Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Section 7 makes a technical adjustment to reflect current practice. It ensures that individuals on community schemes can continue to receive additional payments, such as payments for supplementary exceptional needs, once off grant payments relating to diet or rent and mortgage interest supplement.

Senator Mooney asked about the review of CE schemes. Two reviews are currently under way. The Department's estimated expenditure on employment support schemes for 2012 is €983 million. This represents an increase of €121 million because we have expanded or launched a number of schemes, including the JobBridge internship programme and the Tús programme, which is now being operated in almost every county. Individuals who have been unemployed for longer than one year are getting an opportunity to work for one year under the Tús programme. Some €315 million is specifically provided for community employment schemes, based on a figure of 23,000 participants and 1,400 supervisors.

Responsibility for CE schemes moved to the Department of Social Protection on 1 January and, as is prudent in the context of such a major transfer, I asked for a review of the schemes. The feedback and co-operation on CE schemes from sponsors, supervisors and, in many cases, participants has been positive. Feedback on the schemes' achievements focuses on the following three areas: social delivery of services, particularly in rural areas; the experience of scheme participants with a view to making it as positive as possible in terms of assisting participants to return to employment; and value for money. In the overall context of value for money, there is a requirement in the budget to make savings in the overall CE spend of 7.7%. That is being achieved through changes to the materials and training grants.

It is particularly welcome that considerable progress has been made in saving money in areas like administrative overheads. CE schemes have been spending a substantial amount of money on insurance, which they tend to negotiate on an individual basis rather than seek value for money on a grouped basis. Schemes are also spending money on accountants and auditors because many of them were established as companies under FÁS. That entails a significant administrative overhead. The Department's objective in conducting its review is to ascertain, over a period of time, how a considerable saving might be made in such administrative overheads. There are cases, for example, where community employment schemes have sources of income and could, therefore, afford to contribute to their funding costs. The detailed review of the schemes is ongoing and will be completed shortly. I am pleased to report that there has been a high level of co-operation from most of the schemes in supplying the relevant data.

The second review to which the Senator referred relates to the range of labour market support schemes within the Department's remit, including those subsumed into it on 1 January from the former FÁS labour services. Again, we are concerned with identifying the outcomes in terms of progression to employment or self-employment relative to Exchequer spending. Encompassed within this range of supports are the back to education allowance, community employment schemes, JobBridge, Tús, the rural social scheme and so on, all of which are under review. A broad commitment was given to the EU-IMF-ECB troika as one of the conditions of our bailout programme that such reviews would be undertaken as part of the ongoing examination of public spending. The reviews under way are designed to focus on three issues, namely, community delivery, the participant's experience and value for money. An issue raised in respect of all of the schemes at one time or another, the community employment schemes in particular, is how efficient and effective they are in providing a pathway to employment for participants. Many economists have been critical of the community employment schemes in this regard, including the ESRI which has published several critical reports. However, the reports have not always emphasised the social delivery model encompassed within the schemes, aside from the personal experience of individual participants. Both reviews are progressing and I expect them to be finalised in the near future.