Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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My Department has a comprehensive approach to monitoring and assessing our investment. It has not, however, completed work on the calculation of a multiplier for the knock-on value within communities of the schemes operated by the Department. I would note that the Department regularly completes case studies of our investment, which do demonstrate the on-the-ground impact of our projects.

With regard to the work being completed by my Department, both the Revised Estimates Volume and the Public Service Performance Report provide high level metrics on targets and outcomes for our schemes. In addition my Department’s Annual Report provides an overview of the work of the Department each year, including funding commitments and project approvals. It also provides case studies to convey a deeper understanding of the type of work completed.

The Department has also undertaken focused policy assessment work on a range of programme areas including the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund, Libraries Investment, the Town and Village Renewal Scheme and the Local Improvement Scheme. These reports are available on my Departments website.

The two largest community development schemes, the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP) and the Community Services Programme (CSP) both have reporting systems in place to collate activity and outcomes under the schemes, with this information utilised to produce both the annual statistics in documents such as the Revised Estimate, and regular detailed reports that inform the design of the programmes as they move from one programme period to the next.

The Department also has a research partnership in place with the ESRI, which is currently focussed on scoping potential high level indicators for rural development in the long term. The Department also regularly engages with the Central Statistics Office (CSO), including with regard to their work on producing statistics which analyse differences across urban and rural settings.