CDEP 2006-07 To Build On Success - 1 July 2006
Kevin Andrews, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, today announced that there would be 212 organisations providing the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) programme for 2006-07.
"264 applications for CDEP funding were received and of these, 212 organisations have been offered funding following a competitive process that focussed on their capacity to provide services that lead to increasing Indigenous economic independence," said Minister Andrews.
"200 CDEP providers are Indigenous run organisations while thirteen are Job Network members, one of which is also an Indigenous organisation.
"There is provision for approximately 36,000 places in CDEP and $574 million has been allocated to CDEP, the largest Indigenous programme in Australia.
"Organisations applying through the competitive grants funding process needed to demonstrate that they were able to meet Key Performance Indicators including finding Indigenous people employment, meeting community needs and governance capacity.
"I am pleased with the substantial improvements to the CDEP over the last two years.
"CDEP organisations across Australia have placed 3,704 participants into paid employment this financial year, this is a 135 per cent increase over the previous year.
"We have also addressed the waiting lists of Indigenous job seekers by reducing the percentage of non-Indigenous participants from 7 per cent to 4 per cent over the last year.
"Moreover, CDEP organisations are developing economically viable businesses that employ local Indigenous people and can make the transition to compete in the open market.
"Over twenty businesses were progressed through CDEP during 2005-06.
"I believe there is much greater scope to achieve outcomes in this activity stream during
2006-07," said Minister Andrews.
Mr Andrews encouraged organisations to sign their funding agreements for CDEP as soon as possible so that they can receive their first release of funding for the new financial year.
A list of the organisations that have been funded and their locations will be published on
www.workplace.gov.au/cdep as soon as all funding agreements have been signed.