John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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From the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection I welcome Mr. John McKeon, Secretary General, who is accompanied by Mr. Chris Kane and Mr. Jim Lynch. From Turas Nua we have Mr. Colin Donnery and Ms Mary Moss, whom I welcome. From Seetec I welcome Ms Alison Bunney and Mr. Karl Milne. I thank everyone for attending. I will invite each delegation to make an opening statement. Members will then be invited to address their questions to the delegates.

By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the joint committee. However, if they are directed by it to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person or an entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

If colleagues and delegates have mobile phones, they should turn them off or switch them to flight mode. It is not just that they interrupt the meeting, but they also interrupt the broadcast and recording of proceedings.

I invite Mr. McKeon to make the Department's opening statement.

Mr. John McKeon:

I thank the joint committee for giving me the opportunity to appear before it for the discussion on JobPath. I am joined by my colleagues, Mr. Chris Kane who is the principal officer with responsibility for contracted employment services, including the local employment service, LES, and JobPath, and Mr. Jim Lynch who is principal officer with responsibility for operations in the south west.

I am aware that the committee and its predecessor, the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection, received numerous presentations on JobPath from the Department and others. I am also conscious that the main purpose of the meeting is to give committee members an opportunity to hear directly from JobPath providers. However, I would like to make some comments on activation in general. I will also address a number of issues which were raised by committee members at the meeting on 8 March.

Many, if not most, developed states provide an integrated public employment and welfare service. The purpose of the service is to provide an income support for persons who are unfortunate enough to be unemployed and, in addition, employment services to assist people in securing and sustaining employment. Typically, employment services, sometimes known as active labour market programmes, ALMPs, are categorised in four groups: job advisory and job search assistance services such as are provided by Intreo, the LES and JobPath; employment and recruitment incentives such as JobsPlus; access to and support during training and education programmes such as those facilitated via the education and training boards, ETBs, and the back to education allowance; and placement in State employment schemes such as the community employment scheme and Tús.

There is a considerable body of research that examines the effectiveness of these programmes. In general, their effectiveness is assessed in terms of whether they reduce the overall rate of unemployment at the macro level and, at the micro level, by the extent to which they reduce the duration of unemployment and improve the progression into employment of individuals. It is fair to say the results of these evaluations are mixed. In general, the research shows no or only a modest impact on unemployment at the macro level. However, when the evidence from Ireland in recent years is reviewed in years to come, it will show a more significant effect.

At the micro level the research is somewhat more positive. In most studies active labour market measures are shown to contribute to improved employment outcomes and reduced unemployment durations for individuals. Employment advice, job search assistance and employment incentives are shown to have the most positive impact, particularly where receipt of welfare payments is contingent on participation in such activities. The impact of training and education appears to depend on the duration of the programmes and the linkages between them and employers. Generally, short job-specific programmes have positive outcomes. The research indicates that participation in education programmes of long duration and State employment schemes can, owing to what is known as the "lock-in" effect, have a negative impact on employment outcomes.

Although these results should not be interpreted in a simplistic manner, they suggest the State should ensure all unemployed jobseekers have access to and receive tailored employment advice and that this advice should inform both job search and the selection of other interventions such as referral to training and State employment programmes. Unfortunately, in the past that was not the case. As demonstrated in studies conducted by bodies such as the OECD and the Economic and Social Research Institute of Ireland, Ireland’s public employment service was, prior to the recession, under-resourced and overly focused on referring people to training programmes. This position became particularly acute during the recession when the ratio of jobseekers to case officers, or caseload, exceeded over 1,000:1 compared with international norms of 200:1 for unemployed persons generally and 100:1 for long-term unemployed persons. As a result, many jobseekers, in particular, long-term unemployed jobseekers, never received the advice and support of a case officer.

It was for this reason that it was decided to increase significantly the capacity of the public employment service as part of the Pathways to Work strategy, both by doubling the number of case officers directly employed by the Department and increasing its contracted resource capacity. The use of contracting as a method of providing additional resources is in line with approaches adopted in most other countries. It reflects the requirement to have a flexible resourcing component that enables the Department to adjust capacity in response to variations in demand levels over a medium-term time horizon. The contracting model used which we termed JobPath was designed following an extensive process of research and consultation. Its key feature is that it is a payment-by-results model. This ensures some of the risk associated with expanding the service is borne by the service providers and that costs incurred are directly linked with employment outcomes.

It was also decided that the service would focus on providing support for long-term unemployed persons. In this way it complements the work of the Department’s Intreo staff which is focused on short-term unemployed persons, as the best approach to reducing the level of long-term unemployment is to reduce the rate at which people who are short-term unemployed transition into long-term unemployment. Focusing JobPath on long-term unemployed persons also augmented the activities of local employment service providers, enabling those providers to reduce their caseloads and, together with JobPath, expand coverage in order that those long-term unemployed persons who never had access to an employment adviser or case worker would, in time, receive a referral to a case worker. That is important. Contrary to what some commentators have suggested, JobPath does not compete with the Department’s Intreo service or the local employment service; expenditure on and staffing in those services have not been reduced. The introduction of JobPath has augmented our resource capacity, reduced pressure on Intreo and the local employment service and enabled both services to provide an improved service for their clients.

The Department has provided the committee, under separate cover, with further information on some matters where information was not to hand or could not be covered in the time available at the last committee meeting. I hope the information addresses the questions of interest to the committee, but I will be pleased to take further questions or follow up with further clarification, if required. There are a number of points I would like to address.

At the last meeting committee members inquired, based on the data available to them, if it was accurate to say JobPath cost €13,000 to €14,000 per job. It is not. JobPath is not a job creation initiative that is to be assessed on a basis similar to Enterprise Ireland, for example. It is, as I stated, an advisory and support service to help unemployed jobseekers to compete for the job opportunities available in the labour market. Therefore, the correct metric to use is the cost per jobseeker supported by the service. To the end of December 2017, approximately 150,000 people had accessed the service at a cost of €84 million. This equates to a cost of approximately €600 per client. This compares more than favourably with the costs of the Department’s Intreo service and those of the local employment service. For example, the local employment service has been contracted to serve 20,000 clients in 2018 with a budget just short of €20 million. This gives an average cost per client served of approximately €1,000.

Committee members also expressed an interest in the contractual arrangements and individual fees paid to each of the two service providers.

The Department has not disclosed this level of detail as to do so would breach the confidentiality of the agreements with the service providers and place the State at a disadvantage in any future procurement that may be undertaken. I can confirm, however, that fees are paid on client registration and on successful and sustained job outcomes. Sustainment fees account for approximately 90% of the total fees paid in respect of any individual jobseeker who secures employment.

A sustained job outcome is one which involves employment of at least 30 hours per week for a period of at least 13 weeks. Up to four job sustainment fees may be made over a 12 month or 52 week period. The level of the sustainment fee paid varies depending on the prior duration of unemployment of the jobseeker concerned and the contract year in which he or she was referred to the JobPath provider. As part of the tendering process, bidders were asked to bid separate prices against 120 price points, that is, registration fees plus a separate fee for each year of the contract against six different client cohorts based on the duration of unemployment and for each period of sustainment, namely, 13, 26, 39 and 52 weeks, respectively. It was suggested at the most recent meeting that as the Department had published the overall cost of the JobPath service, each provider could reverse engineer the fees charged by the other provider and fee confidentiality was not, therefore, an issue. Given the fee structure I described, the reverse engineering of fees is not possible using the information provided.

I emphasise that to protect the interests of the State and of jobseekers and protect against an excessive level of profits, the fees paid to the service providers are subject to downward adjustment only, based on the level of employment growth in the wider economy. Prices have been reduced by 8% on this basis. Fee reductions can also be applied if providers do not achieve performance targets with respect to the level of employment outcomes or achieve a satisfactory score in independent surveys of customer experience. To date, providers have exceeded their performance targets and scored highly in customer satisfaction research. As such, the question of retention fees has not arisen.

The joint committee also queried how effective the JobPath service was in helping people secure sustained employment. It was suggested that the published performance data was not impressive. In fact, job outcomes among jobseekers referred to JobPath are significantly higher than job outcomes of jobseekers of similar unemployment duration who were not referred to JobPath. They are up to 59% higher for people who have been unemployed for three years or more. While these data are not controlled for factors other than unemployment duration, the fact that referral to JobPath is random suggests the inclusion of other control variables should not significantly alter the results. A full econometric review of the service has commenced and will be completed later this year.

Members also inquired as to the nature of the research carried out in developing the contract model. Internationally, contracted models similar to JobPath were first developed in the 1980s and are now commonplace in many OECD countries. Accordingly, the Department drew on international experience in developing JobPath. In addition, the Department commissioned and took advice from experts who advised and prepared reports for the European Union, the OECD, the United Kingdom Government, the UK Houses of Parliament select committees, the National Audit Office in the UK, the Northern Ireland Government and the Trade Union Council, TUC. The Department also took informal advice and input from the former director general of employment policy and services in the OECD, canvassed the opinion of Irish labour market experts in the NESC, the ESRI, the Geary Institute in UCD, and the National University of Ireland in Maynooth, and took input from members of the Labour Market Council. Finally, the Department held a number of public briefing events which involved participants from advocacy groups, local development companies and trade unions, among others, and sought feedback from participants. There is further detail on the research approach taken in the material provided under separate cover.

Members also queried if personal progression plans were a type of service contract that must be signed by jobseekers. A personal progression plan is a structured document which seeks to assist people in identifying barriers to employment and the steps that need to be taken to achieve their employment goals. It is developed by the case officer and the jobseeker working together. It is not fixed but is updated and revised over the course of the engagement period. A personal progression plan is used in all of the Department's activation services – Intreo, local employment schemes and JobPath - and is also a standard feature in all other public employment services in developed countries. A similar plan is also used in all community employment engagements.

We ask all jobseekers to sign the personal progression plan as a means of ensuring that it is an agreed document. The customer signature is also an important control feature in determining whether registration fees are due to be paid under the JobPath contracts. Therefore, we strongly encourage all jobseekers to sign the form. For most people this is non-contentious, with the number of jobseekers who refuse to sign assessed as being less than 1%.

With regard to community employment and Tús, members will be aware of the Minister's recent announcement that customers who are engaged with the JobPath service and those who may be referred in future will, from 1 June 2018, have the option of applying for community employment and Tús placement while continuing to engage with JobPath. We hope this addresses the concerns raised by members, among others, regarding access to community employment and Tús.

I am conscious that some of the discussion at the last committee meeting seemed to suggest JobPath was an unnecessary imposition on jobseekers and that most participants in the service felt oppressed. I dispute that contention strongly. The Department and its staff work with unemployed jobseekers every day. We come from and live and work among the communities we serve. I believe we are more sensitive to and aware of the needs of these citizens - our clients - than any other service organisation in the country. Our customer feedback and research indicate that the overwhelming majority of customers value and approve of the service we provide. They believe they are treated in a friendly, respectful and considerate manner. They also believe the service improves their employment prospects. The same is true of research into customers of the local employment service. I do not suggest our service is perfect. Neither the JobPath service nor the local employment service is perfect. There will be process failures, individual lapses and system failures. In any service in which eligibility and selection are determined of necessity by the use of thresholds and bands there will be people on either side of the thresholds and bands who feel disadvantaged.

Like the public representatives who are present at this meeting, as Secretary General of the Department, I hear about failures more often than I hear about the vast majority of positive examples of good service and outcomes. We should be open to these challenges. We should constantly look for ways by which we could do better. In correctly highlighting the flaws we should not lose sight of the good. To use a cliche, we should not let the pursuit of the perfect get in the way of the good. This is a balance that needs to be struck. As Accounting Officer for the Department, I am acutely conscious that all commercial contracts carry risk. I know that these risks are of concern to the committee. I contend that the existence of risk should not inhibit action. We need to seek ways to manage and mitigate risk. In JobPath we have learned from the experience of other jurisdictions and are seeking to limit risk through careful contract design that incorporates price discounting, payment penalties, customer satisfaction tracking, on-site inspections and tight performance targets and monitoring. I will not refrain from taking the appropriate action if these control mechanisms indicate that any provider is not delivering the service in the manner or to the standard required.

It is notable that in its recent country report on Ireland the European Union commented favourably on JobPath, which it identified as the main reason for the faster than anticipated reduction in the level of long-term unemployment. Long-term unemployment rates in Ireland have decreased faster than short-term unemployment rates. This is a notable exception to the trend in all other countries. As the European Union has observed, this is at least partly attributable to the reforms undertaken by the Department, including the development of Intreo and JobPath. With my colleagues, I will be happy to address questions committee members may have.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I invite Mr. Donnery to make his opening statement.

Mr. Colin Donnery:

On behalf of Turas Nua, I thank the joint committee for giving me the opportunity to address it and provide further details of our organisation, as well as our services. I am joined by Ms Mary Moss who is our head of operations. She has been working with Turas Nua for over two years and has extensive experience of running large customer-focused organisations. I am a director of the company and have over 20 years of experience in the recruitment, training and employability sectors. I am also a board member of Macra na Feirme and a former president of the National Recruitment Federation of Ireland.

Since Turas Nua began its operations in 2015, our entire focus has been on helping people to find work, to prepare for the difficulties presented by the jobs market, to increase their knowledge, to improve their skills and find jobs they can sustain, thereby giving them and their families greater financial security and stability. The official vision of Turas Nua is "Together we help people on their journey into work and beyond, fulfilling the aspirations not only of those we help but also of their communities and wider society". That assistance is delivered through a comprehensive service provided at 40 community-based offices across the south of the country. We provide a local reach, while maintaining high national quality standards. Our service focuses on the needs of the persons with whom we work. They are at the centre of everything we do. Every person is different and requires a service that is built around his or her needs.

I would like to tell the committee about a typical customer journey. Brian who is from Mallow, County Cork is 45 years old. He has been unemployed for just over four years. His background is in the construction industry, but he has not been in sustained employment since the recession hit. He has been offered short-term jobs in different parts of the country, which would mean he would have to travel away from his young family. He has experienced regular periods of sustained illness in recent years. He wanted a long-term job, but when he was looking for employment in other sectors, he was simply getting nowhere.

He received a Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection notice inviting him to attend an information session to explain how the JobPath service would work for him. This letter as followed up by a call from one of our contact centre agents to offer Brian an opportunity to have any queries about the service answered and to confirm his attendance.

At the information session, representative of the Department and a member of Turas Nua outlined the purpose of JobPath, giving Brian details about the service and the guidance available. Immediately after that session he was introduced to his personal adviser. Brian told his adviser about his employment history and his career goals. In turn, the personal adviser told him about the information and support he could expect to receive. He was also told about the travel expenses we provide to cover public transport costs in attending required meetings at Turas Nua. Brian then discussed his desired job goals, which were in general construction or plastering. He also mentioned that he had worked in a shop as a teenager, and might be willing to consider a retail role. He wanted to avoid travelling too far from home or being away from his family overnight. We then took Brian through our unique diagnostic tool, catalyst. Catalyst measures a person's perception of their circumstances, and is a special offering provided by Turas Nua. It captures both objective and subjective information and identifies barriers and potential solutions, while measuring the personal distance travelled over time.

Brian's full assessment helped build a holistic view of his situation, including information on his qualifications, work experience, existing skills and barriers to employment, as well as his ambitions. His personal progression plan was then updated to include his goals and the agreed actions required to help him on his journey towards sustainable employment. Additional appointments were arranged and the plan was then printed and signed by both Brian and his adviser to illustrate their mutual commitment. Brian was given a copy to take home. Over the following weeks, Brian worked with his adviser to create a professional-quality CV. The catalyst analysis had highlighted Brian's poor motivation levels. A weakness in his basic IT skills had reduced his confidence, while his illness had impacted on his ability to hold down a strenuous job. Initially, Brian's focus was on construction work. Often, Turas Nua helps candidates in this area to update their skills and qualifications, for example by providing a safe pass certificate. During his meetings with this adviser however, it became clear that Brian had other barriers to address before being ready to take up a physically demanding role. Brian's personal progression plan was amended to incorporate his participation in some employability training through our workit training suite. This involved a number of courses addressing Brian's motivation and helping him to learn about identifying and unitising transferable skills. He was among the 48,000 participants in a workit training course last year. In fact, there are 38 short courses on offer from Turas Nua-qualified tutors.

Over time, Brian realised that construction was no longer his primary goal, so other options were discussed with his adviser. As Brian's needs evolved, we adapted our service and helped him to amend his individual personal progression plan to take new career goals into account. He then attended our offices twice a week to complete a basic IT skills course. After 13 weeks Brian undertook a full review of his plan. The second catalyst assessment highlighted the great strides he had made and his growth since his first appointment. A meeting was arranged with a local Turas Nua employer services consultant to discuss some employment opportunities in Brian's area. The consultant informed Brian about the relationship that had been developed with a local hardware shop which was looking for in-store sales agents. That store is just one of the 14,000 businesses that Turas Nua works with, ranging from large companies to small, independent local businesses. This role immediately appealed to Brian. He was invited to attend retail training in our Cork office to learn some of the key skills. When this was complete, our consultant arranged for some mock interview preparation, another core part of our service. Brian was then encouraged to update his CV to bring his retail experience and transferable skills, such as customer service, to the fore before the formal application was submitted.

The owner of the hardware shop was immediately interested in Brian's application and lined up an interview, with a meeting taking place in our Mallow office as his shop floor did not have any suitable space. All our offices regularly accommodate employers who are undertaking job interviews with candidates. Brian impressed the owner with his enthusiasm, his knowledge of the construction industry and his practical DIY know-how. He was offered an initial three-month contract pending his obtaining a manual handling certificate. This training was arranged by Turas Nua, and we also advised the store owner on how to apply for the JobsPlus grant. Brian started his new job and his personal adviser maintained regular contact. It soon became clear that Brian was progressing well in his new role, and we were delighted to learn through our in-work support service that after the initial three months the store owner had offered Brian a permanent role. Brian's progress has not stopped there. He recently began some advanced training, learning about stock-keeping and basic book-keeping.

Brian's story is just one example of how Turas Nua works with thousands of people every day.

It is evident how much our support means to people. We receive dozens of "thank you" cards every week. We are delighted that 34% of the people who have the completed JobPath programme with Turas Nua have attained a job. To date, some 70% of the people who progress beyond 13 weeks maintain employment for a full year. We have placed almost 19,000 people in jobs across a range of sectors and industries. We are pleased to note independent research that indicates that 82% of the people with whom we worked in 2017 were satisfied with our service. Proactive engagement with the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, other stakeholders and our regular customer listening groups backs up the high levels of satisfaction. Our success is due to the hard work, dedication and professionalism of the 330 people who work for Turas Nua in 40 offices in 13 counties. We have diverse teams that are doing outstanding work with people from all strands of society who are seeking our help to move into work. Our employees receive significant in-house training when they join our team, gaining skills and extensive expertise. Further growth is delivered through continuous professional development training. A total of 14% of our workforce were hired from the live register.

A key strength of Turas Nua is localised delivery via our 40 offices. We have provided in the written submission to the committee county by county details of the work we undertake. It is worth noting the spread and scale of our service provision. For example, in County Cork we employ 64 people who are working with over 4,000 customers and almost 2,400 employers. These staff are based in ten offices across the county. In County Limerick in which we employ 30 staff we have offices in the city and Newcastle West. The headquarters is located in Roscrea, County Tipperary, in which we employ 69 people in five offices. We have extensive operations across the south east, in counties Kildare and Wicklow, as well as across the south midlands. As I said, we employ 330 staff in 40 offices nationally. We are working with over 23,000 unemployed persons and have developed relationships with over 14,000 employers.

In recent years we have welcomed many public representatives to our offices to witness our facilities and services for themselves. We would be delighted to arrange visits for members of the committee and other Deputies, Senators and local public representatives. We would welcome the opportunity to show public representatives the excellent work being done in their localities.

All aspects of our work revolve around people. They include the tens of thousands we have helped to upskill and find jobs; the hundreds we have employed; the thousands of employers and business owners we have helped to fill roles; and the countless families and communities who have benefited from the services we provide. This experience has shown us just how important JobPath is. Its impact is being felt at the most local level possible in reaching individuals, their families, employers and communities. We consider it to be a substantial achievement to have established our comprehensive service within such a short timeframe and that process has involved no upfront cost to the taxpayer. Our high quality service offers great economic value, while making a real difference. We look forward to continuing to deliver the JobPath programme across 13 counties and help over 1,000 people per month to find jobs.

We thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to make our presentation.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Donnery. Will Ms Bunney, please, make her opening statement?

Ms Alison Bunney:

I thank the joint committee for its invitation to present to it. I am a director of Seetec and before the committee with my colleague, Mr. Karl Milne, who is operations director for Dublin. I was involved in the original tendering exercise, as well as being responsible at board level for our operations in Ireland. Mr. Milne has worked with Seetec since the beginning of the contract.

Seetec Employment and Skills Ireland delivers the JobPath programme in the top part of the country, including Dublin, through a network which encompasses 54 locations, of which a total of 17 are operated by our subcontractors. The group comprises five Irish organisations selected for their skills, expertise and ability to work within the community.

One objective of JobPath was to build additional capacity in the market. This was one of the reasons we decided to deliver our contract using both direct and subcontracted delivery. We have made a significant investment in setting up our office infrastructure, information technology solutions, outreach services in rural locations, subcontractors and building our establishment. We employ 246 people directly and 80 through our subcontractors. Our employees come from a wide range of backgrounds, but they all share the same purpose - to make an impact on the lives of our clients.

Seetec was established in 1984 in the United Kingdom as a private public partnership.

Since then it is has grown into one of the leading providers of high-quality skills, employment and justice services to thousands of individuals and businesses every year. While it is a private company, the work we tender for is built around improving lives and communities. In 2016, we achieved B-Corp status, joining a worldwide community of private sector businesses which focus on social value and the corporate social responsibility agenda.

Our approach to service delivery is to be extremely client focused and as flexible as possible. Commissioned surveys by the Department demonstrate that our overall satisfaction rating has increased from a mean score of 4.09 out of five in 2016 to 4.26 in 2017. Since the start of the service, we have only had 204 complaints. To put this in context, that is less than one quarter of 1% of the total number of individuals who have started their JobPath journey with us. While we appreciate that not every individual will welcome being referred to JobPath and there are occasions where a client has an issue with the service, we use this feedback to continually improve our delivery. We are very proud of the quality of service that our staff deliver.

We are exceeding our contractual performance targets and our approach of right job, first time ensures we work with individuals to ensure the right job match resulting in sustainable jobs. Our clients reflect a wide range of experiences of unemployment from those who have never worked to those who are qualified and highly skilled. More than 40% of our referred client base has been unemployed for between two and five years. Another 24%, however, have been unemployed for between six and ten years. Unsurprisingly, our client base is relatively mature with more than a quarter of our clients over the age of 50. Many come to us with low expectations and poor experience of the labour market. One client from the west told us on day one that we had no hope of finding him a job. He is now working successfully in sales in a car dealership.

These are the kind of success stories that drive our teams. In talking to our clients to date, they aspire to work in a range of sectors from construction and trades, to catering and hospitality, healthcare and retail, as well as roles in professional services, tech, IT and the pharma and life sciences sectors. These generally reflect previous working experience and a desire to re-enter the labour market in a similar sector.

However, many say to us that, without the intervention and assistance of Seetec and JobPath, they would not have had the confidence to pursue the role in which they are now. We have delivered or facilitated more than 200,000 training interventions for our clients. These include workshops delivered in our centres, further education or training through the education and training boards across our contract area, as well as other State-funded or private training purchased by us linked to clients specific job goals. This ranges from Safe Pass for those wanting to work in construction to more specific training like Java programming which are all linked to a particular job opportunity.

Our work would not be possible without partnerships. We have sought to build links with a range of organisations which support and engage with our clients in the communities in which we operate. One of the most important partnerships is the one with employers. We have placed individuals with more than 9,000 employers in a wide range of roles in all sectors of the economy, including the top consulting firms, pharmaceutical roles, banks, accountancy firms and public service jobs of all types. However, the majority are small employers across both rural and urban locations which value the service we provide at no cost to them. These small employers have limited time and in some cases expertise in recruiting employees. Employers tell us they value the pre-employment training which we organise and that our service is fast and responsive. Many comment on the fact that we are paid by results as something they welcome. They know we want to ensure our clients are a good match for the role and are better prepared for the transition into sustained employment.

This is a sentiment mirrored by the Labour Market Council which stated:

We need a labour market activation strategy that is flexible, that is seen to mirror the needs of employers and job seekers and can respond to challenges in periods of economic difficultly, as well as exploit opportunities in periods of economic recovery.

Before I conclude, I want to tell the committee about two clients with whom we have worked. The first client had left school before his leaving certificate. When he came to us, he had no experience of the workplace. He was smart and loved computers but had low confidence. His adviser encouraged him and gradually built his confidence. She worked with him on his CV until he was more confident in sending it to employers. Based on his interests and capability, she suggested he apply for a technical support role with a major international company.

With support from our employer services team, he completed the online application process and although a leaving certificate qualification was required for the role, our intervention secured him his first ever interview. With intensive support in his interview preparation and some financial support to buy new interview clothes, he was successful and was offered his first job. He sustained 12 months' employment and was promoted to a supervisory position. He remains in employment with this company today.

A 44 year old client in the midlands who had been out of work for four years told us he was "mad to work" but he thought employers wanted a younger man. He had many years of groundswork experience and a great attitude but no information technology, IT, skills. This impacted on his job search capability. He also lacked self-confidence due to his period of unemployment. We worked with him, increasing his confidence and improving his basic IT skills. We carried out mock interviews and supported him in contacting employers. He was delighted to be offered a position. We provided him with Safe Pass and manual handling training and purchased new workwear for him. The client stated he was thankful for the time we spent with the new employee who is working as a general construction operative.

These two clients are very different but their experience is very similar. Both wanted to work but felt unable to achieve this objective on their own. Our team empowered and supported them to address their barriers to work and reach their personal goals.

Based on our experience here and in the United Kingdom, we believe the Department has used learnings from other international models to develop a contract that delivers value for clients, employers and the taxpayer. Payment by results contracts transfer risk to the private sector, create flexibility and capacity through the economic cycle and encourage contractors to invest and innovate to deliver results in the most efficient and effective way. Most important, they boost the chances of the hardest to help finding employment.

The JobPath contract is constructed with the client at the centre and in a way in which we, the contractors, are accountable for delivering quality performance. We welcome the econometric review in progress.

The employment market has changed significantly since JobPath was first introduced, and we are approaching levels of employment that would not have been contemplated a few short years ago. This does not mean, however, that the need for a range of labour market activation services disappears. Beneath the headline figures, we see some real gaps and areas of need emerging and we have an opportunity with the capacity and expertise that has been built to impact on the lives of more individuals and the communities in which they live. These are the people we must not leave behind.

We look forward to building on the work we have done, impacting on the lives of people in some of the most rural communities in Ireland and making a difference to people’s lives by supporting them into quality, sustainable work. I sincerely thank members for their time and I will be pleased to answer any questions they may have.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms Bunney and the other witnesses for their opening statements. Before inviting members to contribute, I will outline the format for this part of the meeting. As there are three distinct sets of witnesses, I ask members to direct questions to specific witnesses as I do not want a general discussion to develop. We invited witnesses to attend in order that members could direct specific questions to them. Members will each have ten minutes to engage with the witnesses. I ask them not to make long statements but to address specific questions and I ask witnesses to be specific when answering questions. I invite Deputy Brady to try out this approach.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I will see how it goes. I thank the witnesses for attending. Given the difficulty the joint committee experienced in securing the agreement of representatives of Seetec and Turas Nua to attend, their presence is welcomed. I hope they will provide the answers the committee needs and members of the public deserve.

I address my initial questions to the departmental officials. Mr. McKeon stated there was a need to ratchet up the number of staff in the Department to deal with high levels of unemployment. We have heard this argument time and again. Did the Department discuss with organisations providing employment schemes then and now whether they had the capacity to upscale, either from their own resources or with limited additional resources and funding from the Department?

On the term long-term unemployed, there seems to be a good deal of confusion about that term. Can Mr. McKeon define it? The Central Statistics Office, CSO, figures indicate that in January, 65,000 people were determined as long-term unemployed. In July 2017, some 73,122 people were referred to JobPath. In his opening statement, Mr. McKeon said the scheme was specifically devised to deal long-term unemployed people.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Does the Deputy want Mr. McKeon to address those questions now?

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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If he wants to come back in, yes.

Mr. John McKeon:

When we were developing JobPath, we looked at the existing capacity, particularly whether we could ramp up the Intreo service, but it was not feasible to do that. There are consequences from ramping it up in that, generally, it becomes a fixed cost which we cannot wind back when we come into a boom period.

In terms of the other constraint on us, we spoke to other providers. We had three or four fora to which we invited the Irish Local Development Network, ILDN, and others to come in to talk to us. We have separate meetings with the ILDN. Some ILDN and LES companies tendered for the contract but one of the constraints was that because of the scale of this procurement, it had to be done under European Union procurement rules. There was no option to simply expand. We have to remember that the local employment services, which I presume the Deputy is talking about, are private limited companies. We are talking about a contract where we are spending €50 million a year. We simply could not spend that type of money without going through the EU procurement process. However, we did speak to the ILDN and the local employment services. We canvassed our views on what the contract should look like. We had Enterprise Ireland support capacity building workshops for them so that they would be in a position to compete. All of that was done, and some of them did compete. That is the position on that.

On the long-term unemployed, the definition of long-term unemployed is someone who has been unemployed more than 12 months. The number of people who are long-term unemployed on the live register differs from that in the quarterly national household survey, QNHS, formerly the labour force survey. The QNHS asks people about their perception of the duration of time they have been unemployed and that might be different from the amount of time we have been paying them. It also differs in that not everybody who is on the live register would be counted on the QNHS. For example, we count people in part-time work on the live register but they are not counted on the QNHS.

At this point in time we have 92,000 or 93,000 long-term unemployed people on the live register. In addition to that, we have 30,000 to 35,000 people who are on programmes such as community employment, CE, Tús and so on. In aggregate, therefore, the number is approximately-----

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I am conscious that I am limited on time.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, you are.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Regarding local employment services, LES, Mr. McKeon said some of those companies were spoken to. We had LES representatives in here a number of weeks ago and they said there was no engagement from the Department with a view to trying to build up the excellent service they provide, albeit limited, across the State. None of those discussions took place; I refer to evidence that was given to this committee.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy, allow Mr. McKeon answer that specific point.

Mr. John McKeon:

I attended those meetings. They took place.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Okay.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Next question.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Regarding referrals to LES before JobPath was established, there were over 67,000 in 2014. In 2017, that number reduced to just below 18,500. That contradicts evidence Mr. McKeon gave in his opening statement that there has been no impact whatsoever on LES since the formation of JobPath. The figures show clearly that there has been an impact. I will give Mr. McKeon an opportunity shortly to answer that point.

While I am dealing with the LES, there was a constant thread throughout the statements that both providers - Seetec and Turas Nua - had exceeded the performance targets that had been laid down. For the record, will Mr. McKeon state what were those targets? Was it 14%? What is the performance target for LES?

I will talk about the local employment services first. I said in my opening statement that we have not reduced the number of employment mediators we pay for in the local employment services. We have not reduced our payments to the local employment service. I was very specific and clear that we have reduced the number of clients referred to local employment services. This is good because, prior to JobPath, we had local employment services that were operating with caseloads of 500 jobseekers to one mediator and, in some cases, over 1,000 jobseekers to one mediator. That is not a sustainable caseload. Internationally, when the caseload exceeds 200:1, people raise their eyebrows. I had to sit in rooms with representatives from the OECD, European Commission, troika and other bodies and I was challenged very strongly on why we operate with such extraordinarily high caseloads. I was told we had to get the ratio to under 200:1. For long-time unemployed jobseekers, the target and upper limit is generally agreed as being 120:1. In Germany, they operate with a ratio of 60:1. In the Netherlands, the ratio is 80:1. We are currently operating with a ratio of 120:1. We do it through the local employment services and JobPath. We would not have been able to reduce the caseloads in the local employment services if the capacity for JobPath was not available. Therefore, there has been an impact but in a good way.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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People on the ground would argue against that.

With regard to the personal progression plans, we heard evidence before that it is not compulsory to sign one. In Mr. McKeon's opening statement, however, he stops short of saying it is not compulsory for someone to sign one. He said it is preferred that someone signs it before the initial payment kicks in to Turas Nua and Seetec. Could I have clarity on whether signing is compulsory? There have been many cases indicating a figure that far exceeds the figure mentioned. A figure of 1% was given. Maybe we could get an answer from all three delegates.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Does Mr McKeon want to respond first?

Mr. John McKeon:

Certainly. As I stated earlier, we ask all jobseekers to sign a personal progression plan. We would prefer them to sign it. If they do not, we push them for a very good reason and strongly encourage them to sign. There are a number of reasons, which are set out in the statement. First, signing shows it is an agreed plan between the jobseeker and the personal adviser or caseworker. That is important. It is important that they both sign up to. Second, particularly in the case of JobPath, we pay a registration fee. I said it is approximately 10% of the total fee we pay for somebody's placement into employment. As Accounting Officer of the Department, I want to see evidence that the person has registered with the service. That evidence, to me, is the signing of a personal progression plan.

Where people prove they are engaged in the process and are not against activation, we do not insist in every case on their signing of a personal progression plan, but encourage them very strongly to do so.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Does Mr. Donnery want to comment on this?

Ms Mary Moss:

I will take that question. The personal progression plan is an individual plan. It sets out the job goals of the person-----

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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My time is limited. The opening statements lay out exactly what the personal progression plan is intended for; I asked a very specific question. I have heard evidence from people who worked in both organisations that the person referred from Intreo cannot and should not be let leave the office until the plan assigned. That is a specific question. I would like a specific answer.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Could Ms Moss respond on the piece about the signature?

Ms Mary Moss:

We have 78,000 customers with Turas Nua. Most have no issue with signing an individual progression plan that helps them get full-time sustainable work. People engage with the process. Contractually, we have to inform the Department if they are not engaging with our service. People are allowed to leave with the personal progression plan to bring it home to discuss it. We email it to people. To say people are not allowed to leave the building without signing it is incorrect.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I did not say that.

Mr. Karl Milne:

We are considerate of the fact that some of the clients who arrive at our service have concerns about it which they may have picked up from commentary online. They may have concerns about signing the personal progression plan. We do not compel clients to do that. We engage with them on the service, complete the plan and then submit it to the Department for consideration. In our experience, once clients understand the value of the service to them, they engage with the service and appreciate the work done by our team. Their experience with their advisers is shown in the independent research to be valued highly by them.

Mr. John McKeon:

The personal progression plan is common to the Department and Intreo and is very similar in the LES and JobPath. We ask all of our clients in Intreo to sign a personal progression plan. We work with them to sign the plan.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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The difference is that this is for profit, which leads me to my next question.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I will come back to the Deputy. To be fair, a number of colleagues want to contribute.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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Progression plans are the issue in respect of which I have received most contact from people. They say that they would not sign progression plans and their social protection payments were cut. Was there a recent High Court case in which that was found to be illegal? What is the Department's position on that?

Mr. John McKeon:

There was a High Court case where the plaintiff was refused leave. As such, it was never considered by the court. The Department's policy is that only it can determine whether a person's payment can be cut. The process is that if Turas Nua, Seetec, a local employment service, a community employment scheme or our own Intreo staff find a jobseeker is not engaging with the process, the matter is referred to a deciding officer in the Department. The deciding officer calls the individual in, has a conversation with him or her and provides a verbal warning. If he or she does not respond to that warning, he or she is given a written warning. If, after a written warning, he or she does not comply with the service, he or she will then have a reduced rate of payment. In doing that, the deciding officer will assess whether it is a case of genuine non-compliance. It is not the case that every jobseeker referred to the Department by an Intreo or JobPath case officer will have a penalty or reduced rate of payment imposed. The deciding officer will form a view. If someone has not signed a personal progression plan but the evidence is that he or she is turning up for meetings and engaging in CV courses and mock interviews, a reduced rate will not apply. A reduced rate can always be lifted as soon as someone starts to comply, which is important. We noted in our supplementary information that the penalty rate among JobPath clients is approximately 0.6%, which is exactly the same as the penalty rate among Intreo clients who are not with JobPath. It is no greater.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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I accept the point that the person did not get leave from the High Court. As far as I am aware, the Department admitted that it was illegally sanctioning people who refused to sign a contract with a private company.

Mr. John McKeon:

I do not think that is the case. I will check into it again. Perhaps Mr. Kane can deal with that. He has the papers in front of him.

Mr. Chris Kane:

I have a note here. Leave to seek judicial review was not granted because the individual involved did not make the case to the court that a judicial review was required. In the particular circumstances he presented with, as the Secretary General has just confirmed, it went back for a reconsideration in the round to see if there was engagement and not too great a focus on a signature. The penalty rate was lifted because the individual was engaging with JobPath. By the time it got to court, the judge considered that the argument was largely moot. There were no findings by the court whatsoever in language like "the Department illegally applied penalty rates". There was no finding to that effect whatsoever by the court.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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On Turas Nua and Seetec, another issue which people have specifically brought up with me is that they were being offered jobs that were not associated with what they were doing, what they were interested in or the areas they wanted to go into and that, at times, they were forced into areas such as elderly and home care, in which there is obviously a huge lack of staff as a result of the number of private nursing homes which have been developed and so on. Will the delegates confirm that did not happen within their organisations when they were placing people in employment?

Mr. Colin Donnery:

JobPath and our service are about keeping people in sustainable jobs. Ultimately, there is no point in us placing people in jobs in which they will not remain and will not be happy. Our number one priority is to ensure people are happy in the job, that they suit the job and that they have the skills for it. Our training is also built around this. It looks at the traits and competencies of the people involved, we match them with good employers in order that they will remain in the job.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Would Ms Bunney or Mr Milne like to add to what has been said?

Ms Alison Bunney:

I echo Mr. Donnery's comments. First and foremost, we start with the clients. We spend time with them to get to understand their experiences, skills and real and perceived barriers to entering the labour market. We have a discussion with them on the jobs they would like to do, as opposed to the jobs available in the local area. We work with them to secure the most suitable job matches for them. The contract is constructed in such a way that providers are not rewarded if individuals do not move into sustainable work; therefore, there is no incentive for us to move individuals into jobs in which they do not want to stay because they will not stay in them. That will impact on our performance, the reputation of the service and the quality of the service we are delivering which, as the Secretary General has outlined, is a key performance indicator in the contract.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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I have one last question which, again, is addressed to the two service providers. Has either organisation ever asked somebody to pay for a training course when moving onto an employment scheme which it has recommended?

Ms Mary Moss:

We have 38 in-house tutors who are qualified and accredited. They provide short courses internally in Turas Nua. We also work with many local providers, including education and training boards, ETBs, in order to provide training for our customers. The training depends on what is included in their personal progression plans and the skills and attributes they already have. Funding for external courses is dependent on job outcomes. If a course absolutely suits the job a person is taking up, Turas Nua will pay for it.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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Therefore, people are never asked to put money up upfront, for example, €700 for an elderly care course or something like it.

Ms Mary Moss:

Not in my experience, no.

Mr. Karl Milne:

We procure training to support the job needs of thousands of clients being placed in jobs. For example, in the area of construction there is the safe pass and manual handling training which various clients may need for specific roles in the sector. In my experience people are not asked for money upfront, but we do procure training for clients who need it where there are blockages in finding employment related to having a licence to practice. If there is a specific query the Deputy wants to have addressed through the Department in respect of any of the providers, I am sure we can check it out for her.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I would like to get answers from all three organisations to the questions I want to ask.

The first question is to the Department and, indeed, Seetec and Turas Nua. Would the witnesses agree that the introduction of JobPath and this way of dealing with unemployment, including the allocation of this work to those companies, came about as a result of pressure from the troika when we were in trouble in 2011 because when one looks back at the figures, the unemployment rates from 2011 up to now are quite different? Clearly that relates to a growth in the economy. The long-term unemployed are presented as the problem not the economy. I find it incredible we would put across a scenario that there is an inherent problem in being unemployed rather than a problem in the economy with the collapse of the banking and financial sectors and austerity and cuts that ensued from it. I would like the witnesses to comment on the role of the troika in pressuring us to bring in this model and that question is particularly for the people from the Department.

On the question of the signing-----

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Do you want Mr. McKeon to answer that?

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I thought we were asking all our questions in ten minutes.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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No. When he answers, you can ask the next question to make sure you get replies as you are going along. I call Mr. McKeon.

Mr. John McKeon:

The troika was very keen and very interested that we do this. It was also very keen and very interested that we do other things, which are the right and proper things to do. The National Economic and Social Council, NESC, produced a report - I believe it was in 2010 or 2011 - on jobseeker and employment supports for jobseekers. It suggested that we develop a contracting model, independently of the troika. The issue we have is that we simply did not have enough case officers to deal with people who are unemployed. We had to resource it. Whether the troika was telling us to or not, I think we would have done it. It was interested in us doing it and held us to account in terms of our plans and when they would be produced, etc. It can be argued and different people have different views of the troika but I certainly think it was the right thing to do. We would have wanted to do it anyway.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Can Mr. McKeon explain to me why in 2011 there were 359 sanctions against welfare recipients as against 16,451 in 2017? If it is all about reducing unemployment, why is there a massive increase in sanctions when we have more people at work?

Mr. John McKeon:

I will deal with that as well as the Deputy's question about the long-term unemployed and whether people think there is a problem inherent in them. This Department and the staff I work with do not think that. I want to be absolutely clear about that. People who are long-term unemployed face greater challenges in breaking out of unemployment. The statistics are very clear. The longer one is unemployed, ones chances of securing employment in the next 12 months diminish. The percentage likelihood of employment if one is three years or more unemployed goes down to about 8% or less. Dealing with jobseekers is a huge challenge to my Department as they require intensive case officer support and that is what this is about. We do not believe we are doing it because there is something wrong with them.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Can Mr. McKeon explain the sanction system then?

Mr. John McKeon:

The sanctions are related to two things. First, we only introduced them in 2010 or 2011, if my memory serves me correctly. I would need to get the exact dates. It was only a new thing at that time and like all new things, it takes time to-----

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The year 2011 is six years ago. There has been a massive increase.

Mr. John McKeon:

There has been but if the Deputy is comparing the 2011 figure to figures since-----

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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That is fair enough. It was introduced in 2011 at the height of chronic unemployment in the country and there was 359 sanctions but last year when we are nearly out of the unemployment crisis, it was 16,451.

Mr. John McKeon:

The main reason for that is that in 2011 we were not engaging with people at the rate we should have been through the Intreo service, JobPath or the local employment services. As I said earlier, every case officer had caseloads of more than 1,000 jobseekers. Now we have caseloads of 120 to 201 on average. It is about 200 on average across all services. We are now engaging with people more intensely. That more active engagement-----

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Mr. McKeon said that in his introduction but I contend that that increase in sanctions shows that this is about sanctioning the unemployed rather than helping-----

Mr. John McKeon:

I disagree completely.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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-----particularly when we have a high level of employment.

Mr. John McKeon:

If the Deputy looks at the numbers - I do not have them in front of me - approximately 0.6% of jobseekers are being managed at any point in time and are on a penalty rate of payment. It is a very low number. Previously at this committee and at the Committee of Public Accounts, I cautioned about this because I understand and I hear the concerns. I get a lot of these calls, as the Deputy does. I am not suggesting the Deputy is doing it but we have to be careful about creating a narrative that it is widespread and that it is everywhere because it is not.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I am careful but clients have come to me that the system is not careful with them. I refer, for example, to a Syrian man with very poor English, who has attained residency here, has been told to attend a course on medical devices and has to travel from the far side of Blanchardstown to Sandyford every day, three hours each way. He is struggling with the course because his English is poor. How is that putting him at the centre of what all three witnesses are attempting to do? That is penalising that man and if he did not do it, his welfare would be slashed.

Mr. John McKeon:

I do not want to comment on an individual case. I do not know the detail of that case. It may well be a very positive intervention for that gentleman if he can do it and have good prospects for employment. I do not know so I cannot comment on it. The only people who can decide on reduced rates of payment are the Department's deciding officers. They consider every case. They will call that man in and talk to him. If he can prove to them that this is an unreasonable request but that he is interested in doing other things, it is very unlikely a reduced rate of payment will be decided.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It is an unreasonable request in anybody's book given his poor language skills. Is the Department at all concerned that the companies involved, particularly Seetec, which runs the JobPath scheme, may head down the road shown in the film "I, Daniel Blake"? In Britain, 1 million people on disability allowance have been brought into the scheme's remit and the Department of Health and Social Care has already proved that over 110,000 of them cannot work. Is the Department concerned that people in direct provision will be brought into JobPath purely because they cannot get out of the direct provision centres and get work? Does it have any concerns about the direction this has taken? Staff in the British system say that homeless people have come before them and that they must penalise them because they do not show up for interviews or to sign documents due to their chaotic lives. However, those people are starving. The staff say they get brownie points for cruelty. Is the Department concerned that the latter might happen here?

Mr. John McKeon:

The only people who can change what the JobPath providers, local employment services or community services do are the Department and the Government. The instance given in "I, Daniel Blake" and the examples the Deputy quoted are examples where the staff of the Department of Work and Pensions and of the Jobcentre Plus engaged with the jobseekers and the people with disabilities. It was not the contractors but the Department's staff. We do not refer anybody with disabilities to JobPath or local employment services. We have a separate regime called the EmployAbility companies and we deal with them.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Is Mr. McKeon saying the Department will not change?

Mr. John McKeon:

That is a policy decision for the future. I cannot say that we will not but it is not-----

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It is a possible policy position for the future. Given that it happened in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, would the Commission not tell us to be good boys and take people with disabilities into this?

Mr. John McKeon:

I can say why I do not think it will happen. We have a completely different approach to welfare. Our welfare payments are much higher than those in the UK. The approach we take with JobPath, and the measure of a sustainable job for us, is 30 hours work a week for at least 13 weeks. In the UK, it is 16 hours work a week for at least four weeks. We have our own medical assessors. We have not contracted out medical assessment. It is very unlikely to happen but it is always possible. Bad things can always happen in the future. Bad policy decisions can always be made in the future. I cannot say it will never happen but I do not think it is likely to happen.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I will quote back to Mr. McKeon that he said it was a bad policy decision if that decision is ever taken.

Is the Department concerned at all at the type of jobs people are going into from the operations of Seetec and Turas Nua? Earlier, Mr. McKeon spoke a lot about catering, the hotel industry and the hospitality industry. Report after report shows that workers in these sectors are the lowest paid in the country. According to Social Justice Ireland, one quarter of these workers live in poverty. They also receive State benefits such as family income supplement because they are so poorly paid. There has been an increase in the number of working people in homeless accommodation due to the fact that these individuals cannot afford to pay rent. Is the organisational model of Seetec, Turas Nua and the Department working together to create this JobPath scheme concerned at the type of low-paid, precarious and often bogus self-employment that people are pushed into because if they fail to do otherwise, they will be penalised?

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy. I want to try to get an answer for her.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I have one more comment. The witnesses keep mentioning the Safe Pass as an example of what they do to train people. Will they go beyond the Safe Pass and list a few more examples of decent training which people get?

Mr. Colin Donnery:

In terms of the types of jobs into which we place people, we have placed almost 19,000 people into jobs in more or less every sector in the economy, from construction to hospitality, which the Deputy mentioned, and from call centres to sales. We also place people into very high-paying jobs. It is not just low-paid people who have been long-term unemployed. In respect of long-term training, we would work with education and training boards, ETBs, for instance, to put people into long-term training. We have what is called a stop the clock measure. People can go into training for up to six months and can then come back to us and work with us further. They may find a job while in that training or they can come back to us and we can work with them for the duration. Ultimately, to get back to precarious jobs, there is no point in us putting people into precarious jobs. We need to sustain people in jobs. That is the way JobPath is set up and that is what we endeavour to do. We try to build on the jobseeker's skills, traits and abilities. Ultimately, the longer jobseekers sustain employment, the better for us. Our own systems show us that the longer we work with people, the longer they stay in jobs.

Mr. Karl Milne:

In respect of the type of jobs, our starting point is to discuss job goals with the client. The clients tell us the two principal areas in which they would like to get employment. That is the starting point for us. Some of that is informed by work they have done previously or work they want to do. That is driven by the client. On other types of training, commercial driving is an example of another area in which we have procured training for people. Approximately 8,000 clients have received training through ETBs or other State-funded training providers. We are always looking for the best route for the client to pursue his or her goals. In some cases clients will come to us with barriers such as poor English or poor reading and writing and we will engage with the service providers and seek to signpost the clients towards routes that will assist them in overcoming some of the challenges which, from their own perspective, they have.

Mr. John McKeon:

The Deputy mentioned bogus self-employment and precarious employment. We were very conscious of that in signing the contract. We had a look at what happened in other countries and we were determined that it would not happen here. The agreement is for 30 hours per week in a paid job. It is not for self-employment. The clients have to have an employer who has to submit P35s. It is 30 hours a week, full time, for at least 13 weeks. Self-employment, precarious work or work that is not permanent does not meet the agreement. That was in the contract Seetec signed so we are very careful about it. We are very aware of the flaws in the UK model. We are very aware of flaws in the models used in other countries. Some states in the United States have very good models and others have very weak models. Australia's model is better than that of the UK but I would argue that it is not as good as Ireland's. We were very careful to take all of that into account. We did a lot of research and involved many people in advising us on this. We have done our best to mitigate that issue. If the wider economy is heading towards a situation in which more people will require family income supplement or whatever, that is separate question. It is a question of budget policy and so on. To be fair, JobPath providers cannot do anything about that.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The pay levels do not concern the providers.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Smith has had her turn.

Mr. John McKeon:

The employers obviously have to pay above the minimum wage. They have to.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I have waited a long time to get all of these people here in the room. I have some very direct questions. My first if for the Department and is about the EU obligations on procurement. Was there any legal obligation to tender for these services?

Mr. John McKeon:

Yes.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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There absolutely was.

Mr. John McKeon:

Absolutely.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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There is no clause within the documents relating to the EU procurement process that would allow the Department to override the tendering system used for such a contract.

Mr. John McKeon:

To the best of my knowledge there is not. Perhaps someone can find such a clause but both we and the Office of the Chief State Solicitor, which was involved in the process, did not. The Chief State Solicitor's office was certainly of the view that there would have to be a tendering process.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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This is very important. There was a legal obligation on the Department to put these services out to tender.

Mr. John McKeon:

Yes.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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Okay. We will probably discuss that another day. How much did the tendering process cost the Department?

Mr. John McKeon:

I do not have a figure with me. The costs associated with it were mainly internal. I would have to do the calculations. I can certainly get a figure and send it to the committee.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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It would be good if Mr. McKeon could furnish that to the committee. What was the turnover and profit for each of the companies for the last year?

Mr. Colin Donnery:

I am not in a position to give commercial information to the committee.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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Are Turas Nua's accounts public? Are they transparent?

Mr. Colin Donnery:

Our accounts are in the Central Statistics Office and are available for members of the committee to pick up.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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Mr. Donnery cannot tell us here today even though it is public information.

Mr. Colin Donnery:

I would not have the information offhand, but we can get it to the committee. That is no problem.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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I ask Mr. Donnery to do so, please.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I presume the same applies to Seetec. Mr. Donnery will furnish the accounts as available to the public to the committee.

Mr. Colin Donnery:

Yes.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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We understand that.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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Mr. McKeon described full-time employment as 30 hours per week. Has the Department calculated how much has been spent on creating each job created by each of these companies?

Mr. John McKeon:

I dealt with that in my opening statement. At the previous session Deputies Willie O'Dea and John Brady mentioned a figure of €13,000 to €14,000 per job created. I would point out that JobPath does not create the jobs. It is not like Enterprise Ireland. JobPath advises people to compete for the jobs that are available. The appropriate metric is the cost per client served, which is €600. That compares more than favourably with the cost in a local employment service which provides a similar service. It is roughly the same as the Department's own internal cost.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I apologise for interrupting. Will Mr. McKeon clarify something? Mr. McKeon said that figure of €600 was per client. Does that refer to a client who transitioned into employment?

Mr. John McKeon:

No, it refers to all clients who were served. Approximately 156,000 clients had been served to the end of last year. The Chairman can do the sums. I think I have set them out in the note.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I was just asking as a point of clarity.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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How much has the Department paid to each of these companies since JobPath was set up?

Mr. John McKeon:

Again this information was provided under separate cover. To the end of 2017, €84 million had been paid. I do not want to disclose the individual amounts but it is as close to 50:50 that it makes no difference.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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So we have spent €84 million to date.

Mr. John McKeon:

No, that is what we had spent to the end of 2017.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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Right, and that is in addition to the tendering costs, whatever they are.

Mr. John McKeon:

Yes.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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When does the contract end?

Mr. John McKeon:

It ends at the end of 2019. There is also a run-out period because clients will be referred up until the end of 2017 and will then get to work with the providers for up to 18 months. If they are placed in employment at the end of the 18 months, there is then a sustainment fee for 12 months while they are in employment. That is the longest it can go. There is a run-out period of approximately two and half years, but we will stop referring clients at the end of 2019.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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Is there a penalty clause in the contract if the Department were to break the contract between now and then?

Mr. John McKeon:

I would have to check that. My memory is that there was a break clause. I would have to check on that particular question. I can come back to the committee on it. My memory is that there is a break clause with notice. We would have to give the provider some notice, so there would be exposure.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. McKeon can come back to us with that.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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I ask Mr. McKeon to come back with that information as well. There are many questions here to which we do not have the answers. Will Mr. McKeon clarify the number of referrals which the Department has agreed to give to each of these companies in any given year?

Can I get clarification on that?

Mr. John McKeon:

The contract itself started in 2015, running out to the end of 2019 and the minimum commitment over that entire period was €240,000.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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Was the €240,000 for each organisation or for both?

Mr. John McKeon:

For the whole lot.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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Over how many years was that?

Mr. John McKeon:

I will confirm that figure; I am working from memory but I am pretty sure it is right.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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A sum of €60,000 has been cited several times, that the Department have to submit €60,000 per year.

Mr. John McKeon:

Yes that is roughly four by €60,000 which makes €240,000.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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I understand that now. What checks and audits are done in terms of verifying the numbers and how many unannounced site visits has the Department made to each of these companies?

Mr. John McKeon:

I might ask Mr. Kane to come in on the site visits. The way we control the contract is that we select all the clients that are referred so the JobPath providers have no say in the selection of the clients. We refer over an IT system, we hear back from the job providers when they have engaged with somebody and when they have a copy of a personal progression plan, which is a trigger of a registration fee payment. They notify us when they place somebody into employment. We will check that against three things - whether the provider can produce evidence from the employer that the person is in employment, whether the person has signed off the live register and whether we have received a commencement of employment notice from the Revenue Commissioners. It is only where all three are satisfied that we will generally pay. That is the check on payment.

In terms of customer service, we do inspection visits which Mr. Kane can talk about. We also do customer surveys, which are commissioned externally and independently, of satisfaction levels with the providers and if they do not get satisfactory scores in those customer surveys we can reduce payments.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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Does the Department do unannounced site visits?

Mr. John McKeon:

I might ask Mr. Kane to deal with that.

Mr. Chris Kane:

Yes we do site visits.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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How many did the Department do last year?

Mr. Chris Kane:

In 2017 we did 28.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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Are the witnesses aware that people in rural areas are being instructed to travel up to 30 miles each way to visit Seetec for example? People with no rural transport and no means of getting there are requested to travel.

Mr. John McKeon:

I might ask Seetec to comment on the supports they provide to people who have travel costs but what I will say is that is a problem we have ourselves in our offices. We have 60 offices around the country. People are required to attend those offices to sign on and all of that. In many respects the two providers have around 100 to 110 offices between them which is more than the Department itself has. The issues of travel are with us and the JobPath providers do provide financial support to people who have to travel and they can comment on it.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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Maybe it could be quantified and measured; how much did Seetec pay out on travel last year?

Mr. Karl Milne:

I would not be in a position to discuss the cost of service provision but I can give the Senator some insight into how we handle the travel requirements of our clients and the flexibility we employ with that.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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I am very conscious of the time. I just want a short explanation of how somebody can be told to pass a local employment scheme office to travel 30 miles to go to JobPath.

Mr. Karl Milne:

I am happy to answer the question. First and foremost the Department refers the clients to us and we are contracted to deliver a service to those clients. We are very conscious of the rural travel challenges that many of our clients face. We consider appointment times that would be reflective of existing travel arrangements locally such as bus services and the fact that many of our clients do travel into towns to get other services. We provide flexibility there, we reimburse public transport costs and we pay a mileage rate to clients for travel.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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What is the mileage rate?

Mr. Karl Milne:

It is €0.24 per kilometre and we do not get too many concerns raised from the clients around how we accommodate their travel needs.

It is something that is generally accepted as being satisfactory and reasonable in how we manage it.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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Therein the problem lies. We get a lot of them. People are frightened because their benefits are taken from them if they do not comply with exactly what they are instructed to do. It was said that they get one warning or two warnings. When warnings are being given to really vulnerable people and they are frightened that they will not have a penny left and their payments will be cut, it is a very unequal relationship. They will not go to the Department and detail what has happened to them because their main concern is whether they have enough money to keep a roof over their head or to have enough food until the end of the week. That is a problem.

I need to ask about mental health and this is my final question.

Mr. John McKeon:

I will mention one thing about the offices. As I said, given the dispersal of population in Ireland, we will always have these issues. I said in my opening statement that I, as Secretary General, and the Senator, as a public representative, hear about the hard cases. We do not hear about the vast majority of good cases.

I mention the rating of the easy locations. A question we ask in our independent research is whether people find the location of JobPath offices easy to get to. It scored 4.63 out of five on a scale of zero to five. That is an extraordinarily high score by any measure, so for the overwhelming majority of people the offices are easy to get to but there will always be difficult cases.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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I know.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Time.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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My final question is about somebody presenting with mental health problems. Is the person referred back to Intreo or the Department?

Mr. John McKeon:

Is that to the JobPath companies?

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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It is to both of the companies because that is what I have been told is happening.

Ms Mary Moss:

Absolutely. People present with all kinds of barriers, and mental health is obviously one of them. We would refer them back to their local Intreo office. In some cases, we would assist them in filling out an application for disability if that was appropriate. We also work with the HSE, Pieta House and other local providers and services for people who have mental health issues.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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Turas Nua and Seetec put them in a room and make them reveal details about themselves in group situations. It is not a good situation.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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The same question applies to-----

Ms Mary Moss:

We facilitate one-to-one meetings with people who have difficulties and we do so quite happily.

Mr. Karl Milne:

We are not qualified to judge or assess clients' mental health. However, if clients raise concerns in discussion with us about the payments they are on that would be referred back to the Department for its consideration. We have no role in that. If during their engagement with us, as trust and confidence builds between the clients and the advisers and they share challenges they have, we will look to support and signpost them into the relevant professional services, subject to availability in any of those areas but it is a client driven service.

Mr. John McKeon:

Mr. Lynch might comment on the Department's approach. He is the operations manager for the south west.

Mr. Jim Lynch:

If we get a referral back from Turas Nua and the referral is in connection with mental health or an issue like, then we facilitate a disability allowance payment or a disability allowance application and see that it goes through the process. We also look at whether we can provide short-term supports from an income support point of view with supplementary welfare allowance. It would not be right to say they are referred back to us and we automatically rubber stamp it because as the Secretary General said we have to apply the rule of just cause as to whether a person has a real reason for not engaging with Turas Nua. If the person does not want to engage by virtue of mental health issues, then we take that into account and we would give them the correct payment. It would not necessarily be the case that we would make them re-engage or take a penalty rate approach to that case.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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One of my questions follows up on that question of the contract agreement and the referrals and the 60,000 every year as an average of the 240,000. I noticed in the presentation from Seetec that it is mentioned that 40% of its customers or clients have been unemployed for between two and five years, 24% between six and ten years. Are we then to understand that 36% of Seetec's clients are not in that two to ten year period of unemployment?

Are we to understand that 36% have been unemployed for less than two years? Is that the case? Perhaps the same question could be answered by Turas Nua. We have had increasing reports of persons who are very new to the live register, to jobseeker's allowance, for example, persons who may have come out of periods of caring and elsewhere, who find themselves being referred very early to JobPath. That is something the Department could answer, with regard to increasing referrals from those who are not in the long-term unemployed bracket.

Will the witnesses clarify the random selection? There is a real concern about the suitable measures. Will the witnesses deal with that question about whether people are randomly selected and about the referrals back? This is the procurement section of my questions.

To follow up with Mr. McKeon, we are not speaking about job creation or clients served. Neither of those metrics might be the correct metric. I suggest that the correct metric in a jobseeking service might be considered to be the numbers of jobs found. I do not think anybody was suggesting that jobs need to be created but jobs need to be found. Is it still the case, as was suggested at a previous meeting, that we are looking at approximately €13,000 per job found as opposed to per client served or job created?

The issue of flexibility was put forward as a key rationale for taking this route at a particular time. Is there perhaps a danger for flexibility, that when we tie into a contract which requires us to refer 60,000 cases a year, or 240,000, that we may be looking at a lack of flexibility? For example, it could be that local employment services and others, perhaps even tailored and specific services, are not getting the referrals because there is an obligation to ensure 60,000 clients move through.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Allow the witnesses to address-----

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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I will. I have a last question on the contract which may add clarification. As I understand it, there is scope within the European procurement rules relating to the exclusion of health and social services. I also know specifically with regard to procurement, because it was recognised as an area of specific sensitivity in Europe, that contracts up to €250,000 - I know this is a contract of €20 million - did not have to go through any of the European procurement constraints. Perhaps that question of scale could be addressed. We have heard repeatedly about brilliant pilot schemes which have not been scaled up, but it seems that the decision was to scale this up very substantially and quickly.

Mr. John McKeon:

On the long-term unemployed, we do not refer anybody to JobPath who does not have a duration of 12 months on the live register. We just do not. It does not happen. There will be and are clients on other schemes. For example, they might be on another scheme and then go on to the live register. We have always counted them. For example, if they want access to the back to work enterprise allowance or back to education allowance, there are 12 month conditionalities around those. Those conditionalities already existed. The duration was counted for those schemes and is counted for JobPath too, which is of benefit to the people concerned.

I would maybe challenge the thinking on it. The implication is that they should not have to go because they are not at 12 months. For most people, overwhelmingly, it is a positive experience and the outcomes are positive. The Senator needs to think about that.

On the random nature, we do the random selection. We do it from our IT systems and it is entirely random. That is the situation. We have a mix of clients in six different cohorts, of one to two years unemployed, two to three, three to four and so on. We have to make sure that when it is picked, it is reflective of the overall live register, but within each cohort it is entirely random.

I might ask Mr. Christopher Kane to take the question on flexibility. The Senator referred to the question of the correct metric. The correct metric, from my perspective, is whether going on JobPath results in improved employment outcomes for people. Overwhelmingly, the evidence is yes. There is a 59% higher chance of being in employment where a person who has been unemployed for more than three years has been on JobPath compared with him or her not having been on JobPath. That is the most important metric. If the Senator wants to divide that by a cost, she can do that, but then that needs to be done like for like. What is the equivalent metric for the local employment service or for the Intreo service? Around the world, the metric used is the cost per client served because there is recognition of the value of employment advice, personal progression planning and so on.

The primary objective is to move into employment but it is of benefit to that in moving somebody further along a continuum. That might be a continuum into community employment or some other scheme. Around the world, it is the cost per client served. I am quite happy that people want to construct another. Let us do it across all our services. That is what I would say.

On exclusion in the procurement guidelines for health and social services, all I can do is repeat what I said earlier. In procurement of this scale, a contract of €50 million or more a year requires procurement. My understanding and our interpretation of the EU procurement rules is that it is absolutely essential. Leaving that aside for a moment, I have to go into the Committee of Public Accounts and account for spend. The Committee of Public Accounts would challenge me very strongly if I signed off on a contract of €50 million a year where there was no tendering involved. It would correctly challenge me very strongly. The best practice for procurement is to tender. The exceptions are exceptions from best practice, not the rule to be applied for certain services. It is not a case of saying that we like a group, so let us not try to discommode it.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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I do not think that is what has been suggested. We are talking about the fact that there are different metrics.

Mr. John McKeon:

I am talking specifically about procurement.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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That is very important with regard to procurement. We are not suggesting that there should not be a process. We are pointing out that the European procurement rules set out a specific space around social services because they recognise their particular role. Mr. McKeon might address the scale of the project. Was it most economically advantageous to tender-----

Mr. John McKeon:

Absolutely.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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-----and to what percentage was quality to cost considered in the decision?

Mr. John McKeon:

I believe it was 40% on price and 60% on other factors. I will come back to that. It was not just the Department that evaluated these tenders. The evaluation was also done by the National Development Finance Agency. We had independent members on the board from outside the Department who evaluated the tenders. It was very rigorous. We started off with a prior information notice long before we went to tender. We went through a capacity-building process with people who might like to tender. We did a lot of consultation, Deputy - or Senator. I do not know whether Deputy is a demotion or promotion. The Senator is in the Upper House so it is a demotion.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Keep an eye on the clock, Senator.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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I will be brief. I will follow up on personal progression plans, which have been raised, perhaps with the two companies that are here. It is important that we are clear that personal progression plans are not the same if it is in Intreo or if it is a public service that has been signed and it is a private company. We know that people have objected to signing. It was perhaps misleading to say that there was no judgment found. No judgment was found because the case was reassessed and the person no longer had a penalty applied. It was recognised as a mistake in the assessment by the Department. There is that clarity around personal progression plans and people's rights to not necessarily agree to them. That is where the random issue comes in. There is a question of data protection and people's private data being transferred from the Department to a company. Does there need to be a clear point of permission relating to that? How is that managed? What if somebody says that he or she chooses to be in the public service rather than not? We know that biometric data are moved back and forth. There is a situation, in the context that the Department has put out, where photographs and things such as previous history of disability payment, if people are moving off it, are looked at. What I mentioned is a real concern. Mr. McKeon mentioned those on long-term payments. The case I heard, for example, was somebody who was a caregiver. Somebody who had been in a caregiving situation was very keen to move back to education and restart their life, but found themselves selected and thrown into JobPath very soon after leaving caregiving because the person they were caring for had died. There is a question about exit routes. I know Mr. McKeon has mentioned the community employment, CE, scheme but none of the presentations here has mentioned education or activation into education. The six month stopping of the clock does not allow for persons to choose to enter a long-term route out of unemployment into education.

I have specific questions on education for the organisations but my other question relates to personal progression plans. How much of it is standard text?

Does it still include standard text that requires people to share information about the circumstances or situation of their family members or the people with whom they live? Does it still include standard text asking people to share information about an employer they may find, separate to Turas Nua, and for permission to contact that employer? We were told that people could take the personal progression plan home with them. Is it clear that people can take the personal progression plan, the PPP, home with them to seek advice on it before agreeing to sign it? What is the Turas Nua mechanism if a person is not willing to sign it but seems interested? Is there a protocol for moving a person back into the Intreo system in that regard?

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Senator. On that question we will start with the companies and then Mr. McKeon if he has a general observation.

Ms Mary Moss:

I will take that question.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Will Ms Moss please address the companies issue first?

Ms Mary Moss:

The personal progression plan is an individual plan for the person. It is a stepping stone on their journey with Turas Nua to get closer to, if not into, full-time permanent work. People are allowed to take the plan home. If the person has an email address the personal progression plan is automatically emailed to him or her. With regard to the questions asked about family members, we look at all of the attributes and barriers that a customer may have. Sometimes those barriers are around job seeking, sometimes the barriers are financial or health related, as we have already discussed. We look at solutions to the barriers because this is what the personal progression plan is; it is the individual's personal plan on how to move closer to, and into, full-time and sustainable work.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Are there statements as a standard part of the text that require the people to share information with Turas Nua around health issues or family members?

Ms Mary Moss:

In the personal progression plan, no.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Would Ms Bunney or Mr. McKeon like to contribute?

Ms Alison Bunney:

Yes. I will answer the three queries around the personal progression plan together. The Senator asked if there is a standard text. The PPP is a standard document and the adviser would sit and work through the questions with the individual. If the individual did not want to give information about certain elements of the questions we would be more than happy to work through the rest of the document with the individual. The document is filled in with the client and he or she can, absolutely, take the PPP home. It is printed and given to the client or emailed if that is the preference.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Is this prior to signing?

Ms Alison Bunney:

If the person does not want to sign the PPP, as the Secretary General has spoken about in great detail, obviously we encourage them. The majority of our clients are more than happy to sign the PPP, but if they are not then we are more than happy to submit that PPP to the Department without a signature. That would be for the Department to decide upon.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Can the person take a proposed PPP unsigned and suggest amendments to that?

Ms Alison Bunney:

Yes they can. The PPP is a living document and it is reviewed regularly with the adviser. This is part of the contractual commitment.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Does Turas Nua require people to share information about employment they have found independently of Turas Nua?

Ms Alison Bunney:

Yes. If an individual goes into employment, having engaged with the service, part of the contract requires us to give in-employment support. We have spoken about the sustainability of jobs and the fact that we seek to find long-term sustainable work for people, so we work with the individual to provide that support while he or she is in work.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Does Turas Nua require the person to allow Turas Nua to contact an employer?

Ms Alison Bunney:

We ask that they give us permission to contact the employer. If the person does not give this permission and does not want us to contact the employer we respect this. We would then submit the information about the employment, as we understand it, to the Department. The Secretary General has already gone through the validation checks that the Department conducts on a job.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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With regard to sanctions, if somebody refuses to sign a PPP, how often does Turas Nua refer this concern about non-engagement?

Ms Alison Bunney:

With the PPP, if the person engages with the service and completes the PPP but the issue is about the signing of the PPP, then we would take that into consideration. We would inform the Department, but it would be on a recommendation basis.

Mr. John McKeon:

On personal progression plans, I will repeat what I said. We hear the hard stories. The Senator must look at the overwhelming evidence in the customer satisfaction survey included in the data pack we forwarded to the committee. Just 4% of the people who had used the service had a problem with their personal progression plan. When clients were asked to score the effectiveness and value of their personal progression plan, it scored 4.57 on a scale of zero to five. Therefore, we have to be really careful about throwing the baby out with the bath water. In every OECD country that has employment counselling, personal assistance, Intreo, local employment service network and community employment schemes a personal progression plan or a variant of it is a key part of the client journey. During that process advisers will ask a person about his or her personal circumstances because it helps to identify what the barriers to employment are and to get an holistic view. It is a good, not a bad, thing to do. If people do not want to provide the information, they do not have to do so, but that does not mean that the question should not be asked. It will, however, help to inform a good personal progression plan.

A question was asked about data. JobPath providers are agents of the Minister, in the same way that our branch office and local employment service staff are her agents. The data they collect are the Department's data which they hold while clients are with them. At the end of the process they come to us and we own them. We have a data protection agreement with the two providers which has been drafted to ensure they will meet all data compliance requirements. It has been audited by two individual firms who have given it a clean bill of health. The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner has conducted two audits of each company and I understand given them a clean bill of health. It certainly has not raised any issue with me.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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To be clear, the data-----

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Please, Senator.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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This is very important.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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The Senator's time has elapsed.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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It is very important to clarify that they are not the data of the Department but of the individuals concerned. There is a concern and a question about-----

Mr. John McKeon:

The data are held by the Department.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Mr. McKeon has spoken about hard cases. I am aware that there are a few brave individuals who are willing to take risks with their own financial well-being to highlight problems with the system. They are pushed down as individual cases.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Please, Senator.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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In a specific case someone requested that their data be taken back from the private company. Is that something the Department accommodates?

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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The Senator's time has elapsed.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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It is a direct question to which the answer is yes or no.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I have been fair to everyone in the allocation of time. Deputy John Brady has been waiting to ask a supplementary question. There will be a couple of minutes left and if the Senator has a short supplementary question, she will have an opportunity to ask it.

I want to ask Mr. McKeon some general questions about the gathering of information on the benefits and effects of the JobPath programme without going back over ground which has been covered. He does not have to supply the information now, but he might tell us what information is available on the jobs secured. Is information available on rates of pay and so on? Deputy Bríd Smith made an interesting point and it would be useful for the committee to know what information the Department has available. In his opening statement Mr. McKeon said, interestingly, that the figures were presented in such a manner because there were two contracts, that reverse engineering was not possible and that each could not work out the contract of the other. I understand that, but Mr. McKeon might provide for the committee, in summary format, the information available on the number of people who have been progressed through the programme, the number who have signed on, the number who have been in employment for three or six months and the number who have dropped out, relative to the various others cohorts. I presume some of the information will be restricted because of the reverse engineering issue, but it would be useful for the committee to have an overview of the best and up-to-date figures available.

Mr. John McKeon:

I will, first, address the question about job types, on which Mr. Kane may also want to comment. A general point is that we should not lose sight of the case examples given in the providers' opening statements. They are real case examples of people who were happy to enter good work. It is always said this process only results in the taking up of jobs in the hospitality, catering or retail sector. I have said at a number of fora that this does a huge disservice to the people who work in those jobs and shows a level of inverted snobbery.

We have to be careful about this. If someone has been unemployed for three, four or five years, a job that somebody else might consider beneath him or her will be of great value. The issue is whether the job is full-time, permanent and sustainable and if it pays more than the minimum wage and the person will be able to move on. I am satisfied that this applies to the jobs provided in this case.

In terms of the information on the data, we circulated to the joint committee our performance data. I understand they address the question asked by the Deputy. They were in the pack we submitted in a separate cover and show the breakdown by cohort, the number of people referred, the number who secured employment, the number who remained in unemployment and so forth. I understand the information sought by the Deputy is provided. Perhaps he might check and revert to us if any information is missing and we will try to provide it.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. Kane gave a figure of 28 inspection visits to Turas Nua and Seetec offices across the State in 2017. Have all offices of the two companies been subject to random or pre-planned inspections at this point?

Mr. Chris Kane:

I do not have the data here to show that every office has been inspected, nor do I have a list of the offices that have been inspected. It is unlikely, however, given that we want to capture as much information as possible, that we would inspect offices twice when others have not been inspected once. I can supply a list, if the Deputy wishes.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Responses to parliamentary questions I have tabled show that a significant number of Turas Nua and Seetec offices have not been inspected since the arrangement commenced.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I ask Mr. Kane to provide the most up-to-date information.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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According to Turas Nua, 14% of its staff have been taken from the live register. Did these staff come through the JobPath programme? Similarly, did employees of Seetec come through the JobPath programme?

Ms Mary Moss:

There is a mixture of both. I do not have a breakdown of the figures, but I can provide one. Staff will have been recruited from people on the live register who applied for jobs through the normal channels and people on JobPath.

Ms Alison Bunney:

In the case of Seetec, 19% of our workforce came from the live register and had been unemployed for more than 12 months. Approximately 80 individuals who work for the organisation came through the JobPath service.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Arising from those replies, I will put a question to the Department. Is it concerned that Turas Nua and Seetec are essentially being paid twice for recruiting people for whom they receive a payment to sign on with JobPath and then receive job sustainment payments for employing them? A figure of 14% would equate to approximately 45 staff. If one peels it back a little, it is likely that Turas Nua and Seetec receive double payments for approximately 30 staff each. This is a major problem. What is the Department's view?

Mr. John McKeon:

I will explain how we dealt with that issue in the contract design. First, it was a specific requirement of the contract that the providers recruit at least 10% of their staff from the long-term live register. Known as a social clause in a contract, this practice is permissible. While other things being suggested are not permissible, the social clause element is permissible and we insisted on it. The providers must comply with this clause.

Second, the payment rates to contractors are contingent on them hitting performance targets. The performance target we set was to achieve 60% above what was then the counterfactual level of approximately 8% of long-term unemployed persons moving into employment in a 12 month period. We set a target of 14%, as it was 60% higher than the counterfactual level. The reason we set such a high uplift was we knew that in the case of some of those who would move into employment, it would not be directly as a result of JobPath intervention. The uplift has been applied for this reason. It also captures the issue about which the Deputy is concerned, that is, the provider must hit the 60% target if it is to be paid. While some of those accounted for in the 60% uplift figure will be people the providers recruited, many of them are not included in this figure. That is the way in which we try to control it. It would be very strange if were to ask Mr. Donnery of Turas Nua or anyone in Seetec to try to get local shops and businesses to recruit people from the live register, while directing that they should not, under any circumstance, recruit their own staff from this cohort.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I fully understand that. I also know what social clauses are and I welcome the decision to build a social clause into the contracts. My concern relates to the double payment of Turas Nua and Seetec through sustainment payments being made for employing people for 12 months. I would like figures on that.

Mr. John McKeon:

We tried to cover that issue through the 60% uplift we set. That is the purpose of the uplift.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Great emphasis has been placed on job placement. Many of the people who contact me were not placed in a job. They were required to cold call businesses in their local area to present a copy of their curriculum vitae. In many cases, people were engaged to carry out mail outs to employers who were not seeking staff or actively advertising job vacancies. This is a cause of grave concern. Does this practice occur?

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I ask Turas Nua and Seetec to respond.

Mr. Colin Donnery:

Our service is based on supporting people and addressing their barriers to work. Some of those who come to us find jobs quicker than others. Our systems and analyses show that the longer a person remains with Turas Nua, the better will be his or her chance of sustaining a job. Ultimately, the idea is to put power in the unemployed person's hands rather than Turas Nua doing the job for them. We support them and our staff speak to employers and inform the individual of what jobs are available. The individual will also do work on their own so it is a case of both parties working together.

Mr. Karl Milne:

I do not recognise the practice Deputy Brady describes. We seek to empower our clients primarily to develop their job search skills and sustain them. Irrespective of whether they are successful during their 12 months with us or otherwise, we do a large amount of job brokering with clients and the employers with which we have established relationships. We have placed clients in more than 9,000 employers. In many cases, clients who are in work in other organisations, in supervisory management and human resources positions, come back to the service looking for other clients to come and work in their companies. There is a great deal of job brokering and leveraging of existing employer relationships. I do not recognise the practice the Deputy describes.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I have one final question.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy may make one brief point as the meeting will conclude at 2.30 p.m.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Many concerns have been raised regarding Seetec's performance in the United Kingdom, including allegations of substantial fraud. What was the outcome of these allegations? Did the Department have concerns regarding the tendering process and the fact that Seetec tendered?

It has been brought to my attention that in some cases involving people who were locked into JobPath for 12 months and found a job independently, the provider, either Seetec or Turas Nua, contacted the employer and subsequently claimed to have secured the job to obtain a sustainment payment. Is the Department aware of this practice and, if so, has it examined and investigated cases of fraudulent claims for which payments have been made?

A common practice in place over many years is what is known as parking and creaming. Parking refers to not dealing with individuals who may be long-term unemployed or living further away from employment and creaming refers to actively pursuing and progressing easier cases to find employment for them and secure sustainment payments. What rules have been introduced to prevent this practice?

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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An earlier question I asked on long-term education was not answered.

What is the protocol for those who say this is not the right option for me and who are interested in education? To what extent are long-term educational options offered as opposed to six-month options? What is the protocol for those who prefer not to deal with a private company and wish to return to the Intreo system? What is the protocol for the return of people's data? People are concerned to ensure their data will not be shared.

Mr. John McKeon:

With regard to the employment outcomes and counting jobs that people might have got for themselves, there are two issues. The first is that the work of an employment counsellor, whether with Intreo or JobPath, is to advise people on how to draft a CV, conduct a job search and do interviews. If they subsequently use those skills to secure employment, that is great and it is not something we should be concerned about. Distinguishing between people who are able to do that before they go on JobPath or because they were on the scheme is difficult. It is not the case that only jobs where a JobPath provider says employer A is looking for someone are counted. We have built that into our contract design because we knew 8.6% of people would secure employment anyway. That is why we set a target of 60% and the pricing was based on hitting that. However, it includes all jobs; it does not only include the uplift. The contract design and the pricing, therefore, accounts for what one might think is dead weight. It accounts for the people who would have got a job anyway. If we only focused on those who would not have got a job, the pricing would have been higher. We have captured that in the pricing model.

Parking and creaming was one of the big concerns that came up during the consultative process. This concern applies to all activation services, including Intreo and LES. Case workers by their nature want to work with people who want to be worked with and they try to keep those who do not want to be worked with or who are more difficult away. It applies, therefore, to contracted and non-contracted services. In the contracted space, we try to manage this. I do not say it is perfect. Nothing is perfect but we have done our best. We are the only people who get the select referrals. The JobPath providers have no say in who they get to work with. Different pricing levels are set for people, depending on their level of duration, which is a proxy for the people who are more difficult to find a job for and those for whom it is easier to find one. Incentives are built in to work with the more difficult unemployed cases.

There are also customer satisfaction surveys. If we get feedback from customers that they are not meeting satisfactory scores, there are payment penalties. We track that the personal progression plans are in place and that all the milestones are being hit in the engagement with the employers in our IT systems and, therefore, we know the individuals are being worked with. I do not know if people are trying to game this at the fringes but we have done our best and we could not have done better. It is notable that other public employment services are copying what we have done. Officials from a number of foreign services have come to Ireland because they heard about this and they said we had done it better than elsewhere. I am not trying to blow our own trumpet but we have done what we can to address it.

With regards to returning to the Intreo system, all the data come back when the person comes back. If somebody wants to go into education rather than JobPath, once he or she is selected for JobPath, the policy is he or she must work with the JobPath adviser and he or she is must stay with JobPath for the next 12 months. That does not exclude exceptions from time to time but they are not the norm and we do not want to create a situation where they become the norm. Employment outcomes from job search assistance and employment advice are superior to employment outcomes from education. I understand that is a simplistic statement-----

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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The producers of that research have clarified to the committee that the concerns related to appropriate placement and training rather than-----

Mr. John McKeon:

The research all over the world is the same in that respect. I have read all the research and every piece of research comes to the same conclusion. I am not paid to take a particular approach. I try to be dispassionate about what the data say to me. I do not approach this with a certain view; I ask what the data say and I am relating that to the Senator. There are problems and challenges with Intreo, JobPath and LES. None of us is, or ever will be, perfect.

One has to look at what the overwhelming data say both in terms of the performance outcomes that we published and made available to the committee and customer satisfaction. For example, we have spent a great deal of time discussing personal progression plans at the meeting. We ask people to what extent they agree with the statement that their personal adviser helped them to develop their personal progression plan to set goals and focus on a job. Only 4% disagreed with the statement. When they were asked to rate their plan using a scoring system of zero to five, the average score was 4.57. We have to examine the data. I appeal to the committee to do that. It is easy to take anecdotes and stories and try to design the general out of the exception. By and large, the stories I hear are the exception, not the general, and we have to be careful in how we apply ourselves to the data. If we are serious about evidence-based policy, we have to use the evidence. From day one on this project, we have produced voluminous evidence and we have published voluminous research. Nobody has challenged the research or the data but what I have heard is stories. Do we make policy based on stories or on evidence? I submit that we must make it based on the evidence. The evidence in this respect is strong. If there are cases where JobPath employers do not live up to the standard, I will not refrain from killing them. If they are not doing what they are meant to do - one Deputy mentioned fraud and so on - I will not stand for it as a civil servant.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Have any cases been brought to Mr. McKeon's attention?

Mr. John McKeon:

No.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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We must conclude but I would like to afford the two company representatives an opportunity to comment as well.

Ms Alison Bunney:

I echo the Secretary General's remarks, particularly in respect of the construction of the contract. It is a rigorous contract, which is designed to hold us to account and to drive high quality employment outcomes while delivering a high quality service to the individuals we work with. I thank the committee for the opportunity to appear and I extend an invitation to members to visit any of our centres. Our staff would be more than happy to walk them through the client journey and to have them meet some of our clients and learn about their experience.

Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Mr. McKeon did not answer my question about the protocol for those who wish to return to education. Perhaps it could be provided separately. I have asked it twice.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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We have to conclude.

Mr. Colin Donnery:

We appreciate the opportunity to discuss what we have been doing since 2015. As the Secretary General pointed out, the evidence to date is that JobPath is working and the service we provide is outstanding. It is great to be able to talk about our staff and the brilliant job they are doing on the ground for us. If committee members would like to see how the operation works on the ground and what we are achieving, we would be happy to meet them in our offices.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. McKeon said he would forward supporting documentation on a number of minor issues to the committee and we would appreciate that. The two companies indicated to Senator Conway-Walsh that they would be prepared to forward copies of their published accounts. Do they have standard personal progression plan forms? If so, could we have a copy of one from each company?

Mr. Colin Donnery:

Yes.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank everyone for attending. I thank the witnesses for their comprehensive opening statements and for their responses to the many and varied questions. We look forward to the various correspondence in the coming weeks.