Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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347. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide details of the 22 local employment services funded by her Department; the location of each; the funding provided to each in 2013; the number of jobseekers engaging in each LES in 2011, 2012 and to date in 2013; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [50321/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Local Employment Service (LES) delivers employment services through a network of local contact points and/or outreach services. The LES provide services for both jobseekers who are referred through the department’s activation processes and jobseekers identified as being most distant from the labour market e.g. people who have a disability, ex-offenders, etc.

In 2011 the LES had 32,660 clients on their caseload on 1 January and registered 46,357 new clients during the year. In 2012 the LES had 35,450 clients on their caseload on 1 January and registered 48,640 new clients during the year. In 2013 the LES had 32,387 clients on their caseload on 1 January and registered 53,141 new clients up to the end of October.

The total budget for the LES in 2013 is €19.1m. As the Department may shortly be tendering for providers to augment the capacity of LES, I do not intend to publish figures or the payments made to individual LES contractors at this time. Details of the 22 local development/community companies that were contracted to deliver the service in 2013 are set out in the tabular statement hereunder.