Niacro

MAY 2006

1. INTRODUCTION:

1.1 NIACRO, the Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, is a voluntary organization, working for 35 years to reduce crime and its impact on people and communities. NIACRO provides services under the headings of: promoting safer communities; working with children and young people who offend; providing services to families and children of offenders; supporting offenders and ex-prisoners in the community; working with prisoners.

1.2 NIACROs vision is to be acknowledged as making a unique contribution to the development of a society in which the rights and needs of everyone, including offenders, are equally respected.

1.3 NIACRO's Mission statement is as follows: NIACRO - working to reduce crime and its impact on people and communities.

1.4 NIACRO welcomes the opportunity to respond to this consultation given the organisations' involvement in European programmes in general and ESF programmes in particular over the past 20 years.

1.5 NIACRO's ESF programmes have focused on providing training and employment opportunities for beneficiaries located within the Criminal Justice system and for whom the barriers to reintegration are significant.

1.6 The recent evaluation of the current ESF programme - Jobtrack - funded through Building Sustainable Prosperity (BSP) evidenced that beneficiaries were disproportionately concentrated in the long term unemployment categories - almost 80% were long term unemployed - more than 50% were in the very long term category (2 years plus) and 46 % had been out of work for three years or more.

1.7 Beneficiaries face many barriers to employment. They are concentrated in older rather than younger age groups. Those for whom data is available are disproportionately single or separated and they are heavily concentrated in the very long term unemployed. Research consistently demonstrates that educational background and qualifications are low. The majority of the beneficiaries that Jobtrack deals with are assessed as either medium or high risk of re offending. These factors all represent supply side characteristics.

1.8 On the demand side, there is a proven tendency for employers to be worried about taking on members of this beneficiary group and there are certain jobs that those with certain offence histories could not be expected to get eg for some offenders working with children, for others working with money. Moving such individuals towards positive employability outcomes is a substantial task.

2. RESPONSE TO CONSULTATION:

This paper will respond to some but not all of the 14 questions.

2.1 (Question 1) Do respondents agree with the assessment in the draft National Strategic Reference Framework of the economic strengths and weaknesses of the UK's nations and regions?

Broad agreement.

(Question 2) Do respondents agree with the proposed priorities for future Convergence and Competiveness Programmes in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar?

Broad agreement.

(Question 3) Do respondents agree that the proposed priorities include a sufficient focus on the Lisbon Agenda?

NIACRO believes that there is over representation in terms of the economic elements of the Lisbon Agenda at the expense of the social and environmental elements.

(Question 4) Do respondents agree with the proposals in the National Strategic Reference Framework for ensuring consistency between Structural Funds Programmes and other EU policies and funding streams, in particular spending under the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the European Fisheries Fund?

NIACRO welcomes in principle the proposal to operate a single ESF programme for the entire region under the competitive and employment objectives.

(Question 5) Do respondents agree with the proposed architecture for future Programmes?

Broad agreement in that NIACRO welcomes the rationalization of various funding strands. Hopefully this will lead to a greater understanding of each funding stream which in turn should lead to greater transparency and a reduction of bureaucracy.

(Question 6) Do respondents agree that the UK's Competiveness allocation should be divided equally between the ERDF and the ESF at the UK level?

NIACRO believes that ERDF should primarily support competitiveness but that there should be some mechanism that connects input from both .

(Question 7) What are respondents' views on how best to allocate ERDF Competiveness funding across the UK's regions?

NIACRO believes that this funding should be allocated on the basis of regional need and would not support a mechanism that allocated funding solely per head of population.

(Question 8) What are respondents' views on how best to allocate ESF Competiveness funding across the UK's ESF programmes?

NIACRO believes that this funding should be allocated on the basis of regional need and would not support a mechanism that allocated funding solely per head of population.

(Question 9) Do respondents have views on how to improve coordination between Structural Funds and domestic spending within England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

Central government and regional governments have significant experience of managing domestic and European programmes. In the past they have, at times, lacked coordination and synchronization. It follows therefore that the mechanisms that support the interface between central and regional government require strengthening.

(Question 10) Do respondents agree with the Government's proposals to align ERDF spending with domestic programmes in England? What are respondents views on how best to achieve this?

No view.

(Question 11) Do respondents agree that ESF delivery arrangements should bring together ESF and domestic employment and skills funding in England to allow organisations to access a single funding stream?

No view.

(Question 12) Do respondents agree that greater use of single stream funding mechanisms would be beneficial in Scotland?

No view.

(Question 13) Do respondents agree with the Welsh Assembly Government's proposals to ensure greater alignment with domestic strategies for regional development in Wales and a stronger emphasis on larger, more strategic projects?

No view.

(Question 14) Do respondents have views on how to align domestic and Structural Funds expenditure and how to concentrate funding in Northern Ireland?

The jurisdiction of Northern Ireland, despite its uniqueness eg political and social characteristics, has witnessed significant and at times innovative domestic and European programmes. However the current management of European funding which provides for third parties, particularly in the NGO sector, to deliver training and employability programmes to groups to whom its has unique reach must be retained both in terms of a model of intervention as well providing at least the equivilant level of resourcing to that which is currently available .These groups do not fit the profile set for current domestic programme as the domestic programmes target those who are circa 12 months unemployed and can be assessed as being able to gain NVQ level 2 in 26 weeks.

3. CONCLUSION:

NIACRO will continue its work of addressing legislative, structural and attitudinal barriers in respect of ex-offenders and ex-prisoners. The contribution that European and domestic funding have made to this work has been vital. Whilst NIACRO welcomes the continuation of the availability of European programmes in general there are some specific concerns to note.

- The issue of matched funding. NIACRO understands that providers will have to find 50% of domestic matched funding as opposed to 35%. Given the difficulties in linking domestic and European outcomes referred to above, this is likely to present significant difficulties.

- The reorganization of local government and statutory organisations is also going to create disruption and has not been factored into the consultation document.

- The consultation document focuses on the UK and takes little account of cross border (in Ireland) economic, social and environmental initiatives. The paragraph referring to this could be strengthened.

- NIACRO pursues a policy of mainstreaming for all its European and pilot programmes. However in a period of what is generally acknowledged to be almost full employment, NIACRO still finds that its client group is excluded from the labour market. Therefore NIACRO concludes that for these barriers to be overcome a holistic model of labour intensive intervention is required. Such a model has cost implications and does not fit with current mainstreaming policy.

- The paper out for consultation reflects and separates what traditionally could be described as linkage between competiveness and economic growth. There is no reference to the development of social capital which is a key benefit that derives from a vibrant NGO sector.