Supreme Audit Office of the Slovak Republic

Bratislava, 4 December 2020 - Although their existence is necessary to improve the situation of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion, most of the 374 community centers can close down after the end of Euro fund projects. The Supreme Audit Office of the Slovak Republic draws attention to this based on the audit results performed in the self-governments in the Banská Bystrica Region. The State has not clearly defined what it expects from local community centers and what their main activities should be in relation to clients. Therefore, the national auditors propose organising an expert discussion about this topic and, at the same time, they consider necessary to not only re-establish sustainable multi-source financing of the centers, but also their methodological management and control by the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family.

The centers, which helped more than 50,000 citizens, received almost EUR 76 mil primarily from European financial assistance.

The Vice-President of the Office, Ľubomír Andrassy, ??is convinced the Ministry should prepare a nationwide discussion that would evaluate the contribution of community centers and their projects designed to help people at risk of social exclusion. "Our findings from the field suggest that the centers activities do not lead to the fulfillment of social inclusion goals and, already when approving projects, measurable indicators were missing, that would allow a factual evaluation of their contribution to a specific target group or community," adds Ľ. Andrassy.

The full text of the press release about this issue in Slovak language is available here. Use the Google icon in the top bar for automatic translation.