The INOU recently made a submission on the Review of the Community Services Programme (CSP).
Two of the strands of the CSP are of particular interest to the INOU:
- Strand 2 – Community Services for Disadvantaged Communities
- Strand 3 – Community Organisations Employing People Distant from the Labour Market.
The organisation notes that in the review process it will consider ‘Whether the programme as currently structured is appropriate and delivering on the strategic goals of the Department’. One of the Department’s Strategic Goals is to “Support local communities to develop, empowering them to identify their needs and aspirations and providing them with the opportunities, skills and confidence to influence, shape and participate in decision-making processes which affect them.” Integral to the development of this in a holistic way is access to sustainable employment for people who are long-term unemployed, marginalised or distant from the labour market.
The INOU welcomes that “job opportunities and career advancement for people from marginalised communities” will be explored in the review. However, it will also be important to bear in mind that for some participants, programmes like the Community Services Programme are the only access point to the labour market.
At the time of the WRC review of the Social Economy Programme, the INOU noted the chronic underspend on the Social Economy Programme, and that the full year budget target of €51m, which was a PPF commitment, had not been achieved. The WRC noted that in 2004 expenditure on the SEP was €39.5m. If the original budget target had been reached and maintained, the current budget would be €59m, €13m higher than the current budget of €46m.
Concerns have been raised with the INOU about the funding difficulties in maintaining and developing a business under the CSP. For example, financial supports have not moved in line with changes in the National Minimum Wage; and given the cost of living the manager’s salary is insufficient to attract the right people to undertake the work.
The INOU notes that the review will examine the “role and structure of the CSP funding contribution”;and “Whether the programme is providing value for money” will be considered. The importance of programmes like CSP to provide funding in areas that are often under resourced should not be underestimated; and it will be important for the review to be conducted in a manner that does not undermine confidence or ability to maintain and develop the work.
The ability of many organisations to draw on other sources of funding to compliment and consolidate their work and its impact on their communities should be seen as a strength and “The overlap or complementarity with other Government-funded programmes and schemes” (point 6) should be examined from a constructive perspective.
Learning from the past
In the documentation on the review of the Community Services Programme (CSP) it notes that ‘no formal review has been carried out since the programme was introduced in 2006’. The CSP grew out of the Social Economy Programme (SEP), which was funded through the Employment Development and Human Resources Operational Programme, and as a Wider Equality Measure Study, WRC Social and Economic Consultants reviewed the SEP. It would be important that the issues explored in this report are referenced in the CSP review.
The stated aim of the Social Economy Programme (SEP) was:
“To support the development and operation of enterprises that engage in economic activity between the private and public sectors in order to meet social objectives and in so doing create sustainable employment. The Programme will seek to develop the entrepreneurial and business potential of such enterprises and will be particularly targeted at disadvantaged communities, communities of interest and long-term unemployed persons.”
Three categories of enterprises were envisaged:
- Community Businesses: ultimately financed from trading income alone and which would be expected to move into self-sustaining viability in the medium term.
- Deficient Demand Social Economy Enterprises: where the demand for particular goods and services within a community is not matched by resources to pay for these, due to disadvantage or low density of population.
- Enterprises Based on Public Sector Contracts: which deals with the potential for subcontracting public sector expenditure in disadvantaged areas and communities to local Social Economy Enterprises.
Under the SEP most enterprises categorised themselves or were categorised as community businesses, which implied a capacity, or a potential capacity to generate additional income. However, the reality was that more of them were deficient demand enterprises, meeting an essential need in a local community that otherwise would not have been met by either the state or the private-for-profit sector.
The INOU welcomes that this issue will be examined in the CSP review process: “services being delivered to vulnerable communities that would not be delivered otherwise”. Even with the economy overall improving the harsh reality is that there are many communities in urban and rural areas struggling to survive.
To that end the overall impact of the Community Services Programme to address socio-economic disadvantage should also be incorporated into its review.