Scathing criticism of partnerships and community groups set up with European funding is included in an official report to be published today.
The groups have failed to influence policy at national level, have devoted relatively little of their resources to the long-term unemployed and, in some cases, setting themselves up seems to have become an end in itself, says the evaluation report to be published by the European Social Fund Evaluation Unit.
It also says too many groups were established.
The unit does not deny that the groups do valuable work at local level but complains that they have departed from their original aim of influencing national policy.
It recommends, however, that the local development programme should be continued, but with measures in place to correct what it sees as their deficiencies.
The ESF Evaluation Unit was established jointly by the Department of Enterprise and Employment and the European Commission.
Its report evaluates the £44 million of ESF-supported activity under the Local Urban and Rural Development Operational Programme, which supports 38 partnership companies, 33 community groups and 35 enterprise boards.
Its strongest criticisms are reserved for the partnership companies and community groups. It acknowledges that they have engaged in "substantial and valuable activity" for long-term unemployed people, early school leavers, Travellers and other groups. However, they were established to develop new ways to meet the needs of socially excluded groups and to communicate what they learned to national policymakers and agencies.
This they have failed to do, according to the report, which found that "there was no systematic feedback loop or system in place through which the strategic end of this programme could be realised".
Too many partnerships and community groups were set up, it says, and this "required an enormous amount of time and effort on the part of the communities and entities involved at local level".
"It is our view that setting up became almost an aim in itself," it says, adding that the expansion in the number of groups demanded much of the resources and energy of Area Development Management Ltd, the organisation set up to manage the process.