Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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207. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development in the context of a correspondence item sent to the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (details supplied) by the Secretary General of her Department, if she will clarify whether the national funding platform that she is developing in conjunction with Pobal will be an open source for the public to use; if not, the rationale for that; the amount expended on the project to date; and the progress made on same. [53797/22]

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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In response to the correspondence referred to by the Deputy, I would like to clarify that the National Funding Platform concept is a separate initiative to anything previously used by Benefacts.

My Department is exploring options for the establishment of a national funding platform for the community and voluntary sector. This work is in line with the Department’s Statement of Strategy and also the Government’s five year Strategy for the C&V sector, Sustainable, inclusive and empowered communities.

The high level purpose of this exercise is to explore options for a funding platform that would reduce the administrative burden on grantees and funders, as well as providing a single source of truth and source of analysis on state funded community and voluntary grantees, and the investment being made into these organisations.

Exploring a central end-to-end grant management system for all government departments is part of the scoping exercise and would be based on an agreed common set of data points as well as a ‘file-once’ principle for those organisations who have a grant funding relationship with the state.

Streamlining the compliance and reporting burden faced by the community and voluntary sector across many different agents of the State has been identified by my Department, via engagement with the sector, as a key requirement.

The merits of proceeding with this approach would be dependent on establishing a whole-of-government approach to governance reporting.

In May 2021, my Department entered into an agreement with Pobal to conduct a scoping exercise on the potential for a National Funding Platform of community and voluntary organisations which have a funding relationship with the State. The cost of this initial scoping exercise was €30,000.

This scoping exercise report has been completed and is currently under consideration by my Department. A number of options are being considered, including providing some data on an open source basis.

My Department is not in a position to estimate timeframes or costs for delivery of what would be a potentially significant long term project, if the model is to sufficiently address the needs of public bodies, funded organisations and other stakeholders in respect of information sharing and provision.

Any decision to move forward with what would also be a significant ICT Development project would require a whole of Government approach as well as being subject to Government approval, and would also be subject to the conditions set out in the public spending code.