Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

It is my goal to find a solution that takes account of the objectives of getting people ready for real jobs, getting value for money for the taxpayer and supporting schemes that deliver much-needed social services. I want to develop policies that help people keep close to the labour market, taking into account advice on new employment growth areas and developing skills needs.

I am pleased that many community employment schemes provide valuable qualifications to people who never had the opportunity to achieve that in their earlier lives. Some 15,000 participants received FETAC awards in 2011. In addition, 10,000 other awards in occupational skills and health and safety by other awarding bodies were achieved. It must be remembered that a large number of community employment scheme participants have low formal educational qualifications and achievement and, for such people, community employment provides a second chance to catch up and gain qualifications that can help to make them more employable. However, not all schemes are sufficiently focused on the employability of participants; the provision of the service by the scheme can sometimes take precedence over the needs of the individual. Likewise, for some schemes there is insufficient focus on progressing the individual into employment.

As Minister for Social Protection, I am determined to ensure that the positive contribution of schemes is recognised in any future decisions on the operation, funding and role of community employment. I have asked for an initial review of the financial resources of all schemes to be completed by the end of March 2012. This was also promised to the troika some time ago, which is the reason for the time line. The commitment was previously entered into in other commitments given to the troika. The review is being carried out with the full involvement of scheme sponsors. Standard templates have been developed and issued to the Department's staff responsible for the schemes to ensure consistency in approach. There is a considerable amount of variation across community employment schemes in terms of the amount of training provided, materials required, overhead costs and the potential for sponsoring organisations to meet certain costs in some situations. Some sponsors have significant streams of income while others do not. There is much variation across the range of the 1,100 schemes. The review is being carried out in the knowledge that there are community and voluntary organisations that receive funding from a multiplicity of State agencies and it may be possible to achieve savings by examining that. There are also sponsoring organisations where income is generated as a result of the contribution of community employment participants and there may be potential to utilise some of these funds to cover project costs.

While a reduced level of grant for training and materials is unavoidable in 2012, given the budgetary position, we are making all efforts to minimise the impact of the reductions. The financial review is identifying that certain schemes are better resourced than others and, therefore, less reliant on the training and material grant for their successful operation. Let me be clear: we will be ceasing the current practice of giving the same level of training and materials grants to all schemes, irrespective of the length of time participants are on schemes. Approximately 2,000 have been on schemes for five years or longer. Their need for training is considerably less than that of new entrants. Neither does the current approach take into account the varying requirements of schemes. In this regard, it is anticipated that all community employment schemes will see a reduction in the level of training and materials grants compared with those payable in 2011, but the reduction will vary according to the needs of participants and project circumstances. No scheme will be forced to close as a result of the reduction in the materials and training grants during the period of the financial review.

I will state something every Deputy knows. Every year some schemes close for a variety of reasons, for example, a scheme's changing nature, amalgamations, etc.

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