John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. My Department was established against a background of concern at the multiplicity of structures and agencies through which local and community development schemes and programmes are delivered. The Department inherited many local and community programmes that were established and operated under different Departments. There was an inherent danger of fragmentation of services and diffusion of resources. The cohesion process initiated by the Minster, Deputy Ó Cuív, to address these concerns resulted in a dramatic reduction and simplification of local delivery structures for a range of rural development and community development programmes. However, my Department still has a wide agenda of reform to advance. The next phase, now under way, concerns improving and joining up the outputs from programmes, as well as further consolidating structures.

The local development social inclusion programme, LDSIP, and the community development programme, CDP, are my Departments two main social inclusion-community development programmes. Both have a community development element and both are delivered through separate local delivery structures comprising over 230 separate companies. I have already indicated that my strong view is that a single focused programme with a single integrated delivery structure is now needed in order to maximise the impact of these two programmes which serve disadvantaged communities. The Centre for Effective Services has very recently presented a new programme outline to my Department which I have accepted.

The aim of the new programme is to tackle poverty and social exclusion through partnership and constructive engagement between Government and people in disadvantaged communities. This will be underpinned by four high-level goals which are: to promote awareness, knowledge and uptake of a wide range of statutory, voluntary and community services; to increase access to formal and informal educational, recreational and cultural development activities and resources; to increase peoples' work readiness and employment prospects; and to promote engagement with policy, practice and decision making processes on matters affecting local communities. The new programme will preserve elements of good practice from the existing CDP-LDSIP programmes and will enhance monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. Further work by the centre, on more detailed aspects of the programme, is ongoing in the light of consultations and feedback with various community sector groups.

An implementation strategy involving the stakeholders is under way in preparation for programme roll-out in 2010. This has been discussed with representatives from CDPs and partnership companies at an information session which was held yesterday, 25 November. My Department will continue to oversee the implementation of the new programme and will deal with operational issues as they arise in practical and sympathetic ways. My overall aim is to ensure that, from 2010, disadvantaged communities will benefit from a more focused programme, with clear objectives and simplified and streamlined delivery structures leading to significant administrative savings and impact efficiencies.

In advance of proceeding to establish a single programme across CDPs and partnerships, my Department has initiated an evaluation of individual community development projects. Many of these projects span across two decades, with quite diverse activities. The objective of the review is to identify those projects that produce tangible, appropriate benefits for the communities they serve. Initial indications are that the vast majority of projects fall into this category and funding will be available, subject to budgetary constraints, through the new programme in 2010. For those projects that do not come into this category, continued funding from the Department will not be available. However, an appeals mechanism will be put in place. Again, I hope to have proposals from my Department in the near future.

I envisage that the main elements of the new integrated programme will comprise a small number of unambiguous goals to be achieved through clearly articulated outcomes for disadvantaged communities. Continuous evaluation and measurable targets will also be key features of the new programme, which I hope to launch early next year. While I cannot be specific at this stage about the impact on specific bodies in particular areas, disadvantaged communities will benefit from a more focused programme with clear objectives and simplified and streamlined delivery structures.

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