HARNEY PUBLISHES REVIEW OF COMMUNITY EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMME

The Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Harney TD, today (Thursday, 1st October 1998) published the independent review of Community Employment undertaken by Deloitte & Touche. Last December, the Government commissioned Deloitte & Touche to carry out a review of Community Employment to see if the programme was effective in meeting the needs of participants, i.e. the unemployed and socially excluded, and if it was efficient investment from the point of view of the taxpayer in addressing the problems of unemployment and social exclusion.

Community Employment is the biggest single labour market programme in the country, with a full complement of 41,000 places and an overall cost of £308m this year. The Deloitte report is a consultative document. It will form the basis for a wide process of consultation between Government and the social partners and all interested parties as to how the Community Employment programme can be best managed in the years ahead.

The Government will consider the recommendations of the Deloitte report in parallel with a document on the social economy which is emerging from the Partnership 2000 process.

A summary of the main recommendations of the Deloitte review is attached.

"The focus of the review is about enhancing access to the labour market not about closing it off. For example, the report says that most people have a better chance of getting a job if they do a training course rather than participate in a Community Employment scheme. The report also proposes that the programme should be reviewed in due course to see if it is effective in assisting lone parents progress into open labour market jobs. I would suggest to anybody seriously concerned with tackling unemployment and social exclusion to read the report and reflect on its package of recommendations, as I will be doing."

"The Community Employment programme has served the people of Ireland very well. It has played an invaluable role in the social and economic development in communities the length and breath of the country. Not only has it given excellent employment and work experience for the unemployed and socially excluded. It has also provided superb service to communities in their schools, community care and amenities programmes".

"The key finding in the review suggests that the programme is largely meeting the objectives of providing job opportunities for the long-term unemployed and socially excluded and assisting participants towards a stage where they can get a job in the open labour market."

"The review is timely, not only because a great deal of resources are devoted to the programme but because the labour market has changed so dramatically since the scheme's introduction in April 1994 through dynamic jobs growth and falling unemployment. In that time the long-term unemployment rate has fallen from 9% to an estimated 5%. The challenge we now face is to develop and enhance quality supports to bring that 5% and other socially excluded persons into jobs and the review puts forward a package of proposals with this end in mind."

"Community Employment is a big programme with a local presence throughout Ireland. There is a great deal of interest in this report - on the part of members of the Government, all political parties in the Dail, the social partners, sponsors and of course on the part of long-term unemployed persons and others who have difficulty in accessing the labour market. I am circulating the report to all the partners in Community Employment and intend over the next few months to consult widely on the Deloitte & Touche package before bringing proposals to Government."