How accountable are the public bodies who fund projects?
These are examples of duplication of services and funding and all grown from the need to address poverty and social exclusion.
In Community, Rural and Gaeltacht there is Pobal who as you know supports and funds partnerships in addition to cdp's and other community organisations. Pobal has pulled funding from alot of the CDP’s as an outcome of undertaking a review and analysis of projects and was one outcome of the McCarthy report.
So in one geoghrapic area, we had Pobal who supported a partnership and two cdp's and these three services overlapped in their work and the services they provided. The core funding for these organisations came from Pobal, the Department of Social Protection, HSE and various other sources.
We had two drug projects that spent more time clashing over personalities and in demarcation disputes about service areas. This another example where drug services were being duplicated. This duplication was a waste of resources where these two organistions would have better spent their time pooling resources to tackle the substance misuse problem that existed in their area.
Services for the unemployed also overlapped through duplication as there was a centre for the unemployed, in addition to the partnership and their own services, the LES, and then CDP's and also FAS.
We had various community development projects which overlapped with several other community organisations by providing services for the same target groups in the same local area.
In another area there are CDP's, partnerships and family resource centres and that was in addition to a range of other smaller community based projects all providing the same services to specific target groups be them lone parents, the unemployed, children, youth, persons from the travelling community, persons who were disabled or who have mental health difficulties to those persons who suffer from substance misuse.
All these organisations received funding from multiple department sources that included for instance the Department of Social Protection, FSA, HSE, Pobal and the County Councils. Funding for various projects was also available and drawn down from other sources like the Department of the Taoiseach, Dublin Bus, banks and philantrophy sources. We also had main voluntary organisations that received public funding through various streams and who then dished that money out in support of projects for their own target groups.
We had FRC's and other voluntary projects providing counselling for the same target groups in the same area and that’s in addition to the public and private health services that existed in these areas. This duplication of services was actively supported by the same funder - the Family Support Agency who comes under the Department of Social Protection. It was also encouraged and supported by the HSE and public health providers. This whole programme was investigated by Colm McCarthy and his findings were that this counselling programme did not show proof of benefit and in conclusion this programme and its funding stream should be done away with.
Then comes more waste in this poverty industry where Family Resource Centres are funded by the Family Support Agency who in this web contract a support agency to provide the support services to the Family Resource Centres who are the manager who should know how to manage and the board of directors. Pobal also uses the same methodology by contracting a support agency to support the CDP's and other community based organisations that it funds and supports. The support agency and its staff is then in existence through funding received by the public body. So in summary if you are a partnership, cdp or a frc you get a worker allocated to you from the funding organisation and they in turn also employ a support agency to support the person they themselves are supporting!
I have seen situations where public bodies have no requirement or even a system of checks and balances in respect to the grants they issue to the community and voluntary sector. Accountability for the taxpayer, so you would think that public bodies would ensure that these checks and balances are in place to make sure that the grant monies that they are issuing is expended for the purpose they were actually given!
I have seen situations where grant monies were pocketed by organisations into their bank accounts without any expenditure whatsoever. In other words organisations were applying for grants saying they were going to provide x,y,z and not only did they not provide the service they kept the money. When it came to reports on expenditures x,y,z could say whatever they wanted knowing the funding agency wouldn’t investigate the expenditure.
The funding agency never conducted an audit of the organisation they were funding and supporting.
And then it beggared belief that a funding body would then go along and significantly increase this organisations funding for the next year when the grant monies for the previous year was not fully expended or in some instances the service was never been provided in the first place.
I have seen situations where public bodies have issued significant grant monies to organisations where the financial management systems didn’t come up to scratch. Services for significant sums of monies were awarded by organisations who received public funding without the funder setting the need or condition that these organisations need to go to Tender above certain thresholds. Other instances was payments from public grant monies were made without invoices, and that didn’t even cover cheques being given to persons who did not provide the actual services....
The Department of Social Protection together with FAS actively supported back to work measures for persons who were deemed to be vulnerable or living in poverty. They are CE and JI. CE is still in existence whereas JI has been closed to new applicants for several years. But typically we’ve still got persons of certain ages on JI who never progressed into open employment or from discussions with them never had any intention of getting a job as they said "they'd be worse off" and these people still retain their JI payments and secondary benefits. Very few people also make the transition from CE to employment but that's another issue. Again, the McCarthy report dealt with the CE scheme and as far as I know he recommended that the double payment element should be abolished - it hasnt happened.
This spun about from the business of addressing poverty, disadvantage and social exclusion. And I would say it can be replicated all over this country….
These are examples of duplication of services and funding and all grown from the need to address poverty and social exclusion.
In Community, Rural and Gaeltacht there is Pobal who as you know supports and funds partnerships in addition to cdp's and other community organisations. Pobal has pulled funding from alot of the CDP’s as an outcome of undertaking a review and analysis of projects and was one outcome of the McCarthy report.
So in one geoghrapic area, we had Pobal who supported a partnership and two cdp's and these three services overlapped in their work and the services they provided. The core funding for these organisations came from Pobal, the Department of Social Protection, HSE and various other sources.
We had two drug projects that spent more time clashing over personalities and in demarcation disputes about service areas. This another example where drug services were being duplicated. This duplication was a waste of resources where these two organistions would have better spent their time pooling resources to tackle the substance misuse problem that existed in their area.
Services for the unemployed also overlapped through duplication as there was a centre for the unemployed, in addition to the partnership and their own services, the LES, and then CDP's and also FAS.
We had various community development projects which overlapped with several other community organisations by providing services for the same target groups in the same local area.
In another area there are CDP's, partnerships and family resource centres and that was in addition to a range of other smaller community based projects all providing the same services to specific target groups be them lone parents, the unemployed, children, youth, persons from the travelling community, persons who were disabled or who have mental health difficulties to those persons who suffer from substance misuse.
All these organisations received funding from multiple department sources that included for instance the Department of Social Protection, FSA, HSE, Pobal and the County Councils. Funding for various projects was also available and drawn down from other sources like the Department of the Taoiseach, Dublin Bus, banks and philantrophy sources. We also had main voluntary organisations that received public funding through various streams and who then dished that money out in support of projects for their own target groups.
We had FRC's and other voluntary projects providing counselling for the same target groups in the same area and that’s in addition to the public and private health services that existed in these areas. This duplication of services was actively supported by the same funder - the Family Support Agency who comes under the Department of Social Protection. It was also encouraged and supported by the HSE and public health providers. This whole programme was investigated by Colm McCarthy and his findings were that this counselling programme did not show proof of benefit and in conclusion this programme and its funding stream should be done away with.
Then comes more waste in this poverty industry where Family Resource Centres are funded by the Family Support Agency who in this web contract a support agency to provide the support services to the Family Resource Centres who are the manager who should know how to manage and the board of directors. Pobal also uses the same methodology by contracting a support agency to support the CDP's and other community based organisations that it funds and supports. The support agency and its staff is then in existence through funding received by the public body. So in summary if you are a partnership, cdp or a frc you get a worker allocated to you from the funding organisation and they in turn also employ a support agency to support the person they themselves are supporting!
I have seen situations where public bodies have no requirement or even a system of checks and balances in respect to the grants they issue to the community and voluntary sector. Accountability for the taxpayer, so you would think that public bodies would ensure that these checks and balances are in place to make sure that the grant monies that they are issuing is expended for the purpose they were actually given!
I have seen situations where grant monies were pocketed by organisations into their bank accounts without any expenditure whatsoever. In other words organisations were applying for grants saying they were going to provide x,y,z and not only did they not provide the service they kept the money. When it came to reports on expenditures x,y,z could say whatever they wanted knowing the funding agency wouldn’t investigate the expenditure.
The funding agency never conducted an audit of the organisation they were funding and supporting.
And then it beggared belief that a funding body would then go along and significantly increase this organisations funding for the next year when the grant monies for the previous year was not fully expended or in some instances the service was never been provided in the first place.
I have seen situations where public bodies have issued significant grant monies to organisations where the financial management systems didn’t come up to scratch. Services for significant sums of monies were awarded by organisations who received public funding without the funder setting the need or condition that these organisations need to go to Tender above certain thresholds. Other instances was payments from public grant monies were made without invoices, and that didn’t even cover cheques being given to persons who did not provide the actual services....
The Department of Social Protection together with FAS actively supported back to work measures for persons who were deemed to be vulnerable or living in poverty. They are CE and JI. CE is still in existence whereas JI has been closed to new applicants for several years. But typically we’ve still got persons of certain ages on JI who never progressed into open employment or from discussions with them never had any intention of getting a job as they said "they'd be worse off" and these people still retain their JI payments and secondary benefits. Very few people also make the transition from CE to employment but that's another issue. Again, the McCarthy report dealt with the CE scheme and as far as I know he recommended that the double payment element should be abolished - it hasnt happened.
This spun about from the business of addressing poverty, disadvantage and social exclusion. And I would say it can be replicated all over this country….