Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons that have participated in the jobbridge scheme; the age bands of the participants; the breakdown of placements by company size; the breakdown of participants by type of company, private or public and so on; the percentage of those who started a jobbridge placement that have gained employment; the percentage of those who finished a jobbridge placement that have gained employment; the percentage of these jobs that are with the company where they did their internship; if monitoring 5% of all internships is enough to avoid abuse of the scheme; the number of full time dedicated monitors that are on the scheme; the number of monitoring visits that have been conducted; the number of internships that have been ended by jobbridge monitors due to abuse of the scheme by the host or not meeting the standard agreement; if any organisations have been ruled ineligible for the scheme; the number of applications to jobbridge that have been rejected because the host organisation had recently advertised the position as a paid job; the companies which have advertised or hired the most interns; the most common reasons cited by interns who leave the programme early; the amount jobbridge cost the State including and excluding the regular welfare payments to participants; if host organisations have been successful in returning the monthly compliance information; the percentage that have not; the penalty to the host organisation for failing to do so; and if their failure has an effect on the payment to the intern. [41030/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The JobBridge Scheme has made significant progress since it came into operation on the 1st July 2011. 10,326 internships have commenced to date with 4,813 participants currently on an internship as at 21th September 2012 and over 2,200 opportunities presently advertised on www.jobbridge.ie. For your convenience please the tables for a breakdown of current participants by age, company size and sector:

Age Profile of Participants

Data: as at 21/09/2012

Placements by Company Size

Data: as at 21/09/2012

Placements by Company Sector

Data: as at 21/09/2012

Our records indicate that 37% of the 5,592 individuals who have finished their JobBridge internship placement have immediately progressed into employment, 1,089 of whom with their Host Organisation and 952 with another organisation. These progression rates compare favourably with European averages in this area. However, it is important to note that this does not take into account interns who may have secured employment in the subsequent weeks or months after completing their internship.

As part of the on-going process of development and review for the JobBridge Scheme, it is intended that monitoring visits will be conducted across a range of operational Internships. To that end we have completed the process of training in excess of 140 regional employment services staff to undertake these monitoring visits as part of their broader range of duties.

This activity is a priority in relation to assessing the quality of the internships being undertaken; the experience and skills being gained and that the Internship is operating in accordance with the Standard Agreement. Furthermore, this process facilitates an opportunity for both the Intern and Host Organisation to reflect on the internship to-date; provide feedback on the internship and JobBridge in general; raise any concerns and provide a forum for assistance and support to both parties by the JobBridge team. I am delighted to advise that 293 of the 305 monitoring visits conducted to date have been satisfactory in nature. In short, 96% of monitoring visits conducted to-date were of a satisfactory nature. Remedial action has been taken in cases where the visit was deemed not to be of a satisfactory nature.

In the context of these and other questions raised by the Deputy, I wish to advise that I have commissioned an independent evaluation of the Scheme. Indecon International Economic Consultants have been engaged to undertake this work.

The Department requires this Project to be undertaken to assess the design, delivery and impact of the JobBridge scheme on the unemployed. It should also assist the Department in making further policy decisions on the benefit of work placement programmes in the overall context of the Government’s activation policy which is to engage with every unemployed individual to provide them with a pathway to employment and to prevent and reduce long term unemployment.

The evaluation should include the following key outcomes:

- Socio economic profile of the participants on the scheme;

- Information on the host organisations that have used the scheme including, size, sector and reason for participating;

- Details of the progression of those on the scheme into education, training or job placement. In the case of job placement this should detail if placement is with the same company, in the same sector and the sustainability of that placement;

- Details of the nature of the work experience of the participants and a measurement of the relevance of that experience to the labour market and to progression into employment;

- An assessment of the displacement effect of the scheme;

- An assessment of the level of deadweight in the scheme;

- Information on the satisfaction of participants with their experience of the scheme;

- Information on the satisfaction of host organisations with their experience of the scheme;

- An assessment of the process and procedures used by the Department in running the scheme;

- Recommendations on how the scheme might be improved.

It is anticipated that this report will be available at year end 2012 and full details of this report will be made publicly available.