Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Máire Devine for raising the issue of the community services programme, CSP. I welcome her friends and neighbours from St. Andrew's. I acknowledge the massive contribution made by many such organisations in their communities. I know of this from first-hand experience.

On the broader issue, the provision of local, social, economic and environmental services is the core aim of the CSP. A total of 404 service providers are supported under the CSP to provide such services through the application of a social enterprise model of delivery. For the purposes of the CSP, a social enterprise has been defined as "an enterprise that trades for a social/societal purpose, where at least part of its income is earned from its trading activity, is separate from government, and where the surplus is primarily reinvested in the social objective". The funding provided to the service providers under the CSP is expressed as a fixed annual co-funding contribution towards the cost of employing a manager or specified number of full-time equivalent staff. The CSP service providers are required to generate traded income from a variety of sources. To assist with sustainability, all CSP service providers should strive to be in circumstances in which at least 30% of annual turnover is from traded income and in which the CSP grant is not more than 50% of annual turnover.

The CSP grant contribution is provided on a co-funding basis and employers are expected to provide additional funds from their own resources to meet the full costs of employment. Support for an eligible person with a 39-hour working week is €19,033 per annum. The employer is expected to pay the local labour market rate for the position and to finance this from non-public grant revenue generated. An additional contribution of €32,000 per annum can also be made towards the engagement of a manager. We should focus on that figure also. The setting of wage rates is entirely a matter for the employer organisation in contract under the CSP.

Owing to the changes to the national minimum wage from January 2016, the issue of sustainability of some CSP service providers has come into focus. I accept that is the reason for the debate today. In response, the Department has established - this is important also - a CSP support fund for a fixed period, between 2016 and 2018, to assist service providers in enhancing their sustainability as social enterprises. Therefore, a CSP support fund has been established for the next two years. The support fund is allocating additional financial supports to existing providers under the CSP to enhance their sustainability as social enterprises. Allocations under the support fund are supplementary to the CSP contribution that service providers currently receive. Appraisals of CSP service providers are ongoing to establish the extra funding required and it is expected to be finalised in conjunction with the current 2016 recontracting process.