Ms Celene Dunne:

On Dr. McMahon's point, the UBU is made up of historical old schemes that were there under the special projects for youth, SPY, which was for disadvantaged youth and the young people’s facilities and services fund, YPFSF, which responded to the drugs issues in communities. All of those funds were collapsed into a targeted youth scheme. That scheme was very successful in that it collapsed those streams and reduced the administrative burden. This was the goal of the whole thing, that it would make things work more effectively. Then there was a reform process that introduced UBU. Behind it all was the idea of more accountability. That speaks to the trust issues I mentioned earlier. There is a trust governance issue there that cannot really be ignored. The UBU scheme has 146 rules, which is a huge amount for any community group to be complying with at any time. It is starting to direct practice and that is a difficulty for people. There are nine new rules in the offing as well. The introduction of more rules seems to be the way it has gone. I think that is something that has come from those value-for-money reviews, which did not really take into account the key stakeholders. That was a fundamental problem that arose and it can easily be addressed. As Mr. Lawlor said, there comes a time where you pick it apart. There are parts that are working and there are things we have learned. There are things we have learned from other iterations of schemes. It is not as if those schemes did not have any eligibility criteria or any rules; there were 12 and that was manageable. We have increased the administrative burden. It has quadrupled now and there are more forms and templates coming down the line but we can learn something from the Covid times in terms of how technology can support some of those things. We are basically still on a paper-based exercise under UBU. This means that front-line workers are taken away from the work they should be doing to fill out forms. We should be using some of the technology and some of what has been advanced to support what is needed in terms of figures and accountability. There are ways to do that but an IT solution for some of this could help the sector somewhat. That is a big part of it.

Dr. McMahon pointed out the quality standards. The quality standards framework was in place for nine years. It was on a three-year cycle and there were three such cycles. Then there was a review of it by the middle quarter in 2017, which showed there was a need for some change, particularly in terms of language, but that there was huge value in having quality at the heart of funding youth work. In the reformed scheme, the quality aspect was taken out and then it is just about the numbers that are put through. Everything is there. There is a national quality standards for framework there and it has been reviewed. Any issues there were with that system have already been identified and the recommendation is currently sitting there to reintroduce quality. Including quality gives that assurance that things are going well and it is a focus on the practice of making sure that the experience the young person gets coming in is of a high quality, rather than the paperwork being right. You can write yourself a good project any day of the week really.

There are things we have learned as we have gone along. It is not as if UBU is the first scheme that ever came along. There is lots of learning from practice that we can put into place. That is an area on which we need to be really focused. Any new developments, any continuous improvement of UBU, or any changing or picking apart, need to have the stakeholders on board. There is a lot to be learnt from all of our experiences. The Department has a particular experience and particular needs and we need to acknowledge that. The ETB is in the mid-level governance role and we have a particular expertise and particular needs. The key to all of this is our providers, our youth work staff, our volunteers, and of course the young people and the communities who are at the heart of this. They are the ones who are likely to lose out at the end of the day. All of those things have to be brought together. In the past, there was a national youth work advisory committee under the Act. It brought all stakeholders together and policy emerged that was fit for purpose. That kind of engagement is what we really need to go back to and that we are learning from what went well, what did not work, and taking advantage of the technology and what is there to support the work.