Dr. Mary Murphy:

I concur with what was just said. I want to refer to the underlying structural institutions and policy environment into which any of these innovative ideas would need to fit. We are seeing the shaping of the next pathways to work programme for 2020 to 2024. There are some really deep structural decisions that need to be made in that context which will in fact determine whether any of these innovations will work. Take the case of the pay-by-results mechanisms in place, for example, with JobPath. If organisations are geared towards having to deliver services in the context of being paid by results, it leads to creaming and parking. It also leads to Travellers being dumped on the side because they are considered to be too much work to get the result from to put it crudely. There are some key structural issues such as this.

Even the metrics for success, such as is the programme of getting people into employment or intergenerational equality and sustainment, need to be considered. On the length of intervention needed, people are cycled through JobPath, Intreo and the local employment service. They get a year in each and then they are moved from institution to institution. All the evidence shows that for many of these good interventions to work, people need a lengthy intervention where they can actually get a sustainable pathway back to work of three or four years. Unless the underlying institution allows for that type of creativity, many of the good ideas are going to be like pushing a square peg into the round hole.