Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

In 2019, my Department published Sustainable, Inclusive and Empowered Communities: A Five-Year Strategy to Support the Community and Voluntary Sector in Ireland 2019-2024. This strategy reaffirms the Government’s commitment to supporting the sector and addressing some of the challenges faced by service providers while also recognising the reality of finite resources and the need to ensure that available resources are focused on providing effective services. Co-produced by Government and the community and voluntary sector, the strategy sets out 11 high-level objectives and associated actions that will empower communities, their representative organisations and the community and voluntary sector to inform and shape appropriate responses to their needs.

The strategy commits, among other things, to a review of the current national practice in commissioning, and specifically, to develop a commissioning model reflecting a collaborative, partnership and whole-of-government ethos prioritising societal value and community need. The implementation of the strategy is overseen by a cross-departmental group on local and community development, which is a representative group comprising local and central government, the community and voluntary sector, community development and local development nominees. The group has agreed a work plan for the implementation of the strategy and commissioning has been identified as one of the priorities in the plan. Accordingly, my Department will conduct a number of bilateral engagements with the relevant Departments and agencies in early 2021 to progress this important commitment.

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