Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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Community training centres, CTCs, provide an excellent education to young people in second chance education. There are 31 community training centres located around the country. Young people aged 16 to 21 who have left mainstream education before the leaving certificate can attend these centres, which provide a range of training and other supports to them, achieve QQI levels and progress to further education and employment.

I have the pleasure of being on the board of directors of one of these community training centres, Ballark community training centre in Santry. I have worked closely with this centre for several years. It started when I was the co-ordinator of Ballymun Anseo school completion programme, SCP, located very close to this centre. I have seen first-hand how these centres bring young people into a learning environment that is caring, practical and learner-centred. The staff are absolutely committed to the young people. When young people leave school early, their reintegration into education can be very complex and there needs to be patience, kindness, structure and acceptance. CTC staff are experts at this, but the CTCs are finding it challenging to recruit and keep staff as a result of the substandard salary scale they are on.

To put this into perspective, points 1 and 2 of the clerical scale available to staff in the CTCs are below the minimum wage. Managers of the community training centres earn approximately €10,000 less than the Youthreach and SCP co-ordinator salary scale, and yet they are supposed to be on the same scale. CTCs are funded by their local ETBs and have been since 2011. Prior to then, CTCs were funded by FÁS and the salary scales were linked to FÁS salary scales. When FÁS was dissolved, all the staff moved to the ETBs and were placed on public sector pay scales. They have, however, been left in limbo and - without consultation - this pay link was broken. In 2023, CTC staff were given a 5% increase, which was the first increase of its kind since 2006. It was accepted with the agreement that CTCs would be linked to the Youthreach pay scale, but this has not happened. CTCs are under the Youthreach umbrella in terms of training and education but not in terms of pay and conditions. Without this link to the public sector pay agreements, CTCs will have to continually try to argue with governments for just the crumbs they will get.

The work of the CTCs has become increasingly difficult since Covid. There has been a huge increase in the number of students attending CTCs with more complex needs than ever seen before. The Government needs to recognise and value the work being done in these centres and pay staff accordingly. The community training centres were made promises but these promises have not been kept and the staff are feeling undervalued and despondent. It is just not good enough. When the staff working with really vulnerable young people are themselves vulnerable in their pay and conditions - I have said this not only concerning workers in this sector but those in several other sectors in the education system too - they are not able to support young people who are coming back into second-chance education and do not feel valued as learners. The staff working in the CTCs are incredibly skilled at instilling confidence back into these young people so they can learn and get back on track. The cost of living in this country is extremely high and, therefore, people on wages poorer than those found in other agencies doing similar work are not on a par. This means community training centres are not attracting the staff they need so much. I urge the Minister of State to please consider what can be done to support these staff members in community training centres.

Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I think it might be useful at the outset for Members to understand the context of what is being raised here. Community training centres were established in 1977 as community training workshops to support young, unemployed people aged 16 to 25. Since 1988, they have been delivering the Youthreach programme. I agree with the Deputy that they do really valuable and important work. I am having the opportunity to see more of it as I travel around the country.

There are 31 CTCs throughout the country contracted by the education and training boards, ETBs, to deliver the Youthreach programme. This means they are grant-aided organisations. Each CTC is a non-profit company and has its own independent board of directors which is responsible for the recruitment and retention of staff. With the Deputy’s background and experience, she will know that CTCs are not public sector organisations nor are their staff designated as public servants. ETBs manage the CTCs within the parameters of the Department of public expenditure’s Circular 13/2014. This circular provides comprehensive guidelines for the management, accountability and reporting of public funds allocated through these grants.

Regarding the importance of Youthreach, Department officials maintain a strong working relationship with CTCs through IACTO, which is their representative body. This is supported by the IACTO liaison committee, which includes representatives from IACTO itself, the ETBs, SOLAS and the ETBI. Officials have advised me that the last meeting of the committee took place on 27 May. However, at that meeting it was agreed that the original purpose of that committee is now redundant and that a review of the terms and conditions will be undertaken and discussed at the next meeting, which will take place in September.

These guidelines are being developed under Circular 13/2014. It is intended the revised guidelines will address issues raised by CTCs through this liaison committee. I have to stress that the issues related to recruitment, retention and terms and conditions cannot be resolved within this committee as they are the responsibility of the CTC boards. They are outside the remit of the Department and other committee members.

Specifically in response to the Deputy’s query, the Department has no role in the employment of CTC staff, including in the areas of recruitment, terms and conditions and pay. This also applies to the ETBs, which contract the service from the CTCs, and to SOLAS, which provides funding to the ETBs. I am sorry to anyone listening for all the mention of ETBs and CTCs. The Deputy and I know what I am speaking about, however. As the Deputy said, staff in the CTCs were awarded a 5% pay increase following a WRC hearing in June 2023. Staff were awarded the increase in two increments.

Staff recruitment and retention issues have not been raised recently at the committee meetings that I spoke of. It is important to say they cannot be resolved through the liaison committee as they fall under the authority of the CTC boards.

Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I thank the Minister of State. It is great to raise this issue. It is great that the Minister of State is visiting these centres because they are amazing. While I understand that boards are responsible for the pay and conditions of each staff member, the funding given centrally to the community training centres is not enough. Although the staff are supposed to be put on the same pay and conditions, or pay rates, as Youthreach co-ordinators, the funding is not there to pay them at that rate. If they are supposed to get paid whatever that rate, increment or point on the scale is, boards will not be able to pay it if the funding does not come centrally. The board can decide to pay a certain rate, ultimately. We have a situation where school completion co-ordinators, for example, have had the exact same problem for the last number of years. They were brought under the ETBI, put at Youthreach scales and are all being managed like this. If we are going to value staff members, we need to do everything we possibly can to bring them under the umbrella. While it is totally fine for there to be local arrangements and for the boards to manage them, there is no reason funding cannot be allocated to the centres which covers all things to do with pay, recruitment, retention and industrial relations. If the central budget does not reach that, they are going to lean into other things they are also struggling with. Every other organisation in the country is struggling with the need for multi-annual funding for all the increased insurance and all the things that go with a project. Someone needs to be championing for these staff members to ensure they are on the correct rate and are given the right amount of money. It is about ensuring community training centres are given the right amount of funding centrally to be able to do that and making sure those staff members are valued, appreciated and paid correctly.

Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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In her original question, Deputy Cummins raised the fact that some CTCs have a clerical officer scale on which the first two points fall below the minimum wage. In May, SOLAS informed IACTO that the Department had no objection to points below the minimum wage being removed. I am happy to see that. In fact, I would be really disappointed if that had not happened.

To come back to the general point the Deputy is making, I understand what she is saying. I have to say again that these matters relating to recruitment and retention fall under the responsibility of the individual CTC boards and are outside the Department's operational remit. I hear what she is saying about the importance and value of the work and that funding must be appropriate for what is needed.

Due to the way this is all structured, and given the parameters, the ability of the Department is constrained in this regard. All I can say is that I encourage IACTO and CTCs to feed their concerns into the development of the revised operational guidelines. I know that SIPTU is seeking a pay increase to bring CTC staff pay in line with that of Youthreach staff and that IACTO supports the claim. Again, the Department cannot respond to SIPTU's request because those decisions must be taken by the CTC boards. While there were links historically between CTC staff, certain FÁS grades and Youthreach staff, they ended in 2009 with the FEMPI legislation. As the Deputy said, in 2022, SIPTU lodged a claim for Building Momentum increases with full retrospection. Although that was rejected by the management side, after a WRC hearing in June 2023 CTC staff were awarded a 5% pay increase funded from the Department's Vote. I heard what the Deputy has said.