State funding for local enterprises, including community and co-operative initiatives, needs to be streamlined, according to a new report by the European Social Fund Evaluation Unit. The ESFEU says that while various programmes have achieved much in the past, their current lack of co-ordination is wasteful and "reflects the fragmentation and proliferation of the range of State supports".

The report looks primarily at the performances of the FAS-managed Enterprise Training programme, its Community Enterprise programme and its Co-operative Development Unit over the past decade.

The number of people completing enterprise training fell from 2,831 in 1994 to 592 in 1998. The programme did not fundamentally change overall work patterns among the social groups assisted.

The community enterprise programme had helped community development, but was only one of a number of agencies to have done so. Others included county enterprise boards, the LEADER programme and area-based partnerships. The co-operative development unit had been effective in delivering services, but the co-operatives assisted had been generally small and restricted to the services sector.

The ESFEU says that the original emphasis on helping the unemployed had "waned". Only 20 per cent of those involved in enterprise training in the late 1990s were unemployed, for instance, compared with 36 per cent who were self-employed and 36 per cent in PAYE employment.