Vol. 543 No. 2
591 Mr. Stanton asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs if, further to Parliamentary Question No. 356 of 19 October 2001, he will outline the procedures used by his Department to establish and enter into a contractual agreement with the Teamworks Support Agency; the date the contract was advertised; the number of applicants; the way in which the work of such agencies is evaluated and monitored; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26058/01]
With reference to the selection procedures used by my Department to establish and enter into a contractual agreement with the Teamworks Support Agency, I have nothing to add to the information provided to the Deputy in reply to Question No. 356 on 9 October last.
A contract for the support function was not advertised as my Department considered that the expertise to carry out that function already existed within the previous agency. That expertise transferred to Teamworks as agreed between the previous support agency and my Department. As stated previously, my Department's primary concern in this process was to ensure that adequate and acceptable support arrangements for projects were in place as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
Teamworks was given a one year contract which is due for review at end 2001. The contract will be reviewed in line with procedures applying to all support agencies in the programme. In this context, it should be noted that the Department has set up a working group to examine the issue of selection and reselection of support agencies with a view to implementing an evaluation mechanism which will be agreed and supported by all parties within the programmes, that is, community projects within the programmes, the Department and support agencies themselves. This group is due to report on its findings shortly.
Question No. 592 answered with Question No. 586.
