Mr. Donal Coffey:

I thank Ms Kennedy. The local employment service is a unique service model that is delivered by highly qualified staff who offer a customised person-centred service while being cognisant of the complexity and multi-dimensional causes of unemployment and how this impacts on individuals and communities. The skilled staff focus on active listening, understanding and interpretative skills to facilitate clients who are most distant from the labour market to address the issues and barriers which affect their ability to access employment, education or training.

Future market changes will continue to have a significant impact upon those who are already categorised as being most distant from the labour market. This underscores the need for a guidance-focused mediation services for those most in need, namely the model practised by the local employment service.

We believe that this unique model should be available throughout the State and that a proposal from the ILDN in its paper, Responding to the Jobs Crisis: Local Development Companies working in Partnership with the Department of Social Protection, dated 15 November 2013, should be revisited. This paper proposed extending the LES to areas of the country which currently do not have this service. We believe that the LES is a proven model of best practice and one that should be available throughout the State. This would allow for the development of a bespoke employment service based upon local area need. Murphy and Deane stated in 2016:

In the crowded and increasingly competitive activation space the LES is very well positioned, integrated and embedded in the communities of interest with highly and relevantly skilled staff. Current EU policy affirms the LES in the landscape of activation policy and services, restates its core and unique selling point: its closeness to its customer base, its specialist skill set and its integrated position within the topography of community, voluntary and statutory services.

A major element of the Government’s Pathways to Work 2016-2020 plan focuses on the consolidation of existing activation services and expansion of same to new groups including: one-parent families; people living with a disability; jobseeker transition recipients; part-time employees and qualified adults. This element is reflected in one of the policy recommendations contained in the Indecon report on the LES, which states: "We recommend that LES should in future focus on the most disadvantaged activation and other client groups who are not currently obtaining assistance from other State delivered/funded programmes."

We view this as a positive element to the report as the groups listed are the very people that the LES was established to work with, its original client base. The current skillset of the LES is well placed to meet the needs of the groups listed as it is what the service has done for more than 20 years. The Indecon report highlighted that 75% of LES clients state that their engagement with LES has motivated them to find work or to undertake further education or training, while 71% of LES clients said that LES supports had improved their employment prospects.

The skill set and guidance/counselling orientation of the LES shows that it is the best qualified, and most ready, to re-embrace the following target groups; long term unemployed of more than two years, youth unemployed, those with educational disadvantage and specific, sometimes gendered, barriers (older long term unemployed men, female lone parents and qualified adults). Migrants will be of increasing relevance. The LES is particularly well placed to respond to such needs and work with local goals and targets and focus on the very long term unemployed. (Murphy and Deane, 2016: 13)

An analysis of the Mayo LES discovered that the service cost €871,480 but returned a minimum of €1.9 million to the State. The probability formula used for this study is also used by the UK Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion, the equivalent of the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI. This organisation is trusted, and indeed favoured, by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection as it was hired for its cost modelling work for JobPath, according to Murphy and Deane.

In April 2016, the Ballymun Job Centre conducted an analysis of its LES to discover the gross and net cost of the service. A conservative study approach was adopted as not all job-placed clients were counted. Even with such a conservative approach, a net cost of €125,626 was generated. This is also from the Murphy and Deane report in 2016.

The Indecon report of 2018 shows that the cost per full-time employment placement is €2,544 and this figure is further reduced when part-time employment is factored in. This figure compares well to the €3,718 per full-time employment placement attributed to the private JobPath service. It is important to note that the figure of €2,544 does not take into consideration savings the State will make in less welfare transfers and income it will receive from tax receipts. The Indecon report outlined that the LES achieved a progression rate of 28.8% into full-time employment, that is working 30 hours or more per week.

The examples I have given briefly outline the monetary benefits provided to the State by the LES. However, when measuring the true worth of an employment service, it is vital to recognise the existence of non-monetary value. The non-monetary value inherent in a community based, not-for-profit employment service helps to create social and economic benefits for the wider community.

Such a return cannot be achieved through a payment-by-results employment service as it is and can only occur through a service that is client centred, holistic and not motivated by profit.

It should be noted that the capacity of the LES to work within its original ethos and guidance model was impacted by the economic crises. The restructuring of FÁS saw LES being subsumed into Intreo. Adaption by the LES to the Intreo administrative architecture and case management system has meant a narrower interpretation of outcomes as there is an emphasis on only counting full-time employment of 30 hours or more as an outcome

A policy recommendation arising from the Indecon report for both LES and job clubs is that active consideration should be given to an open or public competitive procurement model for the future provision of services. The Minister and officials in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection have stressed that an open or public competitive procurement process must occur due to the perceived requirements of EU competition policy and rules pertaining to state aid but we would question this. A clearer reading of EU guidelines on competition policy and rules pertaining to state aid outlines how member states can work within the EU procurement environment while still protecting services of general interest. It is our view that the LES and job clubs fall into the category of services of general interestand so can be protected from an open or public competitive procurement process. Services of general interest expressly include services provided directly to the person, such as social assistance services, employment and training services, childcare, social housing or long-term care of the elderly and people with disabilities, according to Murphy and Deane.

We have a lot of concerns about the impact of open or public competitive procurement to the community and voluntary sector. In the UK, open or public competitive procurement or commercialisation and privatisation of many community and voluntary sector activities has had a hugely detrimental impact on the work and independence of the sector. Open or public competitive procurement contracts, such as the original JobPath tender, make payment conditional on results, thereby inserting a profit motive, and insist on a minimum company turnover per annum. In the original request for tender for JobPathin 2014, a minimum of €20 million in turnover per annum was needed for any would-be bidders. Any future open or public competitive procurement that may arise from the Indecon report with such a condition attached would automatically exclude the community and voluntary sector from participation and would see the wholesale closure of the vastly experienced and successful LES and job clubs network.