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.