Community Employment May 5th 2016 South Dublin Community Platform Aidan Lloyd, Chairperson

Background context CE makes a substantial contribution to the work of the C&V sector in south county Dublin. The range of services supported by CE includes: Health, employment, childcare, addiction Traveller, disability services Community development, youth services Sporting activities, education So, there is a high dependency, especially in aftermath of heavy cuts to C&V sector under austerity At present there are 26 community and voluntary sector organisations that sponsor CE. South Dublin County Council also sponsor a number of schemes That makes a total of 865 CE places active in the county 740 in community and voluntary sector organisations, plus 125 more in community facilities supported by South Dublin County Council

Survey In order to finely focus this meeting a survey monkey was sent to all the sponsor organisations – a quarter replied (please do so after today) Key points made: 50% of those surveyed were engaged in the delivery of general community development services All organisations surveyed said their CE budget constituted a significant proportion (more than 25%) of their budget 28.5% said it contributed between 25% and 50% of their total budget 28.5 % said it contributed between 50% and 75% of their total budget 43% said it constituted over 75% of their total budget

Contribution to staffing 50% of those surveyed said that CE was a substantial part of their staff resources 50% said that they would have to cut back their services considerably without CE Interestingly, more than 60% of the organisations surveyed have CE staff based in other organisations - of the 8 organisations that responded they collectively supported another 30 organisations by providing CE participants So, CE is crucial to the functioning and well being of the C&V sector