Ms Anne Vaughan:

Correct. The Department's role is to try to place people in jobs. Our case officers pause matters when a person is trying to improve their skills, retrain or develop new skills in an area in which there are no jobs. We are quite clear in this. Our colleagues in the education space may take a different perspective on the value of education but we are very much focused on jobs and the live register.

Mr. McKeon will deal in more detail with the contracting-out proposals. It will take us until some time next year to get people and services on board. Again, the focus will be in the long-term space. Indeed, all of our efforts are in the long-term space.

To return to the question of education, it formed part of the review of the various activation schemes that we undertook. It would probably be best if we analysed the particular cases to which the Chairman referred. The plan now is that the placing of people on all schemes, including the back-to-education scheme and the CE programme, will be done through case officers. It will not be a case of people going off and matching themselves up to various schemes. They will not be able to do that.

The Intreo service should be the same regardless of the physical appearance of individual offices. To be fair, if I am delivering Intreo over two offices, it is slightly more tricky than delivering it over one. I know there are difficulties in the Chairman's own area in terms of trying to secure accommodation. The front-line staff are very much up for this and are very customer-focused. I could not say enough for them. The situation is difficult.

I will ask Mr. McKeon to address the questions about JobBridge. The Chairman is correct that there was a part-time job incentive scheme. It formed part of our review and it will be part of the future plan, which will be based on fewer schemes and building on the success of what we have. We must try not to confuse people too much with too many offerings. We must strike a balance between being agile in responding to what is needed and being fair to people.