Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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47. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she has evaluated the JobPath contract performance; what key performance indicators are used to measure performance; what targets have been met; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5242/16]

Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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JobPath is a new approach to employment activation that will support people who are long-term unemployed and those most at risk of becoming long-term unemployed to secure and sustain paid employment. The key performance indicators against which JobPath will be measured are:

- the number of JobPath clients moving into employment (objective: more people getting jobs);

- the duration of sustained periods of employment (objective: fewer people moving back onto the Live Register);

- the average duration of unemployment for JobPath clients (objective: reduction in duration as measured by time in receipt of a jobseeker related income support payment); and

- the level of JobPath client satisfaction as part of the public employment service (objective: achieve a high level of JobPath client satisfaction).

The roll-out of JobPath is not yet completed. It is expected to be finalised towards mid-year. Given that clients will spend 52 weeks on JobPath it is necessary to allow sufficient time to elapse before a meaningful assessment can be carried out. At the present time it is too early to undertake an evaluation of performance. As indicated in “Pathways to Work 2016 – 2020” the Department intends to publish JobPath performance statistics from Q3 2016.