Mr. Niall Egan:

I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for the invitation to today's meeting and to address the committee on the Department of Social Protection's plans for employment services. I am joined by my colleague, Mr. Chris Kane, principal officer in the Department's contracted public employment services unit. We provided the information requested by the committee in advance of today's meeting and are happy to clarify or elaborate on any matters of interest or concern the committee may have.

As members will be aware, the Department of Social Protection provides a wide range of income supports and other services to people across the State. This includes the provision of the public employment service, which supports individuals in transitioning into employment, upskilling or securing alternative employment opportunities. The public employment service is delivered through the Department’s Intreo service comprising its own staff working in Intreo centres, together with our external service partners, including the local employment service, jobs clubs, JobPath service providers and Employ Ability.

Support is delivered through Intreo case officers and our service partners engaging with individuals on a one-to-one basis to identify their requirements, their skills gaps and suitable education, training or employment opportunities. All of these services also work with employers to promote recruitment of people from the live register, people with disabilities and members of other groups. The goal in all this activity is to support people make a successful transition from welfare to employment, either directly or by progression through training, education and employment schemes such as community employment and Tús.

The Department recognises the valuable work of all its service partners in assisting those who are unemployed to transition successfully into sustained full-time employment. However, the employment services currently delivered by the local employment service and job clubs are not available nationwide. In areas where these services do not exist individuals have fewer employment service options.

Earlier this year, the Government published its employment services strategy, Pathways to Work 2021-2025. This is a comprehensive strategy consists of 83 commitments with the aim of reducing long-term unemployment, reducing youth unemployment, improving labour market transitions and ensuring better labour market outcomes for all. Crucially, it contains commitments to expand the caseload capacity of the public employment service and maintain the resource capacity of contracted service provision, while increasing the resources to deliver a regional employment service nationwide.

In late 2019, the Department commenced a review of the public employment service delivered by Intreo and our service partners. This review built on several earlier reviews conducted by Indecon consultants separately into both the local employment services and job clubs, and by the Department in conjunction with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD. As part of the review of the public employment service, the Department engaged extensively with all service partners both collectively and separately and with their representative organisations. Separately, the Department engaged external consultants, the Institute of Economic Studies and the Social Finance Foundation, which consulted the Department’s existing service partners.

Following on from this review, the Indecon reviews and in line with the commitments in the Pathways to Work strategy, the Department is making some changes to how it contracts external services, including those currently provided by the local employment service, jobs clubs and JobPath. The contracts for all of these services end for new referrals at the end of this year. This provides an opportunity to implement changes arising from the review process. It also enables the Department to place the services on a proper contractual footing. The existing arrangements for the local employment service and jobs club services extend back over 20 years, with no formal procurement taking place in this period. This is in contravention of good governance and public procurement practice, a fact that has been commented on by the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Attorney General has also advised that these services must be procured in line with EU and national public procurement rules by means of open and competitive tendering processes.

The Department has, therefore, commenced a phased procurement process which, based on the review undertaken, will see the delivery of a new national employment service and a multi-lot regional employment service to consolidate existing local employment services and jobs clubs and extend the new service nationwide. The aim is to ensure that, as set out in Pathways to Work, there is sufficient employment service capacity across the State to support those who require access to employment assistance and advice. These new services will deliver a more integrated customer journey between the Department’s Intreo service and that provided by its service partners; deliver a consistent range of employment services to customers nationwide; target specialised resources at individuals who are furthest from the labour market and require access to a wider range of supports and services for longer; provide employment services for a range of cohorts; and comply with EU and national procurement law.

The Department recognises that these changes are of concern to all existing service providers. For this reason, the Department is anxious to ensure they are implemented in a careful and phased manner that, while being compliant with procurement rules, enables us to build on the existing capabilities of the service providers. The phased approach, using a limited first phase tender, is also intended to enable learnings to be taken and incorporated into a second phase of procurement. The Department commenced this process with the procurement, via a request for tender, RFT, of the regional employment services in four geographical lots in the north west and midlands, across seven counties, none of which currently has a local employment service. In designing this RFT the Department, based on feedback during the review, prioritised community and social linkages as a key criterion and set pricing parameters that, for example, guarantee service provider income in respect of a referral of a guaranteed number of clients each year. This phase 1 procurement is still ongoing and nearing completion with the successful bidders to be announced shortly.

The Department is committed to considering the experience arising from the phase 1 procurement in preparing the request for tenders for the remaining lots for the regional employment service under phase 2 of the procurement process. We are also in ongoing dialogue with the various service providers and representative groups, including staff representatives, and will consult further with them before finalising the phase 2 procurement.

One of the learnings we have already taken is that providers are exploring ways to work collaboratively to provide high quality service and coverage as part of the service consolidation. Accordingly, to enable providers sufficient time to explore these options the Department is reviewing the timelines for the completion of the roll-out of the regional employment service procurement. Towards this end and to ensure continuity of service to our clients, it is intended to extend current contracts in the phase 2 areas for a short period into next year. The request for tenders will issue prior to the year end and we will write to all providers shortly outlining the revised phase 2 procurement timelines.

I have set out briefly the Department’s approach to the provision of employment services and how the current approach seeks to deliver the Government’s Pathways to Work commitments, while ensuring that high-quality employment services are procured in a manner consistent with procurement law. My colleague and I will be happy to address any queries the committee may have.