From Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth
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The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic O’Gorman, T.D., today announced an open call seeking submissions on the planned reform of the Youth Services Grant Scheme (YSGS).
The YSGS was established in the 1980s to allocate funding to organisations providing universal services to children and young people.
Currently, the YSGS funds 30 National Youth Organisations, which includes for example, Foróige, the National Youth Council of Ireland and Youthwork Ireland. The scheme is being reviewed to ensure that the funding invested in it annually (€12.2m in 2021) continues to respond to the ever evolving needs of children and young people.
DCEDIY has conducted preliminary consultations with young people and organisations currently accessing funding under the YSGS. In issuing this open call for submissions, DCEDIY is now seeking input from individuals, groups and organisations with an interest in this scheme, and its objectives, in order to broaden the range of views prior to the start of the reform process.
Individuals, groups or organisations with an interest in the YSGS, or its reform, are encouraged to make a submission by completing the submission template, available here, and returning it to YRSP@equality.gov.ie by January 14, 2022.
Welcoming the announcement, Minister O’Gorman said:
“The Youth Services Grant Scheme (YSGS) supports tens of thousands of young people across the country through the funding of 30 organisations working with them. This review of the scheme gives us the opportunity to examine how it can be further enhanced to ensure we deliver the best outcomes for young people and use Exchequer funding in the most effective manner possible.
"I believe that positive engagement with a broad range of stakeholders will be fundamental to the successful reform of the YSGS. Accordingly, I am urging all interested individuals, groups or organisations to make a submission and help ensure that this scheme continues to be responsive to the needs of young people in Ireland over the next decade.”
ENDS
The YSGS was established in the 1980s in the Department of Education where policy responsibility for youth work services then resided. The scheme was established following the publication of the “Costello Report” in 1984. One recommendation of the Costello report was to categorise youth services into either targeted or mainline (universal) services.
The YSGS scheme was designed to allocate funding to organisations providing universal services to children and young people. (Reform of various targeted youth work schemes was recently completed by DCEDIY and resulted in the launch in 2019 of a single/ streamlined targeted scheme entitled UBU: Your Place Your Space scheme).
In 2021, €12.2m was allocated for expenditure through the YSGS scheme. This allocation funds 30 National Youth Organisations, listed here. Individual annual grants range from c. €3m to less than €50,000. Pobal administers the scheme on behalf of DCEDIY.
The primary objective of the planned reform of the YSGS is deliver a scheme that:
DCEDIY is conducting meaningful and ongoing engagement with this scheme’s primary stakeholders; with a view to ensuring that those most impacted by the reform of the YSGS have ample opportunities for their voices to be heard. The open call for submissions is being conducted now to ensure a broad range of input on the proposed reform is received.