Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 29 November 2018

Public Accounts Committee

2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Social Protection
Chapter 11 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 12 - JobPath Employment Activation Service
Chapter 13 - Actuarial Review of Social Insurance Fund
Chapter 14 - Overpayments of Age-Related Jobseeker's Allowance
Chapter 20 - PRSI Contributions by the Self-Employed
2017 Social Insurance Fund

9:00 am

Mr. John McKeon:

Yes. The controls in the contract include a minimum performance level that the providers have to meet. It is 30% higher than the counterfactual rate, which is set at a lower level than the reference rate. We set the reference rate as a target in order that we can make price comparisons between bidders. The providers have to do 30% better than the counterfactual rate. If they do less than 30% more than what was the case beforehand, we can terminate the contract. If they do not hit their own submitted targets which are different from the reference rate, although the are often quite close to it, we can take 14% of their payment, but we have not had to do that yet.