they might enter the education system. In areas of significant levels of economic disadvantage, where employment prospects in their geographic vicinity are not that good, we need to look at the adequacy of the scheme to meet their needs. I specifically ask Ms Stack to consider a longer run-in without the educational requirement being upfront because in many cases they will not have the capacity to meet the educational requirement in the initial stages.