Czech Government decides the Agency for Social Inclusion will continue beyond 2025 as part of the Regional Development Ministry

Bartoš expressed appreciation for the fact that the Agency will continue to work at its present scale. The Government reviewed several options for the future operations of the institution, including scaling back its activity.

“The Government approved the proposal I submitted together with Minister Marian Jurečka for anchoring the Agency for Social Inclusion in an adjusted form,” Bartoš said during the press conference after the cabinet session. He said he was glad about the decision, as it confirms the necessity for the Agency to continue in its current scope.

The Agency’s work will continue to be financed mainly through projects. Bartoš mentioned that its financing as part of the Ministry for Regional Development will be strengthened next year.

“Next year we will beef up its financing from the budget of the ministry. That will aid the Agency with arranging for the stability of its operations, which has long been necessary. Thanks to that stability, the Agency will be able to better plan and work with municipalities on revitalizing socially excluded localities, developing affordable housing, making education available to children living in social disadvantage, and preventing crime,” Bartoš said.

“It’s good the work in excluded localities will continue. We will continue to collaborate with the Agency for Social Inclusion so this support has an actual impact on the lives of Romani people,” commented Czech Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs Lucie Fuková for Romea.cz.

“The Government confirmed the need to develop both basic support in municipalities and the specific programs through which the Agency closely collaborates with the ministries. This will link support at the local level with government policies on social inclusion, which is essential,” said Martin Šimáček, director of the Agency for Social Inclusion.

According to the Vice-Chair of the Czech Government Council for Roma Minority Affairs, Marián Dancso, the volunteer civil society members of the Council cannot comment on the future of the Agency and the way it will be organized because its members are not yet familiar with the wording of the Government resolution in detail and it would therefore be irrelevant to comment on it. “That being said, what remains crucial for us is to know the specific impacts of the Agency for Social Inclusion’s work on the life of the populations of Roma in the socially excluded localities. We want data on how many socially excluded localities have been eliminated thanks to collaborations between the Agency and municipal departments and municipalities, how many people have managed to resolve these problems associated with their discrimination, or how many people have improved their access to key services, such as education or employment, through the activities of the Agency. We consider such specific results essential to any further decisions about the Agency’s direction and future,” Dancso told news server Romea.cz.

According to its website, the Agency works in 109 municipal departments and municipalities in the Czech Republic. It uses what is called a coordinated approach in more than one area.

The Agency aids municipalities with drafting their applications for the EU subsidies distributed by the Education Ministry, Labor Ministry, and Regional Development Ministry. During the last four years, more than 400 projects worth CZK 3 billion [EUR 120 million] have begun with its aid.

The Agency also compiles the Index of Social Exclusion. Last year there were 241 municipalities in the Czech Republic with excluded localities where a high proportion of the residents are on welfare, under collections proceedings, unemployed and uneducated.

That number was 50 more such localities than the year before. Almost 4 % of the population was struggling with serious difficulties in the country’s 6,258 towns and villages.

The Agency and the General Headquarters of the Labor Office are collaborating on supporting the employment of the long-term unemployed, currently as part of a pilot project called “Integration Jobs”. Together with the Education Ministry, the Agency is providing support to municipalities when it comes to desegregating schools with higher numbers of Romani pupils.

Another partner of the Agency is the Interior Ministry, with whom it is contributing to developing systemic crime prevention measures. When the Agency began working in March 2008, it was a department of the Office of the Government.

The Agency is meant to contribute to improving the situation in what are called excluded localities. It is mainly financed from EU subsidies.

As of January 2020, the Agency has been part of the Ministry for Regional Development, where the administration of then-PM Andrej Babiš (Association of Dissatisfied Citizens – ANO) decided it should work. Experts criticized its relocation.

Those critical of the move pointed out that the agenda of the Agency is not just about housing, but also about education, employment, health and safety. Bartoš emphasized that interest in collaborating with the Agency is constantly growing among municipalities.

Currently the Agency’s consultants and employees, according to the minister, are working in more than 60 municipalities in the Czech Republic, including big cities such as Brno, Liberec and Ostrava, big towns such as Chomutov and Děčín, and smaller municipalities in the Jeseniky and Šluknov areas. “From the feedback we have from the regional governors and from the mayors of municipalities and municipal departments, we know they are satisfied with their collaboration with the Agency, more than 80 % of them have positive things to say about the cooperation,” Bartoš said.

The municipal departments’ and municipalities’ interest in collaborating with the Agency was confirmed by Šimáček. “Interest in the Agency’s support is growing. Not just in smaller villages, but even big cities are applying to collaborate with us, those which need to address overcrowded residential hotels for the impoverished, the unaffordability of housing, and the disruptions to coexistence in the vicinity of some localities. From this positive feedback, we see they are relying on this support,” he said.

The “proposal for the institutional anchoring of the Agency” was on the agenda of the cabinet meeting last week. The decision to prepare the change to its financing model was made in May 2023.

In a press release, the Government said that an assessment of the Agency’s work revealed that social exclusion cannot be addressed through temporary projects and that it is necessary to review the Agency’s legal format, its competencies, and its position vis-à-vis ministries and self-administering territorial units.

Romani leaders criticize the Agency: Is the involvement of Romani people in its work just a formality? The director rejects that assessment

In the context of the discussion on the future of the Agency for Social Inclusion, Romani leaders recently sent a letter to the Prime Minister criticizing what they allege is the insufficient involvement of Romani people in its activities. That letter, which expresses the standpoint of the volunteer civil society members of the Czech Government Council for Roma Minority Affairs and the RomanoNet umbrella organization, signed by Dancso and Michal Miko, director of RomanoNet, alleges that the participation of Romani people in the Agency’s decision-making processes is just a formality and is insufficient.

The director of the Agency for Social Inclusion, Martin Šimáček, responded to the criticism. In a statement for news server Romea.cz he called the critique “untrue” and emphasized that Romani people are actively involved by the Agency in its projects and that the Agency works to benefit Romani communities.

According to Šimáček, the Agency has long contributed to solving the problems of social exclusion and has many successful projects behind it. According to the most recently published Annual Report, in 2021 the Agency received CZK 380,000 [EUR 15,000] from the Czech state budget, of which it drew CZK 25,300 [EUR 1,000].

From EU funds it received a total of CZK 77.5 million [EUR 3 million] and CZK 10.1 million [EUR 400,000] from Norway Grants. The Czech state paid for 11 of the Agency’s 106 employees and 145 contractors.

The Union of Towns and Municipalities is inclined toward ratcheting down the Agency’s work. It said previously that the Agency is collaborating with just a fraction of the municipalities which have problems and that its solutions to exclusion are neither effective nor systemic.

Redirecting the money now spent on the Agency into social work has therefore long been the recommendation of the Union of Towns and Municipalities.